Who are the political and economic interests that push planning like Smart Growth and what are they after?
There are a number of different interests, and they don’t have the same goals. Just to name a few, there are downtown property owners who resent the fact that a lot of new development is going into the suburbs. Smart Growth makes suburbs more congested and more expensive, so it gives downtowns a slight advantage that it otherwise wouldn’t have. Because the city is already congested and expensive, by making the suburbs congested and expensive, people have less of an interest in going to the suburbs. Also, there are contractors who like to build things like rail transit, which is extraordinarily profitable to build — far more profitable than highways. They’ll support Smart Growth. There are certain types of housing developers who specialize in in-fill housing, higher density housing in cities rather than lower density housing in suburbs; they support Smart Growth. Then, of course, there are environmental interests who don’t like to see people driving. There are also central cities like
