ABSTRACT
By shifting the focus from self-sacrifice to self-interest, the champions of smart growth have tried to reframe the debate over sprawl and broaden the audience. These days, it’s not at all surprising to see environmentalists sitting at the same table as farmers and suburbanites, developers and builders, public health advocates and fiscally conservative elected officials. In the process, they have opened up new opportunities to build consensus among once disparate groups and to attempt to resolve the contradiction between complacency with our large, auto-accessible, increasingly distant housing and our growing disaffection with the public realm. Which is not to say that smart growth advocates have figured out the way to relegate sprawl to the history books – far from it. There is a long road ahead. But more so than ever, there are a lot more people looking at the same road map.
