Property Rights At Odds With Sprawl Control

"...the land is ripe for one last crop: thousands of single family homes...It is a well-worn script: A land-rich family with a rural heritage puts up a for-sale sign. If the price is right, the pastures, woods and furrows are soon replaced with large bedroom communities 30 minutes or an hour from the urban core, accessible only by automobiles... the push for federal regulation set off alarms among builders and large land owners, and sparked a property rights movement that has been instrumental in eliminating many of the regulations of land development that were passed in the 1960s and 1970s.

The resulting system of local control has been criticized for not doing enough to stop sprawl.