Explanation of Term and Purpose

“Smart Growth” as described in Wikipedia, “values long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus. Its goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and promote public health.” Its desire is to build communities where individuals do not have to go outside their community to live, work, and play.

The Green Belt Alliance, a non-profit land conservation and urban planning organization has worked in California’s nine-county San Francisco Bay Area since 1958. According again to Wikipedia, “it promotes the creation of walkable neighborhoods with a mix of shops, homes, and jobs near public transit…It also endorses development proposals that meet growth guidelines and include homes people can afford…Put another way, if homes and jobs are built far apart, people will drive more, and that will have a negative impact on the Earth’s climate.

“Smart Growth” has evolved over time and in the mid-1990’s became a term that advocates for the environment, affordable housing, farmland preservation, transportation reform, and community reinvestment. A group of organizations latched onto these principles and joined to form Smart Growth America. It’s overall purpose contains elements with which we agree. The aspects of their mission to protect the environment while developing the economy, promote affordable housing and community development and preserving farmland are commendable. It’s key tenets include neighborhood livability, better access, less traffic, thriving cities, suburbs and towns, shared benefits of basic needs such as jobs, education, and health, lower costs, lower taxes, and keeping open space open. In their overview of “How is this achieved?” it states under “Mix Land Uses-New clustered development works best if it includes a mix of stores, jobs, and homes.”

Richard Florida, author of “The Rise of the Creative Class,” writes, “In all parts of the country, some regions are moving toward higher creative growth (Austin, Boston, etc) while others become mired in either slow growth, low service-economy growth, or no growth at all. Those in the first group are emerging as the clear overall winners in the new creative economy. What’s driving this split is a massive flow of human creative capital. My research finds mobile, demanding creative workers migrating to certain kinds of places they favor: places where they can find not just “a job” but lots of opportunities, and where they can find participatory amenities-active outdoor sports, not just stadiums; café-and-gallery “street level” culture, not the symphony. They also seek places of demographic diversity, openness to newcomers, and stimulating cultural interplay. And the catch is, such regional qualities tend to be self-reinforcing. A region with many creative industries and creative-class workers will then attract more of both, while the losing regions-well, they lose them.”

“Smart Growth is critical to the long-term sustainability of metropolitan regions,” states Smart Growth America. “When employers can’t recruit a reliable workforce because of grueling commutes; when working parents can’t find housing that puts them within reach of both jobs and their children; when key industries are scattered randomly so that they have all the disadvantages and none of the important benefits of aggregation; when quality of life begins to erode-people and businesses leave and economies die.”

These very broad definitions of Smart Growth describes a positive good for our city that all can embrace. Interest in historic preservation and environmental concern foropen space and green space are certainly a part of the equation, one we again all embrace.San Marcos has been very successful in promoting these aspects of Smart Growth.

Unfortunately, though, in San Marcos, special interest groups have used the term “Smart Growth” to promote their own very specialized agendas, ignoring the other aspects of a healthy and thriving economy such as industry, development, jobs and housing. As mentioned above, growth is imperative to healthy communities. Developments that provide mix-use, affordable housing, and industry are essential to the health and sustainability of any city.

For San Marcos to survive, we are at a critical juncture. Either we begin to invite healthy growth and development into our city, encouraging authentic “smart growth” according to its original broad definition or the above quote will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, “when quality of life begins to erode-people and businesses leave and the economy dies.” All the green space and wonderful outdoor amenities in the world do not provide jobs and affordable housing for individuals to move into our community and find a place where they can live, work and play.

When individuals do not choose to make San Marcos their home (whether they work here and live in Austin, live and grow up here and then choose not to return, or are unable to live and work here due to the shortage in jobs and housing), all  San Marcos residents suffer. Taxes are hiked to pay for the expansive green space, parks and recreational areas. Limited population hinders educational and cultural opportunities. The distortion of authentic Smart Growth by special interest groups leaves housing unaffordable. “In 2002 the National Center for Public Policy Research, published an economic study entitled, “Smart Growth and Its Effects on Housing Markets: The New Segregation” which termed smart growth, “restricted growth” and suggested that smart growth policies disfavor minorities and the poor by driving up housing prices.”

Smart Growth San Marcos is a coalition of small business owners, civic leaders, and private citizens who want to see San Marcos grow towards a positive future focusing on the promotion of those elements found in the original, broader definition of Smart Growth which have been neglected or actually opposed in San Marcos. Those elements include the drawing of excellent corporations and businesses to San Marcos, developmentopportunities for both industry and housing that produce jobs, and affordable housing which will expand the health and prosperity of San Marcos. Smart Growth San Marcos wants to help state and local elected, civic, and business leaders design and implement effective smart growth strategies that secure for San Marcos a thriving and healthy future.