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Growing Pains

Jim McGreevey's anti-sprawl campaign in New Jersey is regrouping a year after the governor declared uncontrolled development his state's worst enemy ["McGreevey's Magic Map," May 2003].

Jim McGreevey's anti-sprawl campaign in New Jersey is regrouping a year after the governor declared uncontrolled development his state's worst enemy ["McGreevey's Magic Map," May 2003].

Last fall, McGreevey ditched part of his smart-growth agenda, the so- called "BIG map" showing where developers could and couldn't build. It had confounded local officials and angered builders who said it would choke New Jersey's economy.

Now state officials are taking the BIG map's environmental rules and attempting to merge them with an existing state land use plan. If it works, it will accomplish the BIG map's goals: steering growth away from environmentally sensitive areas and encouraging density in cities and suburbs.

In November, voters approved growth-slowing ballot measures. So far, however, McGreevey's results haven't quite matched his strong rhetoric. "The administration underestimated the difficulty of doing all this," says Barbara Lawrence, executive director of the anti- sprawl group New Jersey Future.

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