Smart growth and the scaling of community interest in an older suburb: A case study of revitalization in Baltimore County, MD

The inadequacy of local scales of planning to sufficiently address environmental, social, and fiscal issues that arise for governments from growth and development has led to the enactment of statewide smart growth policies such as Maryland's. The objective of these policies is to minimize sprawl and encourage reinvestment in existing communities. Successful implementation, however, currently requires the cooperation of local jurisdictions with land use control. While smart growth implies redevelopment and intensified uses in urban areas, and land preservation in rural areas, it is less clear what smart growth means for older suburban areas. Older suburbs are experiencing decline, including issues such as concentrated poverty, that undermine the appeal of these communities for prospective homebuyers and hence threaten their viability as alternatives to sprawl. Yet because these communities are largely already built, they present a revitalization challenge complicated by questions of public process. This research is a case study of revitalization strategies employed by Baltimore County government in the older suburb of Essex-Middle River, involving participant observation, interviews, and document reviews. I use geographical theories of scale and planning theory to assess four different approaches (1) redevelopment of rental housing to create a wider range of housing types; (2) expanded condemnation authority to acquire and assemble land for larger renewal projects; (3) a broad community planning charrette called an Urban Design Assistance Team; and (4) a focused, collaborative planning charrette leading to Form-Based Codes and a pattern book to create mixed-income housing. I find that good process is an under-developed component of smart growth policy that can lead to increased support for affordable housing and higher densities; what smart growth means at the local level may be counter-intuitive and involve de-densification; that the scale of community plans can conceal dynamics that are important to revitalizing older suburbs, such as the need for broader approaches to providing affordable housing; and that working-class homeowners in older suburbs have an under-appreciated social equity claim: their opportunities to build wealth through homeownership are undermined by suburban decline.