The Inside Story of Smart Growth in Maryland
Sprawl and Politics is a political history of the origin, enactment, and implementation of Maryland’s well-known Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation initiative. It is an insider’s look at the political pressures and decisions made by Parris N. Glendening, the former governor of Maryland, and his top staff as they worked to enact and implement a new program to manage growth and curtail sprawl. The book traces the evolution of the Smart Growth program from its substantive underpinnings to the political and public relations strategies needed to assure the program’s adoption.
Known across the country almost immediately after it was enacted, the program’s incentive-based approach served as a model for other states struggling with growth pressures but reluctant to regulate land use.
With a perspective only a participant could provide, John W. Frece examined the incidents, issues, pressures, and personalities responsible for shaping the program as well as the challenges faced putting the ideas into practice.
BOOK DETAILS:
ISBN: 978-0-7914-7411-2
Foreword: By Dr. Gerrit-Jan Knaap
Publisher: State University of New York, Albany
Release Date: 2008
Pages and photographs: 190 pages, including 20 photographs and seven maps.
Sprawl and Politics
REVIEWS
“This topic is terribly significant. The conversation about how America ought to grow, and the reasoned response that Governor Glendening fashioned, are nationally significant.”
– Keith Schneider, Michigan Land Use Institute, 2008.
“This book is written in a smooth, engaging style and should appeal to planning and environmental activists who need to know the challenges of making Smart Growth happen.”
– Carl Abbott, author of Greater Portland:
Urban Life and Landscape in the Pacific Northwest, 2008
Foreword by Gerrit-Jan Knaap, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and Executive Director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland:
Frece’s account is a rare inside look at the process of land use policymaking at the state level. Although others have written about this subject before, never has the story been told by someone who attended all the key staff meetings, heard the private conversations between the govenror and his adversaries, and himself played a key role in the dissemination and execution of the inspring new approach. As a result, the stories are vivid, the dialogue is clear, and the insights are revealing.