Growth management
Encyclopedia
Growth management is a set of techniques used by government to ensure that as the population grows that there are services available to meet their demands. These are not necessarily only government services. Other demands such as the protection of natural spaces, sufficient and affordable housing, delivery of utilities, preservation of buildings and places of historical value, and sufficient places for the conduct of business are also considered.

One technique is the imposition of impact fee
Impact fee
An impact fee is a fee that is implemented by a local government on a new or proposed development to help assist or pay for a portion of the costs that the new development may cause with public services to the new development within the United States...

s. Impact fees are imposed to charge the owners of newly developed properties for the "impact" the new development will have on the community. Fees can be used for such things as transportation improvements, new parks, and expansion of schools. Impact fees are not used to maintain existing facilities, but instead are used to create new facilities in proportion to the number of new developments in the area.

Another technique is application of zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...

 to reduce the cost of service delivery. Zoning can be used to reduce the area affected by urbanization, allowing the same number of people to live and work in a smaller area, allowing governmental services to be delivered more efficiently. For example, fire protection and emergency medical response services are less expensive to provide in compact areas than in areas where the population is more spread out. This results in lower expenditures for the same level of service
Level of service
Level of service is a measure used by traffic engineers to determine the effectiveness of elements of transportation infrastructure. LOS is most commonly used to analyze highways by categorizing traffic flow with corresponding safe driving conditions...

, which saves taxpayer dollars. The efficiencies gained can also result in benefits to the private sector. For example, grocery stores and pizza delivery
Pizza delivery
Pizza delivery is a service in which a pizzeria delivers a pizza to a customer. Delivery is normally made with an automobile, motor scooter, or bicycle.- Ordering :...

 businesses can service only a limited area. If more customers are located within their service delivery area, the cost of delivering their services is decreased.

Preventing suburban densities from affecting a large area also has the effect of providing open spaces so that people who wish to live in a rural setting can do so without urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....

 threatening their lifestyle.

The application of growth management techniques are often governed by the development of a comprehensive plan
Comprehensive planning
Comprehensive planning is a term used in the United States by land use planners to describe a process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The outcome of comprehensive planning is the Comprehensive Plan which dictates public policy in terms of...

. The plan can be used to measure the impact that new growth will have on the community and define the method by which that impact is mitigated.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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