ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the university in helping to reform state policy to support smart growth. Specifically, it is a case study about the collaborative process that led to the passage of Wisconsin’s comprehensive planning and smart growth law in October 1999. It did not begin as a “smart growth project.” Indeed, the term smart growth was relatively unheard of at the time. Rather, the project began as an effort to promote good local planning by updating the state’s planning enabling laws. It is the result of a convergence of the University of Wisconsin’s strong outreach tradition known as the Wisconsin Idea and the increasing visibility of land use as a public policy issue in the state. Because of the overlap between promoting good planning and the then emerging principles of smart growth, the project evolved into smart growth.
