[Carry_Okie]

additional traffic, roads, drainage, water supplies, and fire and police coverage... added noise, pollution, crowding, and the fact that the developments seem to be designed to encourage a transient, non-neighborly lifestyle.

That is a reasonable list. (The demand is driven primarily by immigration BTW.) There are positive externalities as well with economies of scale to the tax base or in balancing utilization of fixed assets, jobs and customers for existing local business, additional businesses that might reduce transportation costs... What we don't do as a society is to accout these impacts in an objective fashion because so many of the decisions are political. That is what the system in my book can eventually address.

[r9etb]

... What we don't do as a society is to accout these impacts in an objective fashion because so many of the decisions are political. That is what the system in my book can eventually address.

Agreed. Well stated.