The principles that underlie "Smart Growth" were born in urban spaces to respond to modern needs. Most of the growth around the world is taking place at the edges of development as greenspace transforms into housing tracts and where older suburbs redefine themselves as the metropolitan edge.
In January, the Edward J. Blakely Center for Sustainable Suburban Development at the University of California, Riverside, the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and the Orange County District Council of the Urban Land Institute hosted a one-day conference on applying the principles of smart growth to suburbs.