Limiting the growth of cities, as California has done through zoning, regulation, NIMBYism, and the not-too-subtle racism of slow-growthers is a guaranteed path toward gentrification. Anyone who understands the concept of "supply and demand" should get that building very little new housing in the cities creates soaring rents and housing costs, because scarcity drives prices up. These policies have done more to drive sprawl than our meager transportation projects, because much of the middle class can only afford to live distant hayseed towns. The throttling of the housing market by the self-serving "haves" of this state will eventually choke California's thriving economy.

While limiting population growth may sound noble in the abstract, it pretty much always comes down to "I have mine, screw everyone else!"