As incomes rise, more and more American families are taking advantage of the opportunity to improve their lives by moving from the city to the suburbs. No one objects to setting aside land for a useful purpose, such as providing parks and recreation or preserving a critical environment. But sealing off suburban land from development will not succeed in moving people downtown. That will take far more than a policy of land-use planning. It will take investment in new infrastructure, better schools, new housing, lower crime and a host of other things that create an attractive place to live.
Real problems require real solutions.
Shutting down the suburbs with land-use planning is not one of them. We are not paving over America. In fact, on average there are only 357 miles of new roads each year under the federal-aid program, out of a total of 3.9 million miles. This isn't true. It also has a filed sub-bid system, which mandates fair and open competition among subcontractors for trade work on building projects.