If You Zone It, They Still Won't Come

Money grafs from a Washington Post article on Maryland's years-old "Smart Growth" initiative, which sought to force development into state-approved plots of land:

A review of key state and local planning records, however, shows no significant shifts in Maryland's development patterns since the passage of Glendening's smart-growth package. Growth still takes place where there was nothing, rather than where it has gone before.

Leading up to 1997, when the program began, about 75 percent of the land consumed by home building in Maryland was cut from pastures, woods and other parcels outside of the smart-growth areas. In 2001, the last year for which statewide data are available, the percentage was almost exactly the same, according to Maryland Department of Planning records.

Whole thing here.