Join with them and instead of just working to block the pressure for development, you can work to channel it in a direction where it will help the community. Same revenue as before. That simple change in the property tax law can turn a city into a magnet for development, and every quarter acre of the city that gets recycled, is several acres of countryside preserved . I can t even serve a piece of cake without three tools, so you deserve at least three tools in your anti-sprawl toolkit. Those three tools are the red light, the yellow light, and the green light.
Red light means stop the sprawl.
Fight it directly, try to ban it. Yellow light means stop subsidizing sprawl, stop giving sprawl special privileges. Green light means encourage recycling of cities, channel sprawl pressures into places where they help the community. Red light, yellow light, green light. Those are your three tools against sprawl.