[dionidium]

Yes, you’re right, it’s pretty difficult to develop a politics around this subject that isn’t awash in contradictions. But that’s because if you really drive down into what it is that people want, you’ll find that they want the impossible. They want to live in a quiet low-density neighborhood directly adjacent to a big, interesting, dynamic metropolis that never encroaches on their space. It’s not clear how an entire population who says they want that could ever actually get that.

I know what I sound like when I get deep enough into a rant about the way in which Americans fetishize local control. But I still think that what I am proposing would generate the best outcomes for the most number of people.

[closeparen]

Isn’t that the whole idea of “the community”? Acting in the narrow self-interest of incumbents and not caring about outcomes for the population in general is exactly what we fetishize when we fetishize community activism and local control.

[dionidium]

Sure. And I guess what I'm trying to say, in short, is that the wishes of incumbents can be both understandable, but best ignored. If that sounds like a contradiction, it's probably because it is. I think it's really hard to develop a coherent set of politics on this topic.