Ultimately, you choose where you live. You choose where you work.
I know it's not easy to get a complete package where one can live close to work, have a car if they so choose, have an affordable place to live, live comfortably, enjoy a job that pays a salary they're comfortable with, and every other variable that goes along with one's desires.
Sprawl is also part of life. Without sprawl, everyone will live in skyscrapers in the city. And sprawl will still exist - it will just be going up, not out.
When I read local Facebook groups of people complaining about sprawl in their towns, they were part of the problem at one point. People living there before them were complaining about *them* moving in.
So, unless people stop giving birth, moving out of their parents house, moving into the country, moving around, and otherwise transplanting elsewhere, building will continue to happen. It ain't gonna stop.