The planning department in Summit County is guiding a planning process for the county. The Department of Community and Economic Development is asking questions, such as "How much farmland should Summit County have?"

You can read more about the process here.

This process touches on a deeper set of issues facing our region: No growth sprawl. Like Pennsylvania, Northeast Ohio has developed inefficient patterns of development. You can download the Brookings study from this page. You can also download a reportcompleted in 2000 on the costs of sprawl in Pennsylvania.

The Michigan Land Institute has also compiled some important resources to review. Here is a brief review of the research on the costs of sprawl. The Insitute recently published a report on the topic, called Follow the Money. The report documents the subsidies for sprawl in the state. Read more.

Finally, here's a citizen manual developed in New Hampshire on how to manage community growth. Recently, the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Integrative Regional Problem Solving launched a new web site to help cities and towns manage sprawl. Read more or visit the site.