Smart growth has become a rallying point for voters and politicians alike. It's been pumped by Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore as well as governors and urban mayors, and voters in several states have approved referendums.

But some real estate industry executives are worried that it will become national dictum. Land-use planning, they say, should be dealt with on a local level.

At the same time, though, participants in a Harvard University symposium last week also agreed that Uncle Sam shouldn't make individual cities tackle their planning woes solely on their own. Rather, they'd like to see the federal government offer some specific incentives to help them get the job done.

"Each city has somewhat different problems, and it would be too difficult for the central government to manage urban policy down to the micro level," Gerald Hines, a leading developer and owner of office, retail and industrial properties throughout the U.S. and abroad, said at the first ever Senior Leadership Forum for real estate at the Harvard Design School.

"The federal government should have a role in making sure that cities do not bear an undue burden relative to housing immigrants and the poor, for example, but any discussion about land-use planning should take place on the local level."

That's as it has been. While there is a national housing policy promoting home ownership, the de facto national urban policy has been one of non-intervention. And that is how it should remain, industry leaders said at the Harvard session, arguing that no such policy could overcome the inequalities of cities across the country.

"Some cities are vibrant, others are dead; some cities are rich, others are poor," said James Chaffin, President of Chaffin/Light Associates and a past president of the Urban Land Institute. "Given the disparity among cities across the country, it would be impossible to deal with urban issues on a federal level."

Hines and Chaffin were two of about 30 participants in the session, which drew representatives from not only the development field but also from real estate finance, design and education. Several public and civic leaders also made presentations.

While there was a consensus that the government should not attempt to enforce a national urban policy, presenters tended to agree that specific federal incentives make sense in such areas as compensating cities for the services they provide for the poor, enforcing prohibitions on discrimination in the housing market, encouraging energy-efficient and environmentally sound development as well as the reclamation of brownfields and industrial sites, and improving safety.

Alan Altshuler, professor of urban policy and planning at the Harvard Design School and director of the Alfred A. Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Kennedy School, put it this way:

"There are three common perceptions of the urban problem that federal regulations may attempt to address:

1. The decline of inner cities,
2. The sprawling of metropolitan areas, and
3. The concentration of poor living in the cities.

Each of these point to different remedies that the government may undertake to solve the urban problem, but virtually all policy responses, such as growth control restrictions, tax incentives to steer investment into city centers, and open space acquisition and infrastructure investment policies, are controversial."

Noting that four out of five Americans now live in urban areas, as opposed to just one in four a century ago, Altshuler maintained that cities are actually doing fairly well. "These statistics point to the attractiveness of American cities and metropolitan areas, which are thriving economically, are in healthier environmental conditions, and have the lowest crime rates in 30 or 40 years," he said.

In most communities, horizontal growth aka sprawl is the result of the affordable housing problem. In order to build low-cost housing, developers have to go out to the edges of the metropolitan areas where there is less resistance to development.

And according to Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard and a former assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the trend continues to dominate patterns of development across the country. Job growth is higher in suburban areas than in the cities, and revitalization projects in inner cities are, at best, anecdotal, he told the conference.

Richard Peiser, professor of real estate development at the Harvard Design School and the forum's organizer said the concentration of poor people seems to be the real problem of cities. And, he added, individual programs dealing with environmental, social, educational and health issues that might be useful in helping the poor and improve their access to services do not constitute a national urban policy.

"There seems to be little political support for a national urban policy to encourage inner city revitalization, beyond the current token incentives such as empowerment zones," Peiser said.

The quality of public education dominated much of the group's discussion. Peter Rummell, CEO of the St. Joe Co., called the poor quality of public education "the single biggest impediment to the revitalization of American cities." He also called on the real estate industry to help make a difference in local education programs "by lending its leadership skills and support to the many state and community efforts focusing on improving public schools."