Understanding Smart Growth Savings What We Know About Public Infrastructure and Service Cost Savings, And How They are Misrepresented By Critics

Land use patterns affect various costs to consumers and society. Many of these costs tend to increase with sprawl (dispersed, urban fringe development), and can be reduced with smart growth (more compact, mixed, multi-modal development). Smart growth tends to reduce the costs of providing public infrastructure and services, and by improving accessibility and reducing per capita vehicle travel, tends to reduce direct and indirect transportation costs. Current development fees, utility rates and taxes fail to accurately reflect these location-related cost differences, which encourages consumers to choose more sprawled locations than is optimal. This paper summarizes estimates of smart growth savings, and critiques analyses which claim that such savings are insignificant.

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