Charles argues this approach simply doesn't work because it relies too heavily on government controls and subsidies and not enough on market forces.

While Minnesota's industrial developers may not be as avid a smart growth opponent as John Charles, it has concerns about smart growth's impact on not only workers at its office buildings, but truckers who are the vital links to its industrial properties, as well as about the impact some of the smart growth planning and zoning recommendations might have on new development.

"You can't believe some of the things coming up for a vote in Colorado and Arizona," Dave Jellison of Liberty Property Group and a member of the local NAIOP's smart growth task force said in introducing Charles to his fellow members. "Al Gore has made it a national issue. If he were to do everything he wants, it would make for very interesting times for us."

Charles, who is environmental policy director for the Cascade Policy Institute, a free market think tank in Portland, OR focused his attack on smart growth by taking a look at his hometown Portland, which he dubs the poster city for smart growth. "We've been doing smart growth in Oregon for nearly 20 years," Charles says, but it doesn't work for the same reason the Soviet Union didn't work.