[jayef]

I've found that for most of these leftists the real issue is aesthetics. They don't like sprawl because it offends their urban, or in most cases, urban wannabe sensibilities. It's a catchphrase with little or no scientific basis.

[THE Aardvark]

They probably get jealous because people have enough money to build big houses. We should not have sprawling neighborhoods with big houses, but tear them down and put smaller, more affordable houses on those lots. Of course, if you do that, you greatly diminish property values, leading in a loss of property tax revenue which usually goes to schools, quality of life goes down because of the concentration of people, leading to problems of crime, pollution, etc, and you even harm the environment because you don't have big yards filled with trees which provide homes for wildlife and make neighborhoods a better place to live. I could think of others, but I need to go to work.

[JeanLM]

I have yet to see a working definition of "sprawl" that I could comprehend, yet here in New Jersey the Governor has made it his personal goal to fight it at every turn. Sounds quixotic to me.

Where I live the locals have raised the minimum lot size to 6 acres, in the most densely populated state in the US. Those who live here don't want the rural landscape defiled, they say, yet the farms being developed haven't been economically viable for two generations. Now the farmers can't sell their property to pay the inheritance tax as easily any more. The land preservation schemes run by the State involve we taxpayers buying up the developable land at builders cost and reselling it at auction (at a loss) to wealthy people who use it with restrictions as large estates. There are lots of horse farms and Christmas Tree farms now. Aesthetically I can't see much gain in all this.

The people who want suburban homes already exist. We can't wish them away. If you restrict the supply of homes for them, the price will go up so that only the most wealthy can afford to live there. That's true now but it will only get worse.

The result will be rolling open land with choked roads carrying commuters on hours-long trips to work from places they can afford.

Those already resident benefit and the value of their property goes up. I think that's what's behind the anti-sprawl movement. It's good old self interest.

[goldstategop]

LOL!!! Lefties want to force every one to live in ugly and cramped East German box style apartments where they can be watched by Big Brother. Aesthetics doesn't figure into it so much as control. Its not urban sprawl that offends them so much as it is freedom. That to them must be verboten.