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Urban Growth Boundary


citiboi27610

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Maybe I don't have a good read on the situation, but one of the better exxamples always pointed to is Portland, which is consistently lavished with praise for it's transportation and land use planning efforts. I visiteed there in '99 and thought it was a great city. Sure there was sprawl, but my impression was that the region had done a good job in dealing with growth thru the UGB.

And Hillsboro, Vancouver, and Lake Oswego lead the area in all growth, residential and commercial. Meanwhile all the little places north, south, and east with UGBs are growing like they are on steriods. The UGBs have not forced that much downtown, it is growing because it is cool; just like every other decent downtown in the region. It is forcing growth away from adjacent open areas to areas in further out, making sprawl worse and commutes even longer. This is all moot anyway, the folks in Oregon pretty much gutted the overly restrictive, sprawl casuing UGBs with the property rights initiative, Measure 37. Washington may follow suit too, their UGB problems are much worse.

The true answer to sprawl isn't jacking up housing prices, forcing people further away from the city and foring them to commute over miles of tracts of McMansionvilles, the answer is to fix the city. Don't you think those parks and cool developments in downtown Portland have had an effect? Crime has dropped in Portland too and if only they can fix their schools and lower taxes, the city proper would be even more highly sought after. Fix the problems in the core, make it easy to add denisty and you curb sprawl.

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No, they don't work there either. UGBs have not worked anywhere. What they do is making housing more unaffordable, make sprawl more distant and worse, and do not address the core causes of sprawl. The answer to sprawl isn't artificially screwing up the housing market and making sprawl worse as a result, the answer is to fix the problems in the core (crime, schools, taxes, regulation, etc.), force growth to pay for itself, and use sane zoning. The concept of UGBs on paper seem nice, in practice, they are abhorrent and make things worse.

The only place in the United States where UGBs have been correctly implemented is in Oregon, because it's not just one city or county with a UGB, it's all of the Portland Metro Area.

The "UGB causes unaffordability" canard has been around for awhile, and has been debunked by many times by some of the leading analysts in urban studies. Arthur C Nelson, formerly a professor at Georgia Tech, says it the best:

Market demand, not land constraints, is the primary determinant of housing prices. The strength of the housing market is the single most importance influence on housing prices whether growth management programs are present or not. The effects of growth management policies on housing prices are much more complicated to isolate because of the variations in policy styles and implementation, the structure of local housing markets, the patterns of land ownership, and the stringency of other local regulations. Even research on the effects of urban growth boundaries (UGBs), focused largely on Portland, Oregon, suggests that UGBs can affect land values, but their effects on housing affordability remain in dispute. For example, economists have found that Portland's growth in housing prices is more attributed to increased housing demand, increased employment, and rising incomes than its urban growth boundary. Moreover, after an initial spike in housing prices between 1990 and 1994, attributed by economists to rapid increases in jobs and wages, Portland's housing prices since then have risen at about the national average. The reason may be that despite limiting the amount of land, Portland's growth management policies actually increase housing supply relative to demand.

We cannot emphasize strongly enough that housing prices depend upon the relative elasticity of demand, especially within metropolitan regions, than on any other factor, including growth management (Part VII, Conclusions).

Everyone who whines about Portland's UGB causing runaway housing price acceleration ignores the fact that this acceleration occurred just as fast in Seattle, which has no UGB during the same time period.

UGBs can play an important role in shaping the region. However, there need to be regional solutions. A UGB in Wake County is not very useful without similar measures in Durham and Johnston.

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Everyone who whines about Portland's UGB causing runaway housing price acceleration ignores the fact that this acceleration occurred just as fast in Seattle, which has no UGB during the same time period.

Which might be a useful comparison, except that Portland's growth is relatively stagnant when compared with Seattle, and exceptionally weak when compared to west coast cities overall.

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Which might be a useful comparison, except that Portland's growth is relatively stagnant when compared with Seattle, and exceptionally weak when compared to west coast cities overall.

I could not disagree more. Portland has seen significant population growth. Below is a comparison.

Census Data

Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton MSA

Population April 2000: 1,927,881

Population April 1990: 1,523,741

Population Change: 404,140

Percent Change: 26.5

Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma MSA

Population April 2000: 3,043,878

Population April 1990: 2,559,164

Population Change: 484,714

Percent Change: 18.9

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA

Population April 2000: 4,123,740

Population April 1990: 3,686,592

Population Change: 437,148

Percent Change: 11.9

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana MSA

Population April 2000: 12,365,627

Population April 1990: 11,273,720

Population Change: 1,091,907

Percent Change: 9.7

According to the data Portland MSA is the fastest growing pf the four areas. Data is similar when comparing city population data (instead of MSA).

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I could not disagree more. Portland has seen significant population growth. Below is a comparison.

Again, information which might be useful if MSA populations could be compared in any consistently meaningful way. However, the census numbers can be used to provide other insights.

But first, allow me to elaborate on my earlier point. Between 1990 and 2000, Portland's housing affordability declined by 55%. Seattle's declined by only 6%. Seattle's housing price increased significantly during that period, but affordability changed only slightly. Arthur Nelson argues that 'economists' cite increased wages and lower unemployment during the early 90s helped drive Portland housing prices up. That argument isn't persuasive in light of the decreased housing affordability (affordability being a function both of cost of housing and household income).

There are certainly many factors at work, and it is difficult to single out any one. But it's impossible to ignore that a 600% increase in lot prices inside the Portland UGB coincided with Metro's 1992 decision to increase the UGB less than was expected.

As for the growth and density issues, the city of Portland only saw population growth of 8.9% between 1990 and 2000, adding 43,146 people.

Vancouver, 8 miles away in Washington state (and outside the control of Metro), experienced 210% population growth during the same period, adding 97,180 new residents. Of the 404,140 new residents in the Portland MSA between 1990 and 2000, 30% of them were in the state of Washington.

Despite the promises of the UGB proponents, Portland is also significantly less dense than many other west coast cities. More tellingly, its rate of densification is hardly remarkable -- medium-sized California suburban cities (including Anaheim, Fresno, San Diego, San Jose and Stockton) densified at similar rates during the 1990s.

Since 2000, US Census estimates suggest that Portland's UGB growth is stagnant, growing by less than 700 new residents. Between 2000 and 2004, more than 98% of new residents in metro counties settled outside of the UGB. Multnomah county lost more than 22,000 residents while Clark County, WA gained 28,600.

Portland is an interesting study, but it is little more than that. Success and failure can be found in all of their initiatives depending on whose argument you wish to support. There is certainly a lesson in Portland's development, but an ideal model it is not.

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The "UGB causes unaffordability" canard has been around for awhile, and has been debunked by many times by some of the leading analysts in urban studies. Arthur C Nelson, formerly a professor at Georgia Tech, says it the best:

Everyone who whines about Portland's UGB causing runaway housing price acceleration ignores the fact that this acceleration occurred just as fast in Seattle, which has no UGB during the same time period.

Seattle has had UGBs for 15 years. They do artificially raise property values which does create unaffordability. It is a fact.

UGBs can play an important role in shaping the region.

Yes, by turning farming towns into bedroom boomburgs because land closer to the city is outside of the UGBs or too expensive. If you like more distant sprawl, longer commutes, and more expensive housing around the core, then UGBs are for you. Eventually people will get sick of the insanity, like in Oregon, and pass sweeping reform measures.

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\

Vancouver, 8 miles away in Washington state (and outside the control of Metro), experienced 210% population growth during the same period, adding 97,180 new residents.

Most via annexation, though Vancouver is booming with new construction, thanks to it being more affordable than Portland.

The funny thing people ignore when praising Portland is most of its growth; residential and commerical, is taking place outside of the city of Portland. As those cores in the periphery grow, so will sprawl.

The real answer to sprawl is to reform the core city. If Portland weren't so expensive, regulative, etc., it would attract much more of the growth that is occuring outside of it. People need to stop chasing windmills with UGBs and fix the real problems that create sprawl; fix the push factors of the core, use sane zoning, make growth pay for itself.

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Here are my thoughts:

This is pure economics. A city should be allowed to grow naturally and without drastic restrictions like UGB's.

If the concern is vacant land, the city might want to provide incentives to bring businesses and jobs to their desired area. When companies choose to locate to downtown Raleigh and more and more people work there, the people will naturally want to live within a reasonable distance from their jobs. The greater the commute, the less desireable the location.

Infill will happen naturally as demand for closer proximity to work increases. All that the city needs to do to enable this to occur is to create an adequate infrastructure that feeds into a central location.

Cities are natural living, growing, and changing things just like people are. They cannot be controlled, only guided.

The reason for the spread IMO is the fact that Raleigh has several business centers. Downtown Raleigh and RTP come to mind. But this is unique to the city and is something that Raleigh can use to it's advantage.

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Portland's UGB will always be debated with points and counterpoints made on both sides. I did a quick google search and found some articles regarding Portland's UGB. Some are in favor of it and some are not. While these are not academic research articles I thought it would be interesting to provide some links.

New Urban News

1000 Friends of Oregon

Reason Public Policy Institute

Knowledgeplex

Fannie Mae

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Most via annexation, though Vancouver is booming with new construction, thanks to it being more affordable than Portland.

But Clark County as a whole (incl the population of Vancouver) added population at roughly the same rate. To say that Vancouver's population rose as the result of annexation may be technically true, but it suggests that Vancouver grew only because it annexed pre-existing populations nearby. That's not the case.

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