Smart Growth Audits. This is a fairly new technique by which a community (or region) can, in a structured way, evaluate how well its existing policies meet a series of defined "smart growth principles."
-- Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, in the Fall of 1999 conducted a smart growth audit that focused on evaluating the city and county's existing polcies and planning practices (as reflected in 29 documents) against 14 identified smart growth principles (e.g., one of the principles was "Minimizing costs by maximizing existing infrastructure through coordinated land use/transportation planning."
After the audit was completed, the City-County followed up by creating a 31-citizen Smart Growth Task Force to review the audit and develop recommendations "to ensure that the community grows and develops in a way that does not jeopardize its livability."
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