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Think of smart growth as government sprawl. Think of smart growth as inflicting collective federal zoning on local communities, telling property owners and businesses what can and can’t be done on their property.

Smart growth has a number of objectives in mind in order to achieve its primary goal - control of property.

One goal is to remove land decisions far away from elected representatives, government closest to the people, and into the hands of unelected bureaucrats, government farthest from the people.

Another smart growth goal is to take choice away from individual citizens, as enshrined in the state constitution, and give that choice to bureaucrats for the common good. Group or collective rights are paramount in socialist countries and trump decisions desired by the individual. Socialists call this collectivism.

The biggest problem for the socialists trying to build a sustainable socialist community is the individual and his rights. People having a ball building wealth for their family, the community and themselves is a huge impediment to establishing utopia. Thus, individuals must be controlled.

Individuals are difficult to control through elected officials. If they mess up, voters can throw them out. The best way to control individuals is to give complete power to unelected bureaucrats. That way they can commit countless harassments, errors and abuses to build utopia and remain in power, unchecked by the people through the ballot box.

Any unelected, unaccountable group with power to write law, judge law and execute law is, by definition, a dictatorship. The American system separates these powers into branches accountable to the citizens. It prevents the establishment of an unaccountable governing body dictating laws to the citizens. Smart growth is an effort to collectivize property under the rule of unelected planning councils.

The Russian people called these unelected councils soviet socialists.