Originally Posted by tandempower

.......... To some extent I think sprawl has flourished because suburbs gave racism a way to persist while civil rights was advancing. E.g. if blacks weren't going to stay in the back of the bus, whites would just stop using the bus and drive instead. If blacks would move to white neighborhoods, whites would make new white neighborhoods farther away, etc. Anyway, if segregation is the thing you're talking about but not mentioning, I don't think you'd admit because those who favor it rarely admit it, but I mention it only because those who do prefer sprawl for the sake of segregation are, I think, the toughest sell. If you would give them segregation as a legal right, apartheid style, they might agree to doing something about sprawl but as long as they fear encroachment by people they don't wish to encroach, they'll keep building suburbs far enough away to discourage encroachment by people except in cars. Cars are of course easier to police, which sort of speaks to your dislike of boundaries and checkpoints, but does it even bother you that some people are stopped by police simply because of the way they look?

Anyway, I only mention racial segregation because...........