This is NOT about local zoning, which I agree is a local choice and issue. This is about any agency of government, of any level, telling YOU that the local population limit has been reached, so go away.
Bulldozing huge tract of cities removes the spaces where real live people can CHOOSE to live.
“we are sorry sir and madam, the birth of your child brings the population total above the legal limit. You must vacate”
There are place in this world that have such dictatorial powers in the hands of local bureaucrats.
Did you even remotely read the article? It's not about controlling the size of the population at all, quite the opposite.
Cities like Detroit and Flint have huge sections that are, for all intents and purposes, abandoned. NO ONE LIVES THERE.
Detroit's population dropped from 1,670,144 in 1950 to 951,270 in 2000 (and has dropped more since then), a loss of nearly THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION PEOPLE. There are massive sections of the city that are well on their way to going back to nature *anyway,* yet the city government is still responsible to provide water, sewage, trash pickup, police protection for whoever lives there.
It makes absolute sense to buy out whoever is living there, plow the whole damn thing under, and redraw the city limits so that you can provide city services to places where people actually LIVE. If the city needs to expand again later, it most certainly can -- it just can't support its current size.
Imagine if you had, say, twenty kids living at home. You'd have to have a pretty big house. Once they all moved out, and it's just you and the Missus, wouldn't you consider moving into a smaller home? That's what this is about.