Another group of East Coast academics has done another study on fast-growing American urban areas. Las Vegas ranks 15th on this latest list of communities that are still spreading out. The list is topped by Los Angeles, Washington/Baltimore, the San Francisco Bay area and New York City.

The report, authored by economists at Rutgers University and released Monday, warns the additional costs to Las Vegas area residents of the current trend toward sprawling development will total $109.2 billion by 2030 -- $72,697 per person in commuting costs and "added government services."

The report urges Las Vegas politicians to better use the coercive power of government to channel growth into more tightly compacted areas already served by roads and water and sewer lines. Over the next five years, that approach would save residents $10 billion, or $6,657 per person, the authors enthuse.

"Sprawling communities need longer public roads, increase the cost of new water and sewer hookups by 20 to 40 percent, impose higher costs on police and fire departments and schools and more," they wail.

Everyone knows it costs more to live in a newer house or apartment near the outskirts of town -- that both housing and commuting costs would be lower if we were willing to live in an older, more modest dwelling somewhere closer to, oh, the Stratosphere Tower or North Las Vegas City Hall. But most folks choose otherwise, as quickly as finances allow.

If harsh government land-use regulations and penalties could successfully halt this trend, why does the San Francisco Bay area, with some of the most Draconian land-use restrictions in the nation, still rank third on the professors' "sprawl" list?

The Rutgers number-crunchers have every right to compile their report and state their opinions. But in reality this is another sortie by those who think Americans would be far better off if we could somehow be made to live in cute little apartments above the bakery, gardening in flower boxes and pedaling our bicycles to work, like the happy citizens of Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

Problem is, the proposed solution is to hand more power to government bureaucrats and un-elected "planners" to tell us where and how we should live, when this is precisely the gang that over the past 50 years has destroyed many thriving American inner cities where families did indeed adopt spontaneous schemes of "mixed-use development" (i.e., living in an apartment above the bakery).

Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, an economic research firm based in Las Vegas, points out that Las Vegas already accommodates more than twice the number of people per square mile as the national average for major metropolitan areas. Perhaps that's because economic pressures already motivate developers to cram as many water and sewer connections into a square mile as the market will bear.

But if Las Vegans wanted to give up their cars and houses, there'd be a net voluntary migration from the wide open spaces back into the mass-transit paradises of Washington, Boston, New York and Chicago. Wouldn't there?

Here's a little proposition for you gamblers: Where do you suppose some of these Rutgers economists will eventually retire?