> Sure, maybe it slows it. correct. You can't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but maybe you can slow it. It takes a suite of urban planning effort to really comb

> Sure, maybe it slows it. correct. You can't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but maybe you can slow it. It takes a suite of urban planning effort to really combat sprawl, and allowing people to construct and live in dense neighborhoods of their own free will is just the first baby step in that direction. > the supply-demand equilibrium will shift [..] Pretty much offsetting the choices of the others. There's no basis for this statement. It sounds like you're suggesting that farmland and woods already don't exist, so if people move into dense regions, then we're just shuffling the remaining land zero-sum among those who would prefer not to live in the city. There are, in fact, plenty of places that haven't yet been taken over by humans. And when people looking to move to a city can move to the city, companies are less incentivized to develop and subdivide 20 miles from the city. So, it's not zero sum. Allowing more people to live in the city decreases the demand for development out of the city.