CONCEPT FACTSHEET

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Primarily considers SOIL QUANTITY challenges ****

In URBAN, PERI-URBAN and RURAL settings

No Net Land Take (NNLT) Hierarchy: MINIMIZE

Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Hierarchy: AVOID

Smart Growth plays a vital role in reducing humanity’s physical footprint on Earth. It achieves this by intentionally moving development rights away from ecologically vulnerable or prime agricultural terrains. Growth pressures are instead funnelled into designated infill development zones or existing urban envelopes. By prioritising the revitalisation and dense reuse of underutilised urban sites, smart growth acts as a vital policy mechanism to keep natural soils unsealed, functional, and intact.

Smart growth primarily functions as a land-take mitigation strategy, rather than a soil quality enhancement instrument. It redirects development toward already urbanised or serviced areas, thereby reducing pressure on undeveloped soils in rural and peri-urban zones.

However, this redirection does not automatically improve soil conditions in receiving areas. Densification can intensify soil sealing locally unless counterbalanced by planning requirements for permeability, green infrastructure, or soil restoration in redevelopment projects.

Therefore, smart growth should be understood as a structural spatial redistribution strategy whose soil benefits depend on complementary regulatory and design frameworks. Smart growth is presented here in relation to the Compact City approach.

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Contents

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Definition & Background Information

Smart Growth

Smart growth is a planning approach closely aligned with compact city theory, new urbanism, and broader sustainable development agendas. While terminology varies across disciplines and planning traditions, with the terms smart growth, new urbanism and sustainable development being used interchangeably, these concepts share a common focus on directing urban development toward more compact, efficient, and integrated spatial forms.

At its core, smart growth promotes mixed land use, compact building patterns, and the reuse of existing infrastructure systems. It prioritises development in already serviced areas in order to reduce infrastructure expansion, improve accessibility, and limit outward urban growth (Perrott, 2023). In practice, smart growth is a combination of regulations and incentives such as green belts and urban growth limits. It also designates preferred development areas and enables the transfer of development rights away from agricultural and natural landscapes.

Compact City

The compact city model provides a more spatially explicit articulation of these principles. It is commonly structured around three interrelated dimensions: urban intensity (density), functional diversity (mixed land use), and accessibility (proximity and connectivity). These dimensions describe how spatial form influences mobility patterns, service provision, and land consumption.

Despite its wide policy uptake, the relationship between compactness and sustainability remains contested. Proponents argue that compact urban structures enable more efficient resource use and lower environmental impacts, particularly through reduced transport emissions and infrastructure efficiency. Critics, however, question whether these benefits consistently materialise in practice and highlight potential trade-offs related to liveability, congestion, and the uneven distribution of urban benefits (Burton et al., 1996).

Since the 1960s, compact city thinking has remained central to urban planning theory, with recurring debates on the relationship between spatial form and sustainability outcomes. Contemporary policy frameworks, including European spatial planning discourse, continue to position compact urban development as a key strategy for resource-efficient territorial organisation.

Advancing Planning Challenges

The application of this concept can help address the following soil-related planning challenges:

• Unbalanced densification: Optimising the use of already sealed surfaces.
• Inefficient resource and land-use management: Maximising the ‘yield’ of urban land.
• High CO2 emissions: By containing sprawl and reducing land conversion, preserving carbon sinks while the compact form itself lowers transport-related emissions.
• Poor access to services / seclusion: By promoting mixed-use, dense areas that are well-served and provide easy access to services (including green spaces).
• Unsustainable mobility and infrastructure: Reducing the need for expansive road infrastructure that leads to further land take.
• Poor public space (quality and quantity): Protecting soil quality and permeable surfaces within the dense urban core, ensuring open green public space isn't sacrificed at the expense of density.
• (Urban) heat stress: Preserving permeable, vegetated surfaces, and promoting de-sealing, mitigating the urban heat island effect.