You’ve most likely heard of the term “urban sprawl” in reference to the suburban areas you live in or close to, but this term is not innocent; urban sprawl means unplanned and hardly mitigated reckless expansion and roads catered to automobiles rather than pedestrians. So now, almost seventy years after urban sprawl took its Darth Vader-like grip on the areas outside of our major cities, we might soon experience “Smart Growth.”

Smart Growth consists of many concepts, like reusing old buildings instead of repeatedly knocking them down and rebuilding, types of homes that make housing more affordable for all people of different ages and incomes, the option to use cars, bicycles, public transportation, or your own two legs to get where you need to go safely, and involving the community in development decisions. There are ten basic principles you can view in that link, but these are the most important to me.

I’ve lived in suburbia nearly my entire life, spending my most formative years going to school and driving through such a poorly planned place. And though it has its benefits (good schools, attractive prices for housing, more nature), I never realized how terribly designed it truly was because I had never thought about it and I had never experienced anything else. And now that running outside has become more of a hobby, the sporadic placement of sidewalks is more apparent than ever.

I recently took a class in my University called People, Places, and Environment that exposed me to a criticism of something I’d never even thought to criticize, that I originally thought was progress. And now that the class is over I know much more, but I was still curious, and I found more information on the all-mighty Internet.

I found out that the EPA is currently extending grants to cities who want to try these concepts, and has partnerships with twenty-four places who are incorporating these ideas in their communities. This has gotten me excited; I find myself imagining more nature and closer locations to walk to, instead of endless stretches of gray, loud, and smelly highway. I imagine, too, it being safer to walk, especially considering that 2016 saw traffic deaths of pedestrians and cyclists jump up 11%, the highest it has been in quite some time.

I run about five to seven miles three times a week and if I don’t use the trail made exclusively for pedestrians and opt to use the roads, I am forced to deal with drivers who are distracted and careless, and not necessarily watching out for pedestrians in an area that sees few people walk where I tend to go.

Smart Growth has numerous environmental benefits besides increasing pedestrian and cyclist safety, mostly related to pollution. Air quality is predicted to increase in areas that use Smart Growth concepts due to more people taking up walking, cycling, and public transport rather than drive in their personal cars. This would positively affect climate change if adopted on a larger scale, due to the aforementioned decrease of personal vehicles, and energy-efficient green building techniques.

Water quality would increase because of compact development and open space preservation; these two helping by reducing pavement and allowing natural lands to filter rain water before it contaminates our water supplies used for drinking and bathing, among other things. These natural filters can also be incorporated into buildings (another huge concept in Smart Growth is incorporating both artificial and natural parts to create something practical, useful, and environmentally friendly).

The adoption of Smart Growth, then, is the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, as well as a fairer one, for everyone in the community. It is the increase in the quality of our drinking water, our food, our buildings, our moods, and our physical and mental beings. And, as a regular pedestrian, I am excited to see if this experiment is all I’ve been told, by my professor and the Internet. And if it is, I hope that it is an idea readily embraced and correctly implemented to create a better life for us and our posterity.