Property and Freedom: The Constitution, the Courts, and Land-Use Regulation.

• Author: DeLong, James V.

by Bernard H. Siegen, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 290 pages, $34.95/$21.95 paper

You cannot pick up a newspaper these days without drowning in tearful stories about the condition of America's metropolitan areas. My local paper, The Washington Post, is quite fond of this urban whine. It is an unusual day when the Post does not carry several examples, centered on a few predictable themes.

There is the "sprawl" theme: An evil group of developers is building houses somewhere in the suburbs, often on big lots, thus exacerbating automobile culture and preventing the high population densities necessary for efficient mass transit and the development of liveable urban cores. A variation on this theme is "dense sprawl": An evil group of developers is building houses on small lots in the suburbs, thus overstressing the infrastructure and changing the peaceful rural character of one of the area's last refuges against galloping urbanism.

There is the "neighborhood" theme: The evil developers want to build town-houses or apartment houses in some city neighborhood - perhaps Cleveland Park, where a lot of editors seem to live - thus increasing the density, overcrowding the streets, and ruining the area's charm, which depends on low densities and big lots (all within walking distance of a Metro station, of course).

These themes are often combined with concern about the "auto culture": People are spending all their time in cars, driving from jobs to schools to soccer fields to stores. The villain in this scenario is a little harder to find. It seems to be "us." We ought to live in areas where all these things are within walking distance, and by God the authorities ought to bring this about!

The "planners" theme is growing more popular: The urban planners have failed, creating whatever condition is being deplored. They have allowed themselves to be influenced and corrupted by the people whose lives they are planning, and as a result they have surrendered the purity of their vision. Planners must stand firm and insist that the populace live as it is told, and they need more power to overcome the forces of greed and private interest. Come the revolution, you will sit in sidewalk cafes drinking latte.

The urban whine is infinitely repeatable. I was recently told that goldfish have such poor memories that every trip around the bowl is a new experience. I do not know about goldfish, but the proposition is clearly true for reporters. They have been...