"Grow Smart Bay Area" Report Released

Posted by: Irvin Dawid
Thanks to: Steve Levy

17 June 2009 - 12:00pm

With great fanfare, the Bay Area's Greenbelt Alliance has released a new report, "Grow Smart Bay Area", the premise being that future population and job growth can be accommodated by infill and by doing so, will add to the region's sustainability.

The Bay Area's premier open space and regional smart growth organization, Greenbelt Alliance, has launched an aggressive campaign to promote infill and stop sprawl in the 9-county Bay region. The report identifies both strategies and specific areas to accommodate the infill growth.

"Grow Smart Bay Area", released June 10 by the Greenbelt Alliance, persuasively asserts that all of the growth in housing and jobs expected by 2035 around the bay can be absorbed within existing cities, without annexing an acre of open land. And it shows how building on the vacant or underutilized sites that the Greenbelt task force identified can create more livable, walkable neighborhoods — if cities adopt policies that encourage good neighborhood design."

From SF Chronicle:
"The group identified 100 "priority" development sites that could best handle growth. These should be the areas for future housing and commercial development, rather than farmland, forests and other open space, according to the group's executive director, Jeremy Madsen."

Full Story: Editorial: Region can add homes, jobs without more sprawl

Source: San Jose Mercury News, June 11, 2009

Priority development areas

Submitted by estampe on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 14:40.

Thanks to Irwin for posting this!
One note on the Chronicle quote -- the Chronicle made a mistake there. The 100 priority development areas were not chosen by Greenbelt Alliance; they were chosen by the Association of Bay Area Governments from areas nominated by cities around the region.
For more about the research underlying the Grow Smart Bay Area vision, visit http://growsmartbayarea.org/its_possible/methods.html