Smart Growth and Affordable Housing: At Odds? That Depends

The desirability of traditional neighborhood design, with its compact mix of housing types, walkable neighborhoods, and town centers, has been financially beneficial to developers, builders, and real estate professionals engaged with smart growth¹ communities in Florida. At the national level, smart growth and sustainable development enjoys the embrace of an interagency partnership for affordable housing, the environment, and transportation.² Nonetheless, smart growth has its detractors and some of those are arguing that smart growth is bad for affordable housing. Even in progressive Seattle, there is a coalition of advocates against the displacement of poor people who maintain that smart growth is at odds with affordable housing.³