Hm.

Economics teaches that scarcity or rationing leads to higher prices. Smart growth policies ration land for development through the use of urban growth boundaries and prohibitions or restrictions on building on vacant land. In such an environment, higher house prices can be expected. …

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Demand, in and of itself, does not increase price. But, when higher demand is experienced in an environment of limited supply, price increases occur. Where there were strong land use restrictions, there were strongly escalating house prices. The restrictions drove prices up because land regulations had reduced the supply of developable land, thereby raising the price. The planners may have succeeded in their objection - slowing suburbanisation (or if the pejorative term is preferred, “sprawl”) - but they also created a pricing bubble that made things much worse.

Interesting argument, but I don’t know that I buy the premise. The complaint about smart growth here in Lancaster County (or at least the Independence proposal) is that it was going to create too many housing units - which would overload the schools and roads and possibly the sewer system, etc. Scarcity of housing hasn’t been our problem; or rather, a perceived scarcity of housing was the cause of the building boom - which precipitated “smart growth” regulations - in the first place.