Sprawl City

It is at the top of most Smart Growthers' list for best planning and execution of anti-sprawl efforts.
If this is the best any Urbanized Area has been able to do, what does that tell us about what the average Smart Growth efforts will accomplish?

Smart Growth enthusiasts tend to point to Portland as a model of what they hope other cities will emulate. No Urbanized Area has received more attention than Portland in its efforts to preserve the natural beauty, quality of life and unbroken vistas of majestic Pacific Northwest landscapes from the ravages of sprawl.

For a glimpse of what might be the best the nation as a whole is likely to be able to do with Smart Growth policies, it is important to look at what their advocates tend to say is the best example of adherence to those policies. Since most cities have not been able to develop the political support to do even a fraction of what Portland has done, it seems reasonable to consider Portland's experience to be something of the upper limit in how far Smart Growth policies can be pushed in most American cities.

So how - and how well - has this model city controlled sprawl?

In an effort to tame land-devouring sprawl, the state of Oregon, and the Portland metro area in particular, have taken bold steps that have garnered both national scrutiny and national acclaim. In 1973 the Oregon legislature passed its landmark urban growth boundary law, requiring each municipality in the state to draw a line in the sand (or through forests and farms, in the case of western Oregon),

In its first decade of vigorously applied Smart Growth techniques, Portland could not stop the urbanization of rural land. The reason? The population grew by 146,000 during the decade.

beyond which urbanization could not march - at least, in theory. Today, each of Oregon's 241 cities is surrounded by an urban growth boundary (UGB). Portland's was first established in 1979.

The law does seem to have had a positive effect in reducing sprawl in the state, but certainly not in stopping it cold. Greater Portland not only stayed aesthetically pleasing but met the Smart Growth goal of increasing density greatly. In the decade prior to the imposition of the Urban Growth Boundary, new population was added at the density of 2,448 per square mile. In the decade after the imposition of the Boundary, it was added at the density of 3,744 per square mile. That was a 53% increase in density, a major achievement

But the discouraging news after all that effort is that the Portland Urbanized Area still sprawled out across 39 additional square miles (25,000 acres) from 1980 to 1990. In its first decade of vigorously applied Smart Growth techniques, Portland could not stop the urbanization of rural land. The reason? The population grew by 146,000 during the decade. (The official results of the second decade - the 1990s - will not be available until the Census Bureau has a couple of years to work with the 2000 Census data.)

The lesson is not that the Smart Growth efforts of Portland are wrong-headed but that the best-thought plans cannot create a protective wall for nature that will withstand the continuous onslaught of population growth.

The same disappointing results were to be found in the entire state of Oregon. Preliminary figures from the 1997 National Resources Inventory indicate that hundreds of square miles of open space have been converted to developed land since the 1973 state legislative action to stop that from happening. Population growth - much of it from former Californians fleeing the rapidly congesting Golden State - was the cause.

Increasing numbers of residents are decrying the added congestion and surging housing prices that are the result of trying to prevent sprawl while having rapid population growth.

As people continue to pour into Portland and Oregon, development pressures within the "containment vessel" of the Urban Growth Boundaries are intensifying. Indeed, articles warning of "gaps" and "cracks" in "the Great Wall of Portland" have become legion. And resistance to the ever-higher densities and in-fill development promoted by regional planning authorities as the way to grow without sprawl appears to be spreading even here in "Ecotopia." Increasing numbers of Portland residents are decrying the added congestion and surging housing prices that are the result of trying to prevent sprawl while having rapid population growth.

If metro Portland's population continues to grow and if the Portland public' s desire for breathing room and reasonably priced housing trumps its desire to contain or slow sprawl, the Portland Experiment of 1980 to 2000 may not be the exemplar of what Americans may be persuaded to adopt. Rather, it may be an example of Smart Growth controls that even the most ecologically minded and motivated Americans won't accept over the long run.

The lesson would not be that the Smart Growth efforts of Portland were wrong-headed but that the best-thought plans cannot create a protective wall for nature that will withstand the continuous onslaught of population growth.