The neighborhoods cry, "Leave us alone!"

I can't think of a single residential neighborhood in the city or the region that is welcoming the enormous changes coming quicker than springtime.

The essential drama is this: Planners and visionaries are looking to house another million or so people, but without the creation of new urban centers, and without expanding the urban growth boundaries. So, the neighborhoods take the newly arrived, the newly born, the newly transferred, the newly graduated.

The result, I believe, is a basic disconnect between those who plan for our region and those who mow the yards, front and back.

In highly dense corridors such as Belltown, the Denny Triangle, downtown Tacoma, Everett and Bellevue, the ascendancy of density is a normal progression to full cityhood.

But the region itself is not used to the levels of density that will be expected of the neighborhoods now in transition: Magnolia, Mercer Island, Redmond and West Seattle.

It was West Seattle, remember, that revolted against the urban-village concept of Mayor Norm Rice's administration, giving the gift of a Charlie Chong membership on the City Council. The late Mr. Chong delivered the unforgettable line about sending more apartments and condos to Renton and Kent instead of West Seattle.

Well, they did go there, especially to Renton, where a downtown was reborn without the parking lots of the car dealerships.

But the pressure for more downtown density is simply going to increase in Newcastle, Burien and wherever the single-family home now reigns. The question for most neighborhoods is: When will the pressure to accept town houses, cottage housing and condos crack our community's core?

Highly packed neighborhoods can be a good thing in the urban design, but try to put something similar in Wedgwood, Maple Leaf or parts of Maple Valley and you might have a different response.

Here's what Keith Sketchley of Richmond, B.C., wrote about what he calls the "folly of mixed use":

"The problem of mixed use is forcing it. The mentality that thinks it knows everything and [has] the right to control others forced people into single use and now wants to force mixed use ... (N)ote there is a fundamental dishonesty underlying most NIMBYs — they want to freeze time at the expense of others. Honest people would purchase the property they want to control. (Where to locate prisons and homeless shelters is a different issue, one of lack of confidence in the justice system which is supposed to protect people.)"

Yes, and exactly the conversation that is going on right now about a proposed site for a new prison at Seattle's Interbay — or would the good people of Magnolia prefer a homeless shelter there instead?

Government often asks us to choose between contradictory choices. Do you want to ease congestion with another bridge over the Montlake Cut? Well, actually not, said some strong voices in Montlake.

That's near the dilemma faced by Judy Thornton and Kate Lloyd of Friends of Waterway 1, a delightful, historic body of water at 35th Street and 43rd Avenue in Laurelhurst.

"There are few locations whose history is more closely entwined with the history of Seattle than Waterway 1, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year," they write. "However, today this gateway to the natural world and other unique public trust lands like it are at risk."

Friends of Waterway 1 are concerned the state's Department of Natural Resources will essentially disturb the neighborhood with greater access and less cozy connections to the water.

It's not about NIMBYism, it's about change. People welcome change to someone else's backyard but rarely their own when the price of real estate and the tax bills are enough to nail a family's finances to the welfare of their property.

I don't find that selfish or wrong, but without some thoughtful relief to the oncoming rise of populations, each neighborhood will become more self-defensive and defiant.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera