Timothy S. Bishop and Cristina C. Tilley, litigators in the Chicago office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, offered up a Dialogue in the July 2002, issue of the Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis entitled Smart Growth or Dumb Bureaucracy? They didn't cite the Article I wrote with my law partner of 25 years, Gurdon H. (Don) Buck, Smart Growth, Dumb Takings, which was also published in this august periodical. I don't think we own the form of the title beginning with "Smart" and linked to "Dumb," but it would have been nice to have been recognized. Even better, it would have been nice had they acknowledged, rather than dismissed, the efficacy of good planning inherent in the smart growth movement—even though any right-thinking (that is, correct-thinking) person will be quick to point out that smart growth has its shortcomings and is often the stalking horse for other agendas. In our Article, we discuss the smart growth movement and explain how one can have smart growth and respect private property rights at the same time.

Bishop and Tilley lay waste not to smart growth alone, but land use planning generally. If I can summarize what they had to say—it should be easy because they have but a single and simplistic premise—the city of Chicago and its suburb of Sugar Grove are both pretty nice places because they know what they want to be and they have good leadership. Chicago has done well because of its mayor, Richard M. Daley (D), and Sugar Grove has done equally well on its own, because it uses large-lot zoning to attract families who like to live in such places instead of Chicago.