Most of us, given the chance, would be pretty picky about choosing our neighbors. Following the headlines in the thousands of zoning and real estate disputes that seem to endlessly broil in communities across the country, you see that the general wish for high quality neighborhoods often translates into a bewildering array of regulations and initiatives for coordinating, controlling, and in some instances, stopping growth. 

Questions concerning development have been the bread and butter of local politics for countless years, of course. To the extent that they involve the narrow self-interest of a few affected parties, they are of little general policy interest. But the patterns of growth and land use in recent years have caused some to question, from the point of view of voters as a whole, whether or not development is such a good thing.

To a generation of public officials, who have always measured their success by tallying the additions to the tax base created during their tenure, such views are tantamount to repealing the law of gravity. But in jurisdictions in the rapidly expanding outer fringe of major urban areas, the pressures placed on infrastructure and public services by new housing units and their new residents have given some pause. And given the fact that residents who have not yet arrived don't have a say in the matter, those who bear the costs of integrating new developments into the old are speaking up. 

What is needed, according to this view, is a more complete accounting of the costs and the benefits of pursuing development, particularly of the single home residential variety. A moment's reflection will quickly confirm that turning a cornfield into a neighborhood of new homes sets into motion a complex chain of events that show up on both sides of the community's balance sheet. 

High on the list of negatives associated with new development are the cost of infrastructure improvements needed to serve the new residents, particularly when they require the construction of new schools. It is an unavoidable fact that younger people, who are most likely to have school aged children, traditionally have the highest rates of mobility in the general population. Given the choice between, say, turning a corn field into a corporate headquarters or a community of 200 new homes, that factor alone will make some prefer fax machines to families every time. 

But this is simply the tired practice of NIMBY -- not in my back yard -- being carried out on a community level. Just as the effort to put a smokestack or a cell tower in someone else's neighborhood might earn some short-term benefit to those opposed, shifting the burden of serving new residents might be construed as positive to the one or two enclaves in a metropolitan area that can pull it off. 

But translating that philosophy to an entire local economy is another matter. If closing the door to new residents were actually feasible, it would be akin to the ordering of a tombstone for the prosperity that growth offers. In a competitive national economic environment where the critical mass necessary to sustain specialized industries continues to grow, arbitrary limits to size virtually guarantee obsolescence. In the larger sense, the viability and competitiveness of local economies depends on how well they accommodate -- not eliminate -- both smokestacks and driveways as they grow.