No matter what you call it, sustainable development, comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth; it all boils down to the ideology of “communitarianism.”
communitarianism: Political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of community in the functioning of political life, in the analysis and evaluation of political institutions, and in understanding human identity and well-being. It was developed in the 1980s and 1990s in explicit opposition to the theoretical liberalism of thinkers such as John Rawls. According to communitarians, liberalism relies on a conception of the individual that is unrealistically atomistic and abstract; it also places too much importance on individual values such as freedom and autonomy. Its chief representatives include Amitai Etzioni, Michael Sandel, and Charles Taylor. See also collectivism. -- Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1995-2008 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (emphasis added)
Communitarianism promotes the exact opposite philosophy upon which America was founded. Private property was originally equated with wealth and the lawful rights of the individual protected by government. Though property ownership is still equated with wealth, Agenda 21 now turns the founding concept of private property on its head. As early as 1976, the American Planning Association referred to property-owner groups against government taking property without compensation (the legal theft of eminent domain) as “radical property rights organizations.” Farmers, especially, find troublesome the growing number of restrictions on the use of their own farmlands.
