BANGOR – By launching an ambitious study of how Maine’s quality of life and its economy play off each other, GrowSmart Maine is hoping it can help determine the state’s future development.

At a Monday afternoon press conference at City Hall, GrowSmart Maine President Alan Caron was direct about how the organization hopes to achieve that goal. He said the results and recommendations from the study, which will be conducted by the Brookings Institution, will be released around next Labor Day for a specific reason.

“We intend to make this report … a centerpiece of next fall’s [state] elections,” Caron said.

Caron said that sprawl has had an adverse economic effect on Maine by undermining its quality of life. As development leaves city and town centers and spreads into the countryside, government costs have increased much more sharply than the state’s population and economy have, he said

Bruce Katz, who will be directing the study for the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, referred to school transportation costs in Maine to illustrate this point. He said that since 1970 such costs have skyrocketed from $3 million to $85 million, even though the population of school-age children in Maine has dropped over that same period of time.

Katz said that as part of the study, he will hold public gatherings throughout Maine in order to gather relevant information from community leaders and residents. The first will be held today from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn on Main Street in Bangor and others will follow later in the week in Augusta, Lewiston and Portland.

“It is these listening sessions that are really critical for us to learn the kind of questions to ask and the kind of research we need to do,” Katz said.

At the press conference, Gov. John Baldacci said a nonpartisan study is needed to convince Maine residents and politicians that the state’s quality of life cannot effectively be sacrificed to improve the state’s economy. Former Gov. Angus King, the Maine Chamber of Commerce, and 21 other businesses, foundations or advocacy groups have signed on in support of the study, he said.

“Sprawl costs money,” Baldacci said. “Our quality of life is our ace in the hole.”

According to Maggie Drummond, GrowSmart Maine’s advocacy director, the organization has raised “just over” half of the $675,000 the study will cost, $20,000 of which has come from the State Planning Office. The remaining $655,000 of the study’s funding is coming from private sources, she said.