“Sprawl”
is one of the ugliest words in the American political lexicon.
Virtually no one wants America’s rural landscapes, farmland, and
natural areas to be lost to bland, placeless malls, freeways, and
subdivisions. Yet few of America’s fast-growing rural areas have
effective rules to limit or contain sprawl.
Oregon is one of the nation’s most celebrated exceptions. In the
early 1970s Oregon established the nation’s first and only
comprehensive statewide system of land-use planning and largely
succeeded in confining residential and commercial growth to urban areas
while preserving the state’s rural farmland, forests, and natural
areas. Despite repeated political attacks, the state’s planning
system remained essentially politically unscathed for three decades. In
the early- and mid-2000s, however, the Oregon public appeared
disenchanted, voting repeatedly in favor of statewide ballot
initiatives that undermined the ability of the state to regulate
growth. One of America’s most celebrated “success
stories” in the war against sprawl appeared to crumble, inspiring
property rights activists in numerous other western states to launch
copycat ballot initiatives against land-use regulation.
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This is the first book to tell
the story of Oregon’s unique land-use planning system from its
rise in the early 1970s to its near-death experience in the first
decade of the 2000s. Using participant observation and extensive
original interviews with key figures on both sides of the state’s
land use wars past and present, this book examines the question of how
and why a planning system that was once the nation’s most visible
and successful example of a comprehensive regulatory approach to
preventing runaway sprawl nearly collapsed.
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Planning Paradise
is
tough love for Oregon planning. While admiring much of what the
state’s
planning system has accomplished, Walker and Hurley believe that
scholars, professionals, activists, and citizens engaged in the battle
against sprawl would be well advised to think long and deeply about the
lessons that the recent struggles of one of America’s most
celebrated
planning systems may hold for the future of land-use planning in Oregon
and beyond.
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Planning Paradise
Politics
and Visioning of Land Use in Oregon
by Peter A. Walker and Patrick T. Hurley
University of Arizona Press, 2011
Order
a copy
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