"We got spread too thin," Caron said. "We're trying to figure out what the organization is going to be in a way that can sustain itself."
GrowSmart got too sprawling? There's irony for you.
GrowSmart began as an effort to convince officials in the rapidly growing suburbs around Portland to create walkable downtowns and discourage strip malls and big-box stores. But Caron had larger ambitions. In 2006, GrowSmart commissioned the Brookings Institution's comprehensive report "Charting Maine's Future," which called for a wide range of governmental reforms and created lots of political buzz. The book became a sort of progressive's bible (hey, does Sean Faircloth know about that?), and GrowSmart was supposed to issue an update this year.
Then, the economic downturn hit, and $105,000 in pledges made by businesses to GrowSmart got cancelled. While the organization is still in line to receive a half-million dollars in foundation grants this fall, it currently doesn't have enough cash to make it that far. And if a plea for donations — which has so far produced about $30,000 — doesn't bridge the financial gap, GrowSmart will have to shut down or limit its agenda, a prospect that doesn't please Caron.
"There's a tug of war among our members: sprawl or sustainable prosperity," he said. "If this organization is just going to deal with sprawl, well, I have other things to do."
More irony: Recessions tend to solve the sprawl problem by eliminating development. And, perhaps, a lot of development's critics.
Comments, both sprawling and succinct, can be e-mailed to aldiamon@herniahill.net.
