Smart growth is not the answer
Toolbox
Published: July 5, 2009
In last Sunday's Weekly Planet column, Elizabeth Courtney, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, proposed "smart growth" (focusing new building construction as high-density development near already built-up areas) as one of the means of increasing the use of public transportation.
Smart growth is not an answer to land development, and all of its attenuate problems for several reasons. If the people of Worcester Village, for example, were asked if they would like to look out on housing developments instead of open fields and woods, my guess is they would say no. Most people who move to the country do so because they want a tract of land of their own and not to be packed into high-density development, no matter how well planned it is. Much if not most land development in Vermont is single lot development and not subject to the kind of regulations needed to implement smart growth.
Finally, smart growth and dumb growth end up with the same result: an over-developed natural resource. As Vermont environmentalist James Andrews said, "land consumption is not sustainable."
It is also interesting to note that, at least as of this writing, the Vermont Natural Resources Council claims on its Web site that, "VNRC has been instrumental in arresting sprawl in Vermont." Anyone who has lived in Vermont for even a few years knows that this is not true and sprawl continues unabated.
In the hearings it held around the state, The Council on the Future of Vermont found the participants placed high value on Vermont's small population. We can't have it both ways. We can't grow forever, even if smartly, and retain our small population and the environment we love so dearly.
It's time for environmental leaders, and all of us, to begin discussing how to stabilize our population.
Mark Powell
Worcester
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