The growth Puget Sound faces in the decades ahead is staggering: a population mass the size of the entire Portland, Ore., metropolitan area will move into King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties by 2040. That's an increase of 1.7 million people and of 1.2 million jobs, according to the Puget Sound Regional Council.

What do we do?

That was the central question asked recently by "Reality Check," a day-long event at which 250 regional business, environmental, political and community leaders gathered to test the effectiveness of our land-use and transportation policies, and how those policies will affect carbon-dioxide emissions in the region. (Data are still being finalized, but the upshot on CO2 emissions from cars is that alternative fuels and hybrid vehicles aren't enough to reduce our carbon footprint; also needed are sharp reductions in the amount of driving we do and how far we drive, and that means much less sprawl and much more mass transit).

Among the top answers to the central question, produced by way of an exercise involving Legos and the region's projected population and job growth, were:

--The region's system of governance, or decision-making, is lacking and needs to be fixed

--The region needs to attack sprawl by concentrating growth in urban centers and by building new offices, stores and houses around transit hubs, also known as "transit-oriented development"

--The region must stop talking about funding transportation and actually make it the guiding principle by which it manages growth

Building affordable housing, preserving parkland and crafting new ways to pay for transportation projects all made the list of priorities, too.

A NEW EFFORT FOR SMART GROWTH

But "Reality Check" wasn't just an exercise in Lego-building and talking. It arrived on the heels of the Puget Sound Regional Council's recent adoption of Vision 2040, a strategy to tie long-term economic growth to healthy communities. It also occurred when the Cascade Land Conservancy released a report on its Cascade Agenda for forests and livable cities. The upshot of the report is that we've made progress but not enough, including in farm preservation. And "Reality Check" kicked off formation of a group aimed at promoting smart growth ? the Quality Growth Alliance. The four-county alliance, encompassing developers, environmentalists and urban planners, will put data garnered from "Reality Check" into action over the next two years. It will focus on education, innovation in land-use and transportation policies, and pilot projects. And the Urban Land Institute of Seattle (the primary sponsor of "Reality Check") plans to run an annual urban design competition to highlight good work in the region.

Too wonkish for your taste? Well, Ed McMahon, the Urban Land Institute's senior resident fellow for sustainable development, will tell you why you should care. He quoted Proverbs, saying that "without vision, the people will perish." On the importance of building places worth caring about (hint: not acres of Nowherevilles made up of strip malls and six-lane arterials and fry-pits and lube joints), he quoted Wallace Stegner: "If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are." He said people need to get away from the sprawl-versus-density debate and focus on designing charming, livable neighborhoods and on "greening our cities." And he said that "regulations never create great, memorable places." They only "prevent bad things from happening" by instituting minimum standards.

LEGOS AND DEFEATING SPRAWL

 "Reality Check" was out to achieve a major goal ? spurring the region to do better at managing growth and transportation. It helps to understand how the event approached that goal. Sponsored by the Urban Land Institute of Seattle, the event took place at the University of Washington's Husky Union Building. Inside, the 250 regional leaders (a who's who list of the people who are subdividing your communities, zoning your cities and regulating your farms and forests; go here for a full list of participants) broke into groups and gathered around tables with maps of Puget Sound tacked onto them. The idea was to get developers, environmentalists and public officials with different backgrounds talking about, and perhaps reaching consensus on, how best to manage the region's growth. Participants deployed yellow and red Legos representing new households and jobs ? based on actual demographic and population trends compiled by PSRC ? and yarn representing new roads and transit lines to decide how to manage the region's projected growth. Afterward, they were asked to rank the biggest barriers and the best solutions to effectively guiding the region's growth. Here's how the majority answered:

--The biggest barrier to managing growth and transportation is a lack of regional political leadership

--The best way to curb sprawl is to build new offices, stores and houses around transit hubs, also known as "transit-oriented development"