Suburban sprawl has been the prevailing feature--and double-edged
sword--of metropolitan America's growth and development since 1945. The
construction of homes, businesses, and highways that were signs of the
nation's economic prosperity also eroded the presence of agriculture and
polluted the environment. This in turn provoked fierce activism from an
array of local, state, and national environmental groups seeking to
influence planning and policy. Many places can lay claim to these twin
legacies of sprawl and the attendant efforts to curb its impact, but,
according to John H. Spiers, metropolitan Washington, D.C., in
particular, laid the foundations for a smart growth movement that
blossomed in the late twentieth century.
In Smarter Growth, Spiers argues that civic and social activists
played a key role in pushing state and local officials to address the
environmental and fiscal costs of growth. Drawing on case studies
including the Potomac River's cleanup, local development projects, and
agricultural preservation, he identifies two periods of heightened
environmental consciousness in the early to mid-1970s and the late 1990s
that resulted in stronger development regulations and land preservation
across much of metropolitan Washington.
Smarter Growth offers a fresh understanding of environmental politics
in metropolitan America, giving careful attention to the differences
between rural, suburban, and urban communities and demonstrating how
public officials and their constituents engaged in an ongoing dialogue
that positioned environmental protection as an increasingly important
facet of metropolitan development over the past four decades. It reveals
that federal policies were only one part of a larger decision-making
process--and not always for the benefit of the environment. Finally, it
underscores the continued importance of grassroots activists for
pursuing growth that is environmentally, fiscally, and socially
equitable--in a word, smarter.
