The American Smart Dream: How 21st Century Planning Redefines Property, Liberty, and Land Use
- Mary Baker
- Oct 21
- 8 min read
By Mary Baker, Published on October 21, 2025
Prescott, AZ—
In the 21st century, the American Dream is being reformulated—not by market forces or grassroots innovation, but by government planners, global institutions, and ideologically driven urbanists. Once rooted in opportunity, prosperity, and individual liberty, the traditional American Dream is increasingly being replaced by what could be called the American Smart Dream—an agenda centered around wealth redistribution, climate equity, and decreased property rights.
This shift is not happening in isolation. It draws philosophical and policy inspiration from the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative and the Build Back Better ideology, both of which envision a global economic and social restructuring in the wake of climate change, pandemics, and perceived systemic inequities. These frameworks promote a centrally managed world in which resources, land use, and even daily human activity are planned for “the greater good”—with individual rights and freedoms redefined as conditional privileges.
Proponents of Smart Growth and Sustainable Development view the old American Dream as outmoded, inaccessible, and unjust. Their rationale is built around a series of perceived crises: suburban sprawl, social inequality, obesity, and climate change. The proposed solution is not merely to refine how we grow and develop, but to creatively reset the way we live, work, and interact—language that echoes the “you will own nothing and be happy” ethos promoted by the Great Reset.
Under this paradigm, cities are expected to become compact, data-driven hubs of human activity—designed not for freedom of movement or personal space, but for efficiency, conformity, and collective well-being. Advocates argue this is the only way to ensure that traditionally underserved or marginalized groups—referred to as “communities of concern” or “underserved communities” (low-income, minority, elderly, youth, and single-parent households)—gain what they define as “a fair shot at the American Dream.” That “shot,” however, is conditioned on adherence to Smart Growth principles, often tied to housing density, transportation modes, and environmental metrics aligned with global climate goals.
The Economic Backdrop
To understand how we arrived at this juncture, one must consider the broader economic shifts over the last century. America has moved from an agricultural base, through the industrial age, into what is now described as a knowledge-based economy. This new economic structure, centered on information, innovation, and networks, relies less on physical labor and more on digital collaboration, offering Smart Growth planners a rationale for reshaping our cities into high-density, mixed-use zones that foster constant human interaction.
At the same time, the Build Back Better framework—adopted in varying degrees by Western governments—provides a ready-made policy package for embedding these changes. It promotes rebuilding economies and communities through “green” infrastructure, social equity programs, and net-zero climate targets. While packaged as recovery and resilience, it also normalizes federal and international oversight of local planning decisions.
What Smart Growth Encourages
As previously illustrated, Smart Growth encourages Social Equity, Economic Justice, and Environmental Justice—the three pillars that when integrated produce Sustainable Development, a system for all, indeed for the world.
Yet this isn’t a uniquely American invention. The foundational concepts—forced urbanization, collective values, and uniform housing—echo decades-old socialist theory. In fact, striking similarities can be found in The Ideal Communist City, a 1968 publication from the University of Moscow. Soviet planners believed dense apartment blocks were ideal because:
They would be more equitable, since everyone from factory managers to janitors lived in the same buildings… Apartments promoted collective values and allowed easy access to public transportation.
This kind of enforced equity—erasing distinctions in the name of social harmony—mirrors the logic behind Smart Growth’s urban design mandates today. While modern advocates use softer language and digital tools, the underlying aim is similar: to restructure society to achieve predetermined social outcomes.
Urban planner Leonie Sandercock offered a more poetic version of this vision in her book Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities in the 21st Century:
I dream of a city… where social justice is more prized than a balanced budget… where we don’t exist for the city but are seduced by it.
Yet beneath this idealistic rhetoric lies a more pragmatic reality: local autonomy, property rights, and individual choice are often subordinated to collective planning goals—driven not by the needs of real communities but by the criteria of federal grants and international agendas.
Property Rights Are Not Just About Land Ownership
Private property rights are foundational to American liberty. For centuries, Americans have understood that property is not simply land—it is capital, security, and freedom. When government seizes or restricts the use of that land—whether through regulation, zoning, environmental mandates, or tokenization —it strips citizens not only of wealth but of the very means to determine their own future.
As Ayn Rand wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness:
Without property rights, no other rights are possible… The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Today, Smart Growth planning—now rebranded under terms like “equity-centered development,” “climate adaptation,” “15-minute cities”, and “resilient cities”—has become a dominant force shaping land use across the nation. While its advocates claim it promotes justice and environmental responsibility, the practical effect has often been to erode property rights, centralize control, and diminish local autonomy.
The greatest obstacle to the full implementation of this planning regime in America remains our tradition of private land ownership. But that obstacle is increasingly under attack. In 2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) was pushing its Great Reset global agenda that focused on resilience, sustainability, and localized transformation promoting a 15-Minute Cities concept pioneered by Carlos Moreno, a Franco-Colombian professor and urbanist at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Remember their promo video? “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
Until just recently, property owners across the country were increasingly facing new layers of regulation limiting how they could use, improve, or even access their land—with little or no compensation. Tactics like conservation easements, greenlining initiatives, zoning reclassifications, urban growth boundaries, and climate overlays are used to enforce compliance with “sustainable” objectives dictated by bureaucrats rather than by local consent.
Many of these restrictions came attached to federal grants issued under programs established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 and reinforced through Build Back Better policy priorities. These new urban design programs offered cities and counties billions of dollars for climate, housing, and transportation initiatives—but only if they aligned with the federal government’s preferred planning model: high-density, transit-oriented, mixed-use development that adhered to climate equity guidelines in harmony with international agreements.
As a result, communities that refused to integrate Smart Growth principles into their general plans risked losing access to funding streams. But cities that complied often did so at the expense of property owners, small businesses, and long-term residents.
The Constitutional and Moral Questions
Historically, planning reforms have had a well-documented dark side: gentrification, displacement, and disinvestment. Now, under the broader umbrella of climate action and social equity, these consequences are being reframed as unfortunate necessities or “trade-offs” in the march toward sustainability.
Yet this march raises profound constitutional and moral questions. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. However, the growth of regulatory takings—restrictions so severe that land is rendered unusable—has effectively nullified that guarantee for thousands of Americans.
A 2023 study by the Pacific Legal Foundation found that in over half the states, landowners have little recourse to recover economic losses from regulatory land use restrictions. In many areas, families have held land for generations—only to be told they can no longer build on it, sell it, or pass it on to their children under new environmental compliance rules.
A 1974 William and Mary Law Review presciently warned:
Governmental decisions in zoning, subdivision regulation, and transportation planning have a profound effect on landowners. Some decisions create wealth overnight; others destroy economic value. The windfalls enrich the few—often at taxpayers’ expense—while the losses are borne solely by the hapless landowners.
James Madison, writing in 1792, recognized this danger:
That is not a just government… where the property which a man has in his personal safety and liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
Can the American Dream survive the Smart Growth vision?
The answer lies not in bureaucratic mandates or funding strings, but in a renewed commitment to self-governance.
If the American Dream is to survive, we the people must reassert our role—not just as voters, but as informed, engaged stewards of our communities. The line between representative government and administrative rule is thin. Despite the work being done to dismantle the deep state and their funding mechanisms through the tireless work of the Trump Administration, local county and city policies based on the Smart Growth model remain in city general plans and county comprehensive plans. These policies continue to guide government agencies, boards, and commissions in all planning and ideology.
If we move further into this “Smart” future, we must ask: What is being lost in the pursuit of this engineered version of the American Dream—crafted in boardrooms in Davos, echoed in Build Back Better legislation, recommended by local climate and environmental zealots, and implemented in our own city halls?
The future of liberty depends on our willingness to guard it. If we do not, the American Dream will be replaced by its modern substitute: the American Smart Dream—a centrally managed, climate-just society in which private property is conditional, freedom is regulated, and prosperity is distributed according to a master plan.
The choice is ours. Will we be silent, or will we speak up and demand representation?
Next in the Civic Awareness Series
In the next installment of our Civic Awareness Series: Rewilding the West, the long march to control land and liberty uncovers how Smart Growth and Rewilding are quietly transforming the American West. Marketed as solutions to climate change and conservation, these policies work in tandem—pushing people into dense cities while locking up rural lands in the name of wilderness and biodiversity. Backed by billions in federal funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and steered by NGOs like The Nature Conservancy, programs such as conservation easements and Biden’s 30x30 initiative often look “voluntary” but in practice strip landowners of long-term control.
Arizona sits at the heart of this battle. With less than 13% of its land privately owned, each acre lost to perpetual easements further erodes local economies, tax revenues, and the independence of rural families. What began with the 1991 Wildlands Project and U.N. biodiversity treaties has evolved into today’s rewilding agenda—restricting grazing, mining, timber, and recreation in favor of wildlife corridors. This slow creep of regulation amounts to a form of soft expropriation, eroding private property without the open fight of eminent domain.
The deeper issue is liberty. Private property has always been the cornerstone of American independence, yet today it is being bargained away under the soft language of “climate resilience” and “sustainability.” The West must decide: will it remain a land of free people shaping their own future, or become a managed wilderness overseen by distant planners?
RESOURCES
TERMS & BUZZ WORDS
Sustainable Development
Alternative Housing
Biodiversity
Brownfield Remediation
Carbon Footprints
Carbon Neutral Urbanism
Carbon Reduction Goals
Climate Action Plans
Climate Adaptation
Climate Resilience
Community Visioning
Compact Living
Economic Justice
Environmental Justice
Equity
Gender Diversity
Green New Deal
Green Space
High Density, Mixed Use
Inclusive Communities
Infill Development
Livability
Managed Consensus
Mixed-Use Development
Model Legislation
Resilience
Smart GrowthSocial Engineering
Social Justice
Street Calming
Sustainable Development
Transit Oriented Development
Transportation/Mobility Equity
Underserved Communities
Urban Green Infrastructure
Urban Sprawl
Urgency
Valuing Community Character
Walkable Urbanism
Whole of Government
Wilderness Designation
Wildlife Corridors
Click HERE to access Mary’s
Glossary of Terms.
This glossary is provided for
informational and educational
purposes only. No part may be
reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without
prior written permission.
Contact: marytbaker@proton.me