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You have to hand it to Boo Thomas and her Center for Planning Excellence, the group formerly known as Plan Baton Rouge: When it comes to smart growth, these folks chase the impossible dream harder than Don Quixote.

Boo and friends were at it again last week, hosting a smart growth summit where an armada of national experts breezed into the Shaw Center to tout the benefits of street connectivity, mass transit and building a city and state where folks can live, work and play in perfect harmony—all without the use of their oxymoronic hybrid SUVs.

The show had its opening night in 1997 when Stafanos Polyzoids, co-founder of the Congress of New Urbanism, visited our town, but critical acclaim—and a cult following—came a year later after Andres Duany introduced the word “charrette” to our lexicon. This publication even got into the act with an eight-part series exploring the benefits of being able to walk from our home to purchase that proverbial bottle of milk. It’s now been a decade, and while the group’s name has changed, the show goes on, making it the longest running local production since Jamie Wax’s Goin’ to Jackson.

Zealots, like myself, get all giddy whenever there’s another conference or seminar, especially when the room is packed—like it was last week—with mayors, parish presidents and statewide elected officials hanging on every word as if Les Miles was letting us in on the double-secret game plan to whip the butts of Nick Saban and Pete Carroll.

We’re like Saints fans, who every year, despite decades of futility and disappointment, cling to the preseason belief that this year will be the year the black and gold Mardi Gras parade rolls into the Super Bowl.

Unfortunately, The Smart Growth Show has never garnered mass support. People may like to visit places like Rosemary Beach, Seaside or Lafayette’s River Ranch, but they clearly don’t want all of Baton Rouge to look like that. George Bush convincing America that his Iraq policy is a winner stands a better chance than getting residents of this town to embrace even the most basic principles of smart growth.

So while it was great to see so many elected officials slurping up the smart growth punch, all the love will be forgotten the next time NIMBYs show up at a public hearing to fight for their right to live in single-entrance, gated isolation. In the absence of real leadership, nothing shapes philosophy more than an angry mob of voters.

Ironically, this year’s conference opened with Mayor Kip Holden touting his $4 billion interstate loop proposal, which is like having Michael Vick show up to promote the merits of dogfighting at a PETA convention.

Nothing against the mayor; the plan has merit on some level but not on any plane associated with smart growth. The loop, wherever it’s built, 1) won’t solve the traffic problem, 2) will lead to more sprawling development and 3) does nothing to encourage connectivity and the blending of houses, offices and retail shops. So what is there to love?

Smart growth advocates like architect Buddy Ragland and businessman Cordell Haymon passionately say the cheaper and more effective way to address traffic is to simply connect roads that dead-end within 30 feet of one another and extend a handful of disjointed roads to tie in with other disjointed roads.

As compelling as this point is, it will never happen. Just the mere mention of a working traffic grid sends most residents into a conniption.

Which, I guess, is fine. Just don’t complain about the traffic. The reason, my friend, is staring at you in the mirror.

Thomas and her CPEX staff know the odds are stacked against them, yet they keep fighting for a better way of life. And there are small signs of progress. Willow Grove, the area’s first TND, is under development, and almost 10 others are on the drawing board. Central has hired a private firm to use smart growth principles to master plan the new city. Lifestyle developments like Perkins Rowe and The Grove also promote the live-work-play philosophy. And the resurgence of downtown is undeniable.

It’s these small victories that keep the dream alive. Here’s even more inspiration: The Saints are actually the trendy pick to make this year’s Super Bowl.