"THE city of Vancouver, Washington lies just across the Columbia river from Portland, Oregon. Since 1990 Portland’s population has grown by 38%, while Vancouver’s has nearly quadrupled. To critics, that is proof that Oregon’s strict land-use laws are crimping the city and the state’s growth. To supporters, it is a sign that the planning regime is working as intended, preventing sprawl and preserving Portland’s pristine surroundings—on Oregon’s side of the river, at any rate.
No one disputes that Oregon’s land-use law, in force for 40 years, is among the strictest in the country. The governor who pushed for its adoption insisted that the state’s “quality of life” was at risk from “sagebrush subdivision, coastal condo-mania and the ravenous rampage of suburbia”. To hold these horrors in check, and bolster Oregon’s two main industries at the time (forestry and farming), he pushed for every inch of the state to be zoned, with cities corralled within “urban growth boundaries”. A new house can be built outside these areas only for the use of a farmer, his relatives or employees, only on a tract of at least 80 acres which has produced at least $40,000 a year in agricultural income in recent years, and only if there is no alternative structure on the same land that could be used for the same purpose. Inside the growth boundaries, meanwhile, planners urge ever denser construction and discourage cars."
The rest of the article from the Economist is at this link
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21582315-are-oregons-strict-planning-rules-stifling-growth-biking-and-hiking-no-parking
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