It's encouraging to know that members of the General Assembly are finally considering what has long been anathema in the Commonwealth: good planning. It's not about growth "controls" so much as it's about land-use planning and the infrastructure to support it.

I still fear that the development community, with its disproportunate influence in campaign contributions, will manage to kill or water down any of the bills that have been introduced.

Politicans who claim that large campaign contributions and gifts do not influence their decisions are liars. They can fool themselves, but not enlightened voters. It's time--right now--for citizens of Northern Virginia to band together with citizens of other densely populated areas to Virginia to make their voices heard in the General Assembly. We have more votes than the developers. Write the members of land use and local government committees and make your voice heard!

Slow growth, no growth - whatever, you are the minority. You just can't stand the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have spent billions of dollars buying homes for their families in locations that don't meet your approval. Consumers vote every day with their pocketbooks, and they are voting big time for more housing. If voters did not buy these homes, developers would not build them. So your finger pointing is misplaced.

What are you going to advocate next to stop development of more habitat for humanity? China's policy of one child per couple perhaps?

The real human need is more housing and density preserves open space. Three cheers for the politicians who get it!

Admirer:

Glut? When prices drop to 2000 levels - then I'll believe the hype. Until then my relatives continue to be priced out of this housing market. One of them commutes over a hundred miles a day to work in Reston.

Kaine's support for smart growth and adequate public facilities should actually help the developers of Parkview along the Dulles Toll Road at Hunter Mill.

There are more than a million people in Northern Virginia living a greater distance from the urban core than Parkview. It's time for some of Kaine's smart growth to let some of them move back in next to the jobs. I'm looking forward to watching you "fairgrowth" types squirm when it finally dawns on you what smart growth is all about. Check out Portland, Oregon.

Davis and Devolites are just playing parochial local politics to cater to the HMDL. After they ditched their spouses and married each other they bought a house that backs up to Hunter Mill Road. Devolites got the "byway" bill through the legislature, as if that really helps the traffic backups. Who really thinks that the Reston office park along Hunter Mill Road is scenic?

As for DC, it has lost almost half of its population because families value their lives and their kids education. And thanks to the late Jack Herrity, the jobs are out here in the Dulles Corridor now anyway.

You are the minority. Or why do so many people keep coming here and why do they pay so much for the opportunity to live here? Money talks.

Such venomous accusations coming from someone who hides behind anonymity.

Antiblogger, since you mentioned Portland, Oregon.....what part does form-based zoning reform play in what you advocate? What scheme is being set up by the developers and the politicians that cater to them to by-pass real citizen input in the process of community planning? What entities are the developers and their associates co-opting in order to pull the wool over the public's collective eyes?

Some of us who have been really digging have some serious questions to ask. We will leave nothing to chance, rest assured.