{"id":3618,"date":"2013-06-05T14:39:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T14:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/?p=3618"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:06:32","slug":"is-smart-growth-a-budget-bargain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2013\/06\/is-smart-growth-a-budget-bargain\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Smart Growth a Budget Bargain?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">For the first time, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartgrowthamerica.org\/\">Smart Growth America <\/a>has gathered enough comparable development data to determine a national average of what communities can expect to save by using smart growth strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Smart growth, most genreally described as an efficient use of land by building mixed uses near each other in a well-connected pattern of walking, biking, and transportation options. Kind of makes quick back of the envelope sense. If communities don&#8217;t have to spend to extend roads or water and sewer pipes, or if an ambulance doesn&#8217;t have to drive as far, or if residents can use a renovated and expanded existing library, communities eat up fewer tax dollars. More efficient use of new and existing\u00a0infrastructure has long term budget benefits as well&#8211;there&#8217;s simply less to maintain.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3621\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3621\" class=\" wp-image-3621 \" src=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bethesda-urban-space-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"mix it up and walk aorund. The ice cream cone is right downstairs!\" width=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bethesda-urban-space-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bethesda-urban-space-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Bethesda-urban-space.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3621\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">mix it up and walk aorund. The ice cream cone is right downstairs!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And it can be potentially less expensive for individual households as well, who can opt to use transit, even living without a car (or two). You can see the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartgrowthamerica.org\/knowledge-center\/building-better-budgets-a-national-examination-of-the-fiscal-benefits-of-smart-growth-development\/\">executive summary here<\/a>, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.smartgrowthamerica.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/building-better-budgets.pdf\">full report <\/a>has some interesting findings worth digging into.<\/p>\n<p>The report finds that in Maryland, the State Department of Planning compared two growth scenarioes&#8211;conventional suburban and smarth growth&#8211;and found that smart growth could reduce local roads costs by 60 percent and state road costs by 20 percent. The next step would be smart budgeting re-allocates that money to transit, bike, and pedestrian transportation options.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">For the first time, Smart Growth America has gathered enough comparable development data to determine a national average of what communities can expect to save by using smart growth strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Smart growth, most genreally described as an efficient use of land by building mixed uses near each other in a well-connected pattern of walking, biking, and transportation options. Kind of makes quick back of the envelope sense. If communities don&#8217;t have to spend to extend roads or water and sewer pipes, or if an ambulance doesn&#8217;t have to drive as far, or if residents can use a renovated and expanded existing library, communities eat up fewer tax dollars. More efficient use of new and existing\u00a0infrastructure has long term budget &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2013\/06\/is-smart-growth-a-budget-bargain\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[245,463,464],"class_list":["post-3618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning","tag-smart-growth","tag-smart-growth-america","tag-state-of-maryland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11161,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions\/11161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}