Wisconsin's Smart Growth Plan: Two Years Later

"Two years after it was enacted, the state's sprawl-checking law has yet to fully bloom. [In October 1999] the state unveiled its own vision for the future, a far-reaching and long-lasting strategy for mapping the state's expanding population, commerce and industry that far surpasses ordinary zoning requirements. Dubbed Smart Growth, the 1999 legislation requires every town, village, city and county in the state to devise its own comprehensive growth plan...Despite the law, the ranks of governments that have embraced long-term planning are thin."