Author
Listed:
- Nancey Leigh
- Nathanael Hoelzel
Abstract
Problem: For many cities and planners, adopting smart-growth sprawl-containing strategies is associated with the conversion of relatively inexpensive industrial-zoned land to land zoned for mixed-use commercial and residential redevelopment. This can weaken the urban economic base, reduce the supply of good-job producing land, and contribute to industrial-sector suburban sprawl. Purpose: We expose smart growth's blind side by revealing the lack of attention to urban industrial redevelopment in planning practice. We expand the smart growth dialogue by describing a) the impacts on productive urban industrial land of adopting smart policies, and b) local government measures to protect urban industry while pursuing smart growth. Methods: We review the recent local industrial policies of 14 cities and 10 practice-oriented smart growth publications with local economic development components to reveal the disconnect between urban industrial development and smart growth approaches. We compare elements of adopted local industrial policies from selected cities with commonly accepted smart growth principles to illuminate the challenges smart growth policies pose for protecting and revitalizing urban industrial areas. Results and conclusions: Our review of cities initiating local industrial policies reveals that significant amounts of industrial land have been converted to other uses as cities pursued smart growth. The smart growth literature provides little to no acknowledgment of the need to coordinate urban industrial development practices with other mainstay smart growth activities. Although development pressures to convert industrial land to higher densities and other uses persist, the national economic crisis has led to a call for strengthening manufacturing. There has also been a decline in the nonindustrial infill development that epitomizes smart growth projects. Together these trends present opportunities and challenges for city and regional planners to change smart growth approaches. Takeaway for practice: Industrial land is at risk in cities. Recent efforts to reduce this risk, such as explicit local policies to preserve industrial land and jobs while also pursuing smart growth, illustrate how challenging it is to attract new manufacturers and prevent further industrial decline in urban neighborhoods. Pursuing smart growth and sustainable urban industrial development should not be an either/or proposition, and requires approaches that explicitly safeguard productive urban industrial land and discourage industrial sprawl.
Suggested Citation
Nancey Leigh & Nathanael Hoelzel, 2012.
"Smart Growth's Blind Side,"
Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 78(1), pages 87-103.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:rjpaxx:v:78:y:2012:i:1:p:87-103
DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2011.645274
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Cited by:
- Daniel Hummel, 2020.
"The effects of population and housing density in urban areas on income in the United States,"
Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(1), pages 27-47, February.
- Aljohani, Khalid & Thompson, Russell G., 2016.
"Impacts of logistics sprawl on the urban environment and logistics: Taxonomy and review of literature,"
Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 255-263.
- Jeong-Il Park, 2017.
"Who Benefits More From Manufacturing Foreign Direct Investment? Examining Its Earnings Distribution Effects Across Earnings Quantiles,"
Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 31(4), pages 285-298, November.
- Dai, Bing & Gu, Xiaokun & Xie, Boming, 2020.
"Policy Framework and Mechanism of Life Cycle Management of Industrial Land (LCMIL) in China,"
Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
- Bo-Sin Tang & Winky K O Ho, 2014.
"Cross-Sectoral Influence, Planning Policy, and Industrial Property Market in a High-Density City: A Hong Kong Study 1978–2012,"
Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(12), pages 2915-2931, December.
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