Taming Metropolitan Growth

In the past few years, widespread frustration with sprawling development patterns has precipitated an explosion in metropolitan thinking and action across the United States. A new policy language—"smart growth," "livable communities," "metropolitanism," "sustainable development"—has emerged to describe efforts to curb sprawl, preserve open space, and balance growth and is now common not only among political, civic, and corporate leaders, but also among developers and others in the real estate industry. Co-author Bruce Katz is a senior fellow in the Brookings Economic Studies program and director of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Co-author Amy Liu is assistant director of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.