Growing together or apart? Critical tensions in charting an equitable smart growth future

When smart growth's guiding principles were initially established in the 1990s, issues of social and economic equity were largely elided. In recent decades, however, a growing regional equity movement has brought attention to the shared concerns among smart growth and equitable development advocates and forged new domains and agendas for their allied work. This chapter traces the growth of the regional equity movement and how its leaders have sought to both resolve historic divides and address new and emergent tensions among advocates. We highlight three contemporary challenges: 1) building regional coalitions and scaling up equitable development policies; 2) prioritizing policies to deconcentrate poverty or invest in low-income neighborhoods; and 3) the limits of infill, mixed-use development strategies. We argue that how and whether smart growth and equitable development advocate resolve these tensions will help to define the next generation of equitable smart growth.