From Sprawl to Smart Growth: How to Achieve Beautiful Results
by Meg Maguire and Deborah L.Myerson
Scenic America, Washington DC
Reviewed by Mike Huck, Jr.
This booklet is subtitled "Strategies for Smart Growth and Scenic Stewardship," and it delivers the goods. Broken into nine steps, the booklet quickly summarizes how sprawl is not inevitable in American cities. After defining Smart Growth and suggesting it as an alternative to uncontrolled sprawl, the authors list the nine strategies and how each one embodies the tenets of intelligent urban planning.
Most pamphlets aimed at activists might stop there. Maguire and Myerson continue by devoting a section to each step--listing how the three techniques of community education, voluntary measures, and incentives can be used with each, and providing an extensive resource list particular to that step.
Strategy number three, for example, is to encourage attractive on-premise signage. Using the three techniques, the authors suggest that an open design workshop with community graphic artists and business people would be a great way to educate the entire community. Alternatives to conventional signage can be explained and the advantages of a unified design scheme could be allowed to manifest themselves in a discussion. Voluntary action on the part of a few forward-thinking merchants might entice the rest to participate. Free design services can be offered as an incentive to owners to make the switch. At the end of this discussion, the booklet offers five resources on signs and their effect on the community.
These longer sections explaining simple steps that can be taken by any community are the real core of the booklet. The suggestions are simple, the goals are explained, and the resources for success are offered.
Other strategies discusses preserving community trees, the need to locate wireless communications towers carefully, and other issues. Each strategy is formulated to preserve the appearance and character of both urban and rural landscapes. Not every one is appropriate for all places, but any location facing the "uglification" of its surroundings will find a way to address the problem in this booklet.
Available from:
Scenic America
801 Pennsylvania Avenue SE Suite 300
Washington, DC 20003
202-543-6200
www.scenic.org
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