Issues: Smart Growth

In Brief Articles

LEED for Neighborhood Development
News

New standards created by an NRDC partnership will help guide developers and communities to build greener neighborhoods.

Affordable Green Housing
Overview

The Green Communities Initiative, a project of NRDC and Enterprise Community Partners, will build thousands of affordable, environmentally friendly homes across the country.

Picturing Smart Growth
Guides

Cities and towns across the country are embracing smart growth as a better solution to meet the needs of their growing populations. Smart growth principles accommodate growth and development while saving open space, revitalizing neighborhoods and helping cool the planet. See visions created through photo-editing software for how 70 communities across the country could apply smart growth principles and improve their streets and neighborhoods.

Close to Home: Smart Growth Helps Solve Global Warming
News

Smart community planning can cut down drive times and reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions.

How Smart Growth Solves Sprawl
Photo Album

We all have a pretty good idea of what sprawl looks like -- the endless strip malls, anonymous suburbs, and long lines of traffic. These pages offer a look at the solutions to sprawl, featuring towns and cities across the United States that are choosing smart-growth neighborhoods for their communities.

Solving Sprawl: An Overview
News

Sprawl -- the blighted landscape of cookie-cutter suburbs, strip malls, and far too many highways that has spread across so much of America -- is a hot topic. But all across America, communities are finding alternative ways to grow and prosper that beat back sprawl, save landscapes and improve quality of life. A new book from NRDC, Solving Sprawl, tells this heartening story.

Location Efficient Mortgages
FAQ

Find out about this new city-friendly lending program and whether you qualify for increased homebuying power.

In Contrast: Smart Growth versus Sprawl
Photo Album

Sprawling development eats up farms, meadows and forests, turning them into strip malls and subdivisions that serve cars better than people. This photo essay illustrates the damage that sprawl causes, and shows practical alternatives that can preserve the landscape and improve the quality of our daily lives.

Once There Were Greenfields
Overview

Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl Is Undermining America's Environment, Economy and Social Fabric is the definitive book about sprawl, its impacts, and smart growth alternatives.