FAILURE OF PLANNING: PERMITTING SPRAWL IN SAN DIEGO SUBURBS 1

By 1970, uncontrolled growth plagued San Diego County suburbs and threatened to destroy the "paradise" of postwar San Diego, which had attracted a flood of immigrants since 1945. Fortunately, Mayor Pete Wilson, fresh from a Rockefeller Brothers land-use policy forum and armed with the latest progressive planning vision, sponsored a "big picture" planning solution, which has since been institutionalized as "smart growth." Despite the triumph of progressive planning, however, and the multimillion-…