Locally grown : statewide land use planning in northern New England

Abstract

A popular movement against urban sprawl and its attendant problems has emerged in the U.S. over the last several years. The problems associated with sprawl are caused, at least in part, by local government fragmentation and uncoordinated land use decision making. Recognizing that local control has failed to manage growth in a coordinated and effective way, state governments have stepped in to intervene. Loosely organized under the banner of "Smart Growth," states are reasserting some of their power to encourage more orderly development and to resolve inter-local conflicts. Yet Americans also have a longstanding passion for local government and distrust of state intervention in land use decisions. Despite the failure of local governments to manage regional patterns of growth, citizens are reluctant to give back land use regulatory power to states. This project explores state growth management programs in the context of this central tension: the desire for local control and the need for greater-than-local solutions. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have similar demographic profiles but substantially different statewide land use planning programs. This study describes the history and politics of state-level planning in each state. Further, this study examines the effect of state policies by looking more closely at state planning's influence on one city in each of the states: Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Burlington, Vermont. The case studies reveal that statewide planning programs in all three states are actually quite weak, and have suffered from inconsistent political support, erratic funding, and sporadic citizen opposition. Local control is an important counterweight to state action, but does not preclude effective state intervention. Besides land use planning, state tax and infrastructure policy play the most important role in influencing development patterns.