March, 1999

Stopping Sprawl:

A Solution in Search of a Problem

For 26 years, Oregon has had a statewide land use policy of urban containment. Before we commit to another 26 years of the same policy, however, we should consider a very different vision: one that actually embraces urban development.

There are several reasons to consider this shift. First, locking up most private land on farm and forestland zoning designations is wasteful. In 1997 the Agri-Business Council of Oregon conducted a rigorous analysis of the farm economy, and concluded that the share of state income that could be attributed to timber and agriculture combined is only 11.8 percent. Forcing private landowners to set aside vast tracks of lands for commercial farming or forestry when it is not economically feasible to do so simply kills off new job opportunities.

Second, only 1.810 percent of Oregon is urbanized. The Portland region alone is spending billions of dollars on densification projects in order to avoid expanding the urban growth boundary by more than 5,000 acres, yet such expansion would only increase the level of urbanization to 1.818 percent. This is a lot of taxpayer money to spend arguing about eight one thousandths of a percent change in land use.

Since the government already owns more than 60 percent of Oregon, a far cheaper solution would be to use those lands as the basis for open space protection, and give private landowners a broader array of land-use options.

Third, the standard criticisms of urban sprawl - that it leads to more air pollution and energy consumption - are false. Per capita energy consumption in the U.S. is declining. The annual consumption of energy per household in the U. S. dropped by 25 percent from 1978 to 1993, despite the fact that new homes were getting larger. In the commercial building sector, energy use since 1979 has dropped by 29 percent per building, 30 percent per square foot, and 9.3 percent per employee.

Motor vehicles are also getting more efficient. Between 1983 and 1994, the average consumption of gasoline actually dropped by 7 percent per vehicle, and 3 percent per household, despite an increase in total driving.

Air quality in Oregon as been a major success story. The number of Oregon cities listed as "nonattainment" under the federal Clean Air Act dropped from eight cities in 1986 to none in 1997. Yet population grew by more than 17 percent during this same period, and most of the growth occurred in the low-density suburbs.

Not only are the environmental effects of sprawl dropping, the costs are declining as well. The four technologies that have enabled people to move away from cities - electricity, telephones, computers, and motor vehicles - have declined dramatically in cost. When calculated in hours of work necessary to purchase these products, the cost of computing is just 0.6 percent of what it was in 1984; the cost of telephone service is 0.04 percent of what it was in 1915; and the cost of an automobile just 29 percent of what it was in 1908. Perhaps most surprisingly, even the cost of a new home has dropped: from 7.8 hours of labor per square foot of house in 1920 to 5.6 hours in 1996.

If you add in the fact that personal income in Oregon grew by more than 71 percent between 1986 - 1995 (double the rate of inflation), there's a very simple solution: when people have more money, and the cost of living away from crowded cities is declining, sprawl is inevitable.

In light of all these factors, we should stop trying to control where people live and work. Our goal should be to support the aspirations of all Oregonians for whatever lifestyle they choose, so long as they don't harm others.

This can be carried out through a few simple policies: performance-based zoning that requires new development to control its spillover effects; the substitution of user fees for general taxation, to ensure that we all pay for the services we want; and the strict protection of property rights, to ensure that others cannot export their pollution to our property without being held accountable.

Oregon's land-use program is an artifact of the 1970's, when predictions of worldwide resource shortages were fashionable. But all the predictions were wrong. The stunning achievement of our market economy is that we've now entered an era of unprecedented abundance. The only real shortage left anymore is the shortage of buildable land created by government zoning.

Oregonians should ask their state legislators why this policy remains in effect.