Comments by "" (@josephfisher426) on "Urban Growth Boundaries: Effective or Worthless?" video.

@TheRealE.B. And those Americans are probably surrounded by farmland, trees, or desert.
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@TheRealE.B. People who buy McMansions think they are getting something in return for their long drives everywhere. When townhouses are bought in the same areas, that's just because the land was cheap and therefore the purchase was too. The townhouse in the exurbs may be 75% as much as the one in the suburbs... almost entirely because of the land cost (perhaps also because of more development-fee revenue-harvesting by jurisdictions that aren't growing as much). I don't understand what they're thinking, but I do the reverse of them---I have always lived in a city, but for the past 20+ years have worked in the suburbs. I have to drive because that's where the job is. A lot of sprawl happens along routes of long-distance commutes from one town to another. The road exists already, and additional development occurs along it or close to it. The local jurisdictions could say no. But they don't, because they maximize their revenue by allowing the development of suburbia compacted to a state of unattractiveness.
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@SaveMoneySavethePlanet It may not truly be less expensive to build an exurb---but the profit is more reliable than rebuilding an urban area. Subdivided land has to be reassembled, and urban land is most likely to be available when it has the opposite of demand on its side. IMO design guidelines are more of an intimidation (and maybe an excuse?) than a thing that kills projects. At least in my area. That is not to say that the people who craft the guidelines are realistic. There are usually a lot of things that sound nice and that worked in an asymmetrical environment that is not similar to urban renewal.
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Maryland has this sort of rule in its urban counties, in one form or another. It has also imposed strict statewide limits on dividing land that is not in a public water and sewer system.
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