Editing Smart growth (section)

==Criticism==
[[Robert Bruegmann]], professor of art history, architecture, and [[urban planning]] at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of ''Sprawl: A Compact History'', stated that historical attempts to combat urban sprawl have failed, and that the high [[population density]] of [[Los Angeles]], currently the most dense urban area in the United States, "lies at the root of many of the woes experienced by L.A. today."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.latimes.com/la-op-dustup18jun18,0,6392240.story | title=Brawl Over Sprawl | author=Bruegmann, Robert | author-link=Robert Bruegmann | newspaper=[[LA Times]] | date=June 18, 2007 | access-date=April 9, 2012}}</ref>

[[Wendell Cox]] is a vocal opponent of smart growth policies. He argued before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that, "smart growth strategies tend to intensify the very problems they are purported to solve."<ref>[[Wendell Cox]], {{unfit|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051022130210/http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/Test051502.cfm ''Dangers of Smart Growth Planning,'']}} Testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, [[The Heritage Foundation]], May 15, 2002</ref> Cox and Joshua Utt analyzed smart growth and sprawl, and argued that:<ref>Wendell Cox and Joshua Utt, {{unfit|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051025020652/http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/bg1770.cfm ''The Costs of Sprawl Reconsidered: What the Data Really Show,'']}} Heritage Foundation ''Backgrounder'' #1770, The Heritage Foundation, June 25, 2004</ref>

<blockquote>Our analysis indicates that the Current Urban Planning Assumptions are of virtually no value in predicting local government expenditures per capita. The lowest local government expenditures per capita are not in the higher density, slower growing, and older municipalities.

On the contrary, the actual data indicate that the lowest expenditures per capita tend to be in medium- and lower-density municipalities (though not the lowest density); medium- and faster-growing municipalities; and newer municipalities. This is after 50 years of unprecedented urban decentralization, which seems to be more than enough time to have developed the purported urban sprawl-related higher local government expenditures. It seems unlikely that the higher expenditures that did not develop due to sprawl in the last 50 years will evolve in the next 20 - despite predictions to the contrary in The Costs of Sprawl 2000 research.

It seems much more likely that the differences in municipal expenditures per capita are the result of political, rather than economic factors, especially the influence of special interests.</blockquote>

The phrase "smart growth" implies that other growth and development theories are not "smart". There is debate about whether [[transit-proximate development]] constitutes smart growth when it is not transit-oriented. The [[National Motorists Association]] does not object to smart growth as a whole, but strongly objects to [[traffic calming]], which is intended to reduce automobile accidents and fatalities,<ref>United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/tcalm/part1.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090622084750/http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/tcalm/part1.htm |date=2009-06-22 }}</ref> but may also reduce automobile usage and increase alternate forms of public transportation.<ref>San Mateo County Transport Authority: Alternative Congestion Relief Programs in San Mateo County, http://www.smcta.com/tatsm.asp {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090807202649/http://www.smcta.com/TAtsm.asp |date=2009-08-07 }}</ref>

In 2002 the [[National Center for Public Policy Research]], a self-described [[Conservatism in the United States|conservative]] [[think tank]], published an economic study entitled "Smart Growth and Its Effects on Housing Markets: The New Segregation" which termed smart growth "restricted growth" and suggested that smart growth policies disfavor minorities and the poor by driving up housing prices.<ref>Randall J. Pozdena,  [http://www.nationalcenter.org/NewSegregation.pdf ''Smart Growth and its Effects on Housing Markets: The New Segregation''], QuantEcon, Inc., published by the [[National Center for Public Policy Research]], November 2002</ref>

Some [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] groups, such as the [[Cato Institute]], criticize smart growth on the grounds that it leads to greatly increased land values, and people with average incomes can no longer afford to buy [[houses|detached houses]].<ref>[[Randal O'Toole]], [http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2001/10/otoole.pdf "The Folly of "Smart Growth""], [[Regulation (magazine)|''Regulation'']], Fall 2001</ref>

A number of [[Ecological economics|ecological economists]] claim that industrial civilization has already "[[Earth Overshoot Day|overshot]]" the [[carrying capacity]] of the Earth, and "smart growth" is mostly an illusion.  Instead, a [[steady state economy]] would be needed to bring human societies back into a necessary balance with the ability of the ecosystem to sustain humans (and other species).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.permatopia.com/growth.html |title=permatopia.com |access-date=2008-05-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706133449/http://www.permatopia.com/growth.html |archive-date=2008-07-06 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

A study released in November 2009 characterized the smart-growth policies in the [[U.S. state]] of [[Maryland]] as a failure, concluding that "[t]here is no evidence after ten years that [smart-growth laws] have had any effect on development patterns."<ref name="Rein 11-2-2009">Lisa Rein, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110102470.html?hpid=moreheadlines Study calls Md. smart growth a flop], ''[[The Washington Post]],'' November 2, 2009</ref><ref>Rebecca Lewis, Gerrit-Jan Knaap, and Jungyul Sohn, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/pdf/smart_growth_study.pdf "Managing Growth With Priority Funding Areas: A Good Idea Whose Time Has Yet to Come,"] ''Journal of the American Planning Association'', 75:4,457 — 478, Online Publication Date: September 1, 2009, {{doi|10.1080/01944360903192560}}</ref> Factors include a lack of incentives for builders to redevelop older neighborhoods and limits on the ability of state planners to force local jurisdictions to approve high-density developments in "smart-growth" areas.<ref name="Rein 11-2-2009"/>  Buyers demand low-density development and voters tend to oppose high density developments near them.<ref name="Rein 11-2-2009"/>

Beginning in 2010, groups generally associated with the [[Tea Party movement]] began to identify Smart Growth as an outgrowth of the United Nations [[Agenda 21]] which they viewed as an attempt by international interests to force a "sustainable" lifestyle on the United States.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/agenda-21-tea-party_n_1965893.html | title=Tea Party Activists Fight Agenda 21, Seeing Threatening U.N. Plot| newspaper=Huffington Post| date=2012-10-15}}</ref> However planning groups and even some smart growth opponents counter that Smart Growth concepts and groups predate the 1992 Agenda 21 conference.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/12/focus-on-agenda-21-should-not-divert-attention-from-homegrown-anti-growth-policies |title=Agenda 21 and Smart Growth Policies: Negative Impact on Economic Growth |access-date=2014-10-22 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019104923/http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/12/focus-on-agenda-21-should-not-divert-attention-from-homegrown-anti-growth-policies |archive-date=2014-10-19 }}</ref> In addition the word "sustainable development" as used in the [[Agenda 21]] report is often misread to mean real estate development when it typically refers to the much broader concept of [[Human development (humanity)|human development]] in the United Nations and foreign aid context which addresses a broader slate of economic, health, poverty, and education issues.