Smart Growth or "Smart Sprawl"?

Posted on Planetizen today is a new op-ed that is well worth a read. Southern California-based planning consultant Wally Siembab argues that rather than pursue an overambitious, too-idealistic strategy of "smart growth", we'd be better served by cost-effective, locally focused examples of what he calls "smart sprawl". OK, maybe Siembab's new term is largely a clever marketing device for his consultancy, but I think his ideas are worth serious consideration as we gradually (or not so gradually) enter a post-oil age. As Siembab argues, "The challenge is to quickly and affordably retrofit the built environment in a way that leads to re-inventing metropolitan mobility systems while also stimulating the regional economy." In other words, how can we wisely and efficiently shift our lives away from their current and near-complete automobile dependence? For Siembab, a more realistic option than wholesale transformations of the urban landscape as called for by many so-called smart growth proponents, would be a simpler retrofitting of existing suburbs (i.e., "smart sprawl"). My only real gripe with Siembab's piece is that while he calls for "new alternate fuel, zero emission transportation technologies known as neighborhood vehicles", he is perhaps missing (or at least not stating) the potential of older technologies. What better "neighborhood vehicle", after all, is there than the bicycle!! Let's leave the electric golf carts for the snowbirds in Scottsdale.