Sometimes I think we forget how individualized everyone's personal passions are. Most who read this board are very concerned about the community they live in.
There are folks I work with now who are tremendously concerned with our extremely boring office work. Most of the time, I just don't understand how they get so excited about Excel spreadsheets. They probably look at anti-sprawl enthusiasts the same way.
My point is this- as important as fighting sprawl may be to some of us, others may be equally engrossed in raising ostriches, improving their canasta game, or competing in amateur road races.
Since planning is in many ways a labyrinthine subject with many casue and effect chains, you're not going to get the average canasta-focused ostrich farmer to get involved unless you explain why this stuff is important to their lives. That's the beauty of planning issues- this is a question you can answer for any individual!
I am about to become a planning MA student this fall, and so far, I have had reasonable success spreading the word about Smart Growth by talking one-on-one with people until they get it.
Here's my suggestion:
1)Identify ten people, some you know well, some you don't. Even better, identify some who may be leaders or influencers in their community.
2)Go and talk to them about planning until they are concerned enough to talk to others about it.
I have been working on a few people in this area, and I have one friend who has bought an urban-sprawl cul-de-sac house who suddenly has a great sense of consciousness that his individual choices are part of a greater trend, and he is starting to bang the Smart Growth drum at his local town meeting in the name of pedestrian-oriented development.
Other than that-
-find out who the local planning-related reporter is and feed them all the research you can.