Success Quote by Lee Scott

“Smart growth” is the kind of phrase executives reach for when they want to sound civic-minded while keeping their hands clean. Lee Scott, speaking from the corporate side of the table, uses it as a soft-focus moral frame: not “they’re worried about sprawl,” not “they’re fighting our expansion,” but a reassuring, technocratic concern that implies reasonableness on all sides. It’s a strategic translation of conflict into policy jargon.

The key move is “many of them.” Scott doesn’t identify who “them” are - activists, local officials, critics of big-box retail, skeptical neighbors - which lets the sentence flatten a messy coalition into a manageable category. That vagueness also protects him from conceding anything specific. If you name the opposition, you have to engage their evidence: traffic studies, wage debates, the hollowing out of downtowns. If you keep them abstract, you can praise their motives without touching their arguments.

“Doing it” is another tell. It’s a minimizer, reducing organized resistance or regulatory pushback to a vague activity, almost a hobby. Paired with “because they are concerned,” Scott offers a flattering interpretation of opponents’ intent that conveniently strips away sharper accusations: market domination, labor practices, zoning end-runs. He’s not arguing; he’s defanging.

Context matters: “smart growth” peaked as a bipartisan planning buzzword in the late 1990s and 2000s, often invoked to balance development with livability. Scott’s line borrows that legitimacy, suggesting the company can meet critics on the terrain of “responsible growth” rather than on the harder questions of power, community impact, and who actually benefits when growth is labeled “smart.”