Most cities can do much more to stop auto-reliant sprawl

Across the San Joaquin Valley, one of California's fastest- growing regions, cities on average are doing about half of what they might to encourage smart growth.

Fifty-six of the valley's 60 cities achieved smart growth scores of less than 70 percent, according to a comprehensive planning audit developed and conducted by The Modesto Bee in cooperation with the Great Valley Center and a class of California State University, Stanislaus, pollsters.

The resulting scorecard is designed to help people gauge whether their leaders are serious about improving communities and boosting contentment through thoughtful planning, or merely paying lip service.

Smart growth brings jobs closer to homes, promotes health and curbs pollution, experts say. And people generally are happier walking on tree-shaded streets to lush parks or shops in a village square than isolated in sprawling, drab subdivisions on the edge of town.

"A survey is a snapshot," Carol Whiteside, president emeritus of the Great Valley Center, said of the collaborative effort, nearly two years in the making. "It gives us kind of a big-picture

look and allows us to find places where we want to go deeper."

Planners and top administrators in the valley's eight counties and 60 cities provided data in late 2007 and early 2008 for the survey.

Notable findings:

Size doesn't seem to matter. The highest-scoring cities feature a mix of the valley's very smallest (Dos Palos*) and largest (Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield). (*An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Sanger as among the valley's smallest cities.)

Many cities are conscious about the fees they charge developers. Among nine smart growth sections, cities valleywide scored best in the category measuring whether they charge adequate fees and update them regularly, although even the best cities earned less than 90 percent.

On average, cities' design and public outreach leave much to be desired.

Whether good planning rubs off on neighbors is debatable.

Of the valley's 60 cities, the three highest-scoring -- Oakdale, Patterson and Turlock -- are in Stanislaus County, and the county seat, Modesto, tied for seventh place. Overall, Stanislaus County cities scored an average of 66.19 percent -- significantly ahead of cities in runner-up Madera County, with 57.88 percent.

Tulare's progressive streak

But cities from five other counties also made the Top 10 list, with representation from Kings (Hanford, fourth), Kern (Bakersfield, tied for fifth), Merced (Dos Palos, tied for fifth), Tulare (Dinuba, tied for seventh) and Fresno counties (Fresno, ninth and Sanger, 10th). San Joaquin and Madera counties had no city in the Top 10.

That Stanislaus County has four cities in the valley's Top 10 has little correlation with the county's own performance, however. Stanislaus placed fifth among eight counties.

Radically progressive policies adopted by forward-thinking Tulare County leaders three decades ago helped land that agency first among the eight counties. But critics say current leadership is showing signs of dismantling some of the most significant smart growth rules.

Smart growth scorecards have been used to measure planning policies in several regions across the United States, including the Bay Area. They provide "a better understanding of how the rules on the books can deliver" more livable communities, said Tim Torma, policy analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dumb growth, or traditional urban sprawl, typically features an outward-growing mass of cookie-cutter subdivisions gobbling farmland on a city's fringe. Residents rely on automobiles for trips to generic strip malls and jobs in distant places.