Person:

Barron, David

This article argues that we misinterpret the Census figures showing the continued growth of the suburbs and increase in populations of some cities and not others. While many, including a Harvard economist, contend that this is a purely a result of consumer preference, this article concludes that this pattern is more likely a result of legal rules promoting sprawl which have been unchanged for 50 years. The article states that this new census data should be a wake-up call for state law reform which will no longer constrain and define local government.

Argues that a debate over suburban sprawl wrongly equates home rule with local legal autonomy and that anti-sprawl reformers are unduly hostile to local power. Methods of promoting local government cooperation in metropolitan regions; Possibility of an alternative approach to anti-sprawl reform; Privatism and the city before home rule.