WHAT IS QUALITY GROWTH?
Quality Growth is evident in the look and feel of a place...how people move around it and how they live, work, and learn in it. Quality growth is materialized through architecture, the landscape, streets and sidewalks, policies and regulations, and people. In its broadest terms, quality growth provides those tangible and intangible characteristics, programs, and policies that are necessary to attain the highest quality of life and greatest economic prosperity for all residents, both today and into the future.
There is no single definition of quality growth. Its meaning depends on the place and the people by which it is defined. Still, among the different perspectives, there is a common thread. Quality growth is about moving forward as a community in a deliberate, thoughtful, and holistic effort to make better places for everyone. Although quality growth is concerned with individual elements—economic opportunity, mobility, land use, and the natural environment—it is only successful when it is part of a comprehensive vision for the future. Quality growth does not mean no growth. Instead it is the creation of more livable, sustainable communities.
The Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development (CQGRD) brings together the expertise and necessary resources to develop innovative, responsible, and efficient solutions to achieve quality growth. The Center works with others—the governmental, legal, health, engineering, architecture, environmental, policy, planning, and non-profit communities—to create and promote a new vision and form for cities, suburbs, exurbs, and rural places.
