It's nightmarish. Here in MA, all the small towns I grew up around are choked with traffic. It's all new people, nobody knows each other, and town politics have turned absurd and vicious.
I hate it.
If you want an example of development run amok, take a look at Southeastern PA. Greedy developers and politicians just expanding the tax base, and to hell with the unintended(or intended) consequences.
I do not mean to undermine your distress, as I too hate populated areas, but you have free will. If it is not your property, then you haven't the right to dictate who builds on it or moves into your town/city. You do have the right to move, however, since you are now the one who is not happy with the new make-up of your community.
Why do those who already reside in a community so often feel that they have the right to determine the growth of that community? If townspeople want to leave "green space" then they can vote to raise their own taxes to purchase lots. The community dictating what happens with other people's property is Marxism and is essentially a partial taking of that property (inverse condemnation.