Can’t ever have enough documentation of the Smart Growthers letting slip that higher densities are primarily about securing ever-greater revenues for local government — because, of course, they are so strapped for revenue otherwise.

Via Piedmont Publius this little gem from a conference up in Greensboro, featuring a Ventura (Ca.) city councilman William Fulton:

The retreat this weekend at the Proximity Hotel brought together an eclectic audience from throughout the state including real estate developers, investment advisers, corporate CEOs, county commissioners, school board members, nonprofit executives, bureaucrats and academics.

There are a variety of ways to contain urban sprawl, Fulton said, but the bottom line is that growth simply costs too much if it is allowed to drift ever farther from a region’s core. … Eventually, the whole house of cards collapses because the cost of building and maintaining roads, utilities, schools and other public services can’t be supported by a landscape so thinly populated, Fulton said.

Not true. The revenue runs short not because of low population density, but because “progressives” like Fulton spend public money on all sorts of things besides essential services. Then, mindful of that the public demands those services, they turn around and lie — there is no other word for it — that “sprawl” is to blame for any revenue squeeze.