It's great messaging that has no real reason against it. This is a problem for people who have power and money based on urban sprawl, and so they need some kind of argument. If they can't find one even halfway reasonable, then they must create a strawman version of the original idea. Conservatives are already primed to believe that leftists want to control every aspect of your life, and so it's a simple leap to believe this is yet another attempt at control. In turn, this reinforces that same belief for next time. It's the cycle of bullshit.