Throughout the United States, large and small communities are competing. They compete for things that make them prosper -- industry, tourism, resources, and people -- while struggling to manage growth and secure the finances necessary to provide public infrastructure and services. Some states have developed specific ways to support their communities' growth planning processes and advise the state legislature on growth management issues. Tools are being developed that help communities:

• identify and bring together people and groups necessary for the planning process
• determine characteristics the community wants to keep or develop
• stress the necessity of multi-jurisdictional planning on things such as land and energy use, transportation investment, and environmental protection.

Development Decisions

Here are common growth situations with potentially negative repercussions to sustaining the environment and quality of life in a community:

• Zoning rules that forbid a mix of homes, densities, and business, and discourage walking, biking, and public transit
• Readily available federal grants and low-cost financing for water, sewers, and roads, inviting decentralized expansion.
• Mortgage interest and property tax deductions give people a subtle incentive to buy bigger houses on bigger lots, thus promoting consumption of open space
• State finances oriented towards building new rather than repairing existing infrastructure, and pulling resources from the metropolitan core
• Commercial development emphasized along transportation corridors rather than "centers based" within residential areas
• Conflict between local and state design standards
• Tax rate structures that make sprawl-type developments financially attractive
• Reliance on population growth for lower per capita property tax
• Subsidies for developments that outweigh the tax revenues received from them
• Lack of jurisdictional cooperation among cities, counties, and regions

New Planning Principles

Because of shared problems facing communities and regions, a variety of principles that advocate sustainable growth have been offered. The American Planning Association summarized much of what is accepted in the following principles. Most are applicable to pollution prevention.

In its Toolkit for Community Growth Planning, The Western Regional Development Center suggests five cyclical steps: awareness, assessment, alternatives, action, and evaluation for community planning. The most successful planning documents and plans occur when there is in-depth involvement from stakeholders throughout a region in all five phases. As one community planner said, "You are going to hear from everyone at some point, so you might as well involve everyone right from the beginning." Finally, community growth management often revolves around monitoring measurable indicators that show whether the community is moving towards or away from its vision.