SPRAWL: A poll by the anti-sprawl 1000 Friends of Maryland finds that most residents "want the state to take a stronger role in coordinating and steering growth to existing communities," Nick Madigan reports in a story today. But Leslie Knapp with the Maryland Association of Counties said this fails to capture the reality of how people respond when officials actually try to steer growth to existing communities.

"The problem then becomes that you have to deal with the NIMBY factor - not in my back yard," said Knapp, whose organization lobbies on legislative and policy issues for the state's 23 counties and the city of Baltimore. "When you try to concentrate growth, you get significant citizen resistance."

PROBE: The SEC is investigating sales of Countrywide stock by the CEO of the mortgage company, the AP reports today.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's informal inquiry into Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo has been under way for a while, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe has not been made public.

DEVELOPMENT: John Fritze and I have a story today about the developers of two major redevelopment projects asking the city for infrastructure aid, mostly in the form of tax-increment financing -- a method of funding in which the city sells bonds to pay for such work as road-building and then repays the borrowed money with property taxes from the new development.

Turner Development Group is requesting $90 million in tax increment financing for Westport, a mixed-use development set to bring homes, offices, shops and a hotel to an old industrial area on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River.

The partnership developing Harbor Point, another mixed-use waterfront project on formerly industrial land near Fells Point, is asking for $163 million, most of it in tax increment financing and the rest from parking revenue bonds.