In the world of anti-sprawl Smart Growth, the cutting edge spots are usually in some ecophile wonderland like the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Ore., for instance, is widely touted as the nation’s leading example of advanced urban planning. There, suburban growth is contained by sharply restricting new development, pumping money into inner cities and promoting “green” transport such as non-polluting monorail trains.

So, it came as a national surprise in 1998 that Tennessee approved one of the most far-reaching laws ever introduced to contain sprawl. Legislators in Nashville required all counties and cities to come up with comprehensive, regional plans that set up boundaries for growth around cities. After a flurry of activity, the plans were completed in the summer of 2001 and will be used in coming years to stem the mindless development of cookie-cutter subdivisions and strip malls with big-box mass retailers.

Of special note for Virginians is that Tennessee is a lot like the Old Dominion. The Volunteer State is staunchly fiscally conservative and distinctly Southern. It is so rabidly anti-tax that it doesn’t even have an income tax. Like Virginia, Tennessee is divided into lowland, Piedmont and mountain regions (although in reverse order geographically) with disparate needs. But unlike Virginia, Tennessee is managing to address issues that Virginians dodge, such as mandated regional planning.

One place to see how the new regime is working is Chattanooga and its urban area of more than 465,000 residents. Two decades ago, Chattanooga was sooty with smelters and coke ovens that produced some of the worst air pollution in the country. Its downtown was decrepit and decaying. Concerned leaders put their minds together in the 1980s to upgrade the city.

In time, the grimy industries shut down. Public-private partnerships and investment brought in new office towers and art centers. The Tennessee Aquarium was built to anchor a promising riverfront area. Tourists and residents get around free of charge on non-polluting, electricity-powered buses.

While Chattanooga managed its come-back on its own, the new Tennessee initiative on setting growth boundaries is solidifying those gains, because it forces Chattanooga, Hamilton County and eight other entities to focus regionally on planning.

The same is true for other Tennessee urban areas such as Nashville and Memphis. “There were always bad relations between cities and counties, but since the law required them to work together to come up with regional plans, a lot of the animosity is gone,” says Ross Loder, deputy director of the Tennessee Municipal League in Nashville. The law doesn’t completely stop growth, but sets boundaries and demands that it proceed in an orderly way so services won’t be stressed. “It doesn’t close growth,” he says, “but it discourages inappropriate growth — that is any project that doesn’t have enough service infrastructure.”

The biggest trouble spot, he says, is Nashville, where sprawl is spilling over several counties at a time. And, it is far too soon to declare the growth containment movement a success. “We won’t really know for about 10 years,” says Loder. Until then, Virginia’s neighbor to the southwest offers some bright ideas about how to address vexing growth problems.

Return to Virginia Business - October 2002