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Pro. People should have the right to live pretty much wherever they want.

"Pro. People should have the right to live pretty much wherever they want."
Problem is that most people who think like you do don't want to pay the true cost of the roads to their houses, the water and sewer connections, the increased police costs, etc.

Pod, I can agree with you--people ought to be able to live pretty much where they want--and still be anti-sprawl. Both problems--government over-control and sprawl--would just GO AWAY without immigration.

Look at this scenario, which is repeated constantly all over the United States near big cities:

A bunch of people want to live in a nice suburb. They save their money, landscape their houses, work to improve the local schools, and otherwise create a satisfying lifestyle. But then local government insists that the community build "affordable housing," which is a code word for "we need somewhere to stash the poor people." The new residents, many of whom don't come from nations that teach them home-maintenance skills, trash the neighborhood, leave cars up on blocks in the yard, let their kids vandalize the pool and community center, bring in their criminal friends from the inner city, and have broken-beer-bottle fights in front of their houses at 3 in the morning. The schools are filled with ill-disciplined kids and the quality of education goes downhill.

Pretty soon the original residents don't want to live there and move out to the sticks. But once out in the sticks they don't like dealing with a well and septic tanks, so they agitate for sewer lines. They don't like having to depend on propane or oil delivery, so they nag government to provide them with gas lines. They don't like having to drive ten miles to get to the Jiffy-Lube or Blockbuster, so they want new business development. They don't like the smell of fertilizer, so they pressure the farmers unmercifully. And before you know it you have another suburb out there in what was only recently farmland, and then the immigrants/poor folks come in again, and the cycle repeats. Only this time everybody's property taxes are higher in order to pay for the new schools, increased police and fire protection, new gas, water, and sewer lines, increased health care needs, wider roads, etc. etc. etc.

Sprawl happens because nobody wants to live in crowded conditions. Keep immigrants out and there won't be so much crowding; there will be much less need for people to move out to the boondocks and much less need for new construction. Maybe we can save some of the great old architecture we already have in place.

well, think this'll make the nightly news? Of course, the answer will be to buy the land at cents on the dollar (enter Nature Conservancy) and force everyone off the land and into stacked housing projects.

Yeah--close the borders! But that's one vote we'll not have.