Sy Adler - Planning the Portland Urban Growth Boundary: The Struggle to Transform Trend City

INTRODUCTION

THE KEY ISSUE WHICH CONTAINS ALL THE REST: How can regional considerations and policies be built into the day-to-day actions of the numerous separate units of government which control the destiny of the metropolitan area?

Metropolitan Planning Commission, 1967

The urban growth boundary (UGB) around the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area has garnered a great deal of attention during the past four decades, possibly more than any other land use planning strategy implemented in the United States since 1980. An Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) majority voted to acknowledge the Portland UGB as compliant with the statewide Urbanization goal in December 1979. Oregon Senate Bill 100 (SB 100)designated by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmarkcreated LCDC in 1973 and required it to adopt legally binding statewide goals; Urbanization was one of the first fourteen goals adopted at the end of 1974. Acknowledging the Portland UGB is the most important post-goals adoption decision the commission has ever made, and it was also a singular moment in the history of land use planning in the United States. Academic and practicing planners, designers, state and local government officials, journalists, and others interested in urban innovation visited from around the world to study it.

Boundary planning was intended to provide the context for transitioning land from rural to urban uses, a critically important process during which regional considerations would be built into local land userelated decisions. The Portland UGB was intended to be a tool used by governments, including two innovative regional institutions established during the 1970s that were unique in the United States at the time, to comprehensively manage regional population and economic growth while maintaining livability. In conjunction with the other thirteen LCDC-adopted goals, particularly those relatedto housing, economic development, transportation, natural resources and open spaces, and agriculture, the boundary would shape land userelated decisions inside and outside the line. Debates throughout the 1970s about where to draw the initial boundary were wide-ranging and informed by ideas and strategies emerging and evolving in the academy and around the world. The process was extremely contentious, and the effort to incorporate regional considerations was only partially successful.