How do I find a job promoting Smart Growth and Sustainable Development?

Answer 1

Get an engineering degree, or an architect's, and be a very direct part of it. Or a degree in business and finance, or in urban planning, or whatever portion of the Smart Growth and Sustainable Development is most significant to you.

Then study the companies that are doing the best and send in your resume. There are people out there with really good ideas, and they need eager young people to carry those ideas forward into the future.

Look at some traditional industries, too. Forestry, for example. Many people look upon loggers as the enemy up here in these redwood-covered hills, but the fact is loggers can improve forests. They plant trees as well as cut them down, and they thin out the stands so the best trees grow straight and strong. Clear cutting is pretty much a thing of the past, at least in the US. People who work for lumber companies can have a major say in how that renewable resource is managed.

Same with fisheries, and with animal husbandry, and so on. Almost any profession has its own way to help Mother Nature heal the damage caused by the industrial revolution. Think about Her whatever you do.