Maryland Planning Blog

PlanMaryland Revised Draft

Nearly four decades ago, the General Assembly passed a law calling for the creation of a State Development Plan for Maryland. The Land Use Act of 1974 directed the Department of Planning to “prepare the Plan to promote the general welfare and prosperity of the people of the State through coordinated development of the State.” It prescribed a broad framework for what the plan should include — “studies of governmental, economic, physical and social conditions and trends” – and how the Department should undertake the process.

Concern for the impact of development on the state’s quality of life and environment long predated the 1970s law. Much earlier, the Maryland Planning Commission, one of the first such bodies in the nation, expressed concern about “miserable ‘string-town’ trends that are the result of lack of control. Up to 1900, we find a solid, slow growth within city limits, then a veritable explosion of population as the automobile brought decentralization and the urge to move to the country. Only the ‘country’ in this case has been a sad disillusionment for many.”

That was written in 1938 by the group as chaired by Abel Wolman, a brilliant engineer and inventor known as the father of modern sanitary engineering. In the decades that followed, Maryland has had many nationally recognized smart growth successes at the State and local levels, from gains in bay restoration to agricultural preservation to neighborhood revitalization. But despite the foresight demonstrated by Wolman and many others since, symptoms of the problem of sprawling land use have continued. More