(Neal Peirce is a syndicated columnist who writes about local government issues. His columns do not reflect the opinions of County News or the National Association of Counties.)
The other 49 states should take an early, hard look at Maryland's breakthrough "Smart Growth" policy, just approved by the legislature at the urgent bidding of Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening.
Finally, one of America's state governments has done a reality check, recognized sprawl development's incredibly heavy costs, and started thinking about potential savings - fiscal, social, environmental - from curbing state subsidies.
Glendening's successful legislation tells local governments that the state will withhold, or at least sharply limit, any subsidies for new roads, sewers or schools for territory outside the state-targeted "Smart Growth" areas.
Counties, under this formula, can go ahead and approve development in rural and lightly populated areas. Local government zoning powers are unimpaired. But unless new projects are located within existing municipalities, inside the Baltimore and Washington beltways, or already served by water and sewer systems, local taxpayers will have to bear 100 percent of the costs.
Maryland is trying, in short, to repeal what State Planning Director Ronald Kreitner calls "an insidious form of entitlement - the idea that state government has an open-ended obligation, regardless of where you choose to build a house or open a business, to be there to build roads, schools, sewers."
What's intriguing here is that growth management, traditionally regarded as a "liberal" cause of environmentalists and other softhearted people, suddenly turns into a measure of conservative cost-cutting.
And instead of the rather rigid urban growth boundaries of a state like Oregon, or Florida's complex "concurrency" system to make sure infrastructure precedes development, Maryland is simply using its power of the purse.
"This just makes sense in terms of fiscal prudence for government. We can't be all things to all people," notes Kreitner. As a prime example of waste, he points out that Maryland today spends some $100 million a year extra to bus kids to schools in new developments too sprawling for them to walk to school. At the same time, population flight has caused hundreds of schools, in walkable cities and inner-ring suburbs, to close.
Glendening, chief author, exponent and prophet of Maryland's new approach, oddly enough cut his political teeth as county executive in Prince George's County, a Washington suburb.
Maryland simply can't afford another 25 years of development like the last 25, the governor argues: "We will have virtually abandoned our greater and historic urban centers, consumed hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and forests, and divided the state's population into enclaves of rich and poor, black and white, and those with work and those without."
Glendening's "Smart Growth" rules are just one member of a family of policies. He's switched state school construction subsidies away from new schools at sprawling exurban locations; now 92 percent of funds go to renovating older schools.
Noting there are 3,200 acres of vacant and underutilized property surrounding the port of Baltimore alone, Glendening got the legislature to pass "brownfields" legislation setting clear cleanup standards and providing liability protection to good-faith purchasers and lenders.
And under a new "rural legacy program," existing state funds will be channeled to purchase conservative easements and save large contiguous tracts of countryside that are under development pressure.
Glendening's "Smart Growth" bill passed the legislature by overwhelming margins. But many people wonder about enforceability - will the highway department and other state agencies be able to withstand pressures from developers, localities, other special interests?
Still, it's not just revolutionary to think of saving vast sums by not building unnecessary new infrastructure and supporting (for a change) a state's existing cities, suburbs and towns. It could, in time, turn out to be the best politics of all.
(c) 1997, Washington Post Writers Group