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. I hope that each of you will go forward and try them out, and invent additional tools of your own as you go along. This article was based on a speech delivered by Hanno T. Beck in September 1999.