For my normative research project for ENVS 330 I, along with Jesse Simpson, Travis Meng, and Gabriella Seltzer, am currently embarking on a study of the efficacy of Portland’s urban growth boundary and its effects on housing and land prices as well as on creating inequity.
Urban growth boundaries are just one type of growth management strategy under which zoning, green belts, and other types of sprawl measures are also encompassed. Urban growth boundaries are administrative lines that can be redrawn to accommodate growth of urban centers as time progresses, whereas green belts are a physical demarcation and separation between urban areas and farmland or wilderness areas, and these green spaces are not adjusted much over the course of time. Growth management strategies, regardless of the actual method of implementation, are set primarily to reduce sprawl and to preserve farmland and other natural areas, as well as to concentrate transportation usage within the city center and to limit negative environmental effects, such as air and water pollution. While the goals are relatively the same across different growth management strategies, different locales implement different strategies that accommodate their region’s specific growth projections and needs for development.
A Look at the UGB in Knox County, TN
Knox County, TN, for example, encompassing the Knoxville area, implemented an urban growth boundary (UGB) in 1998. This was due to the state of Tennessee’s adoption of the Growth Policy Act. Among other things, the Act requires that all Tennessee municipalities and counties collaborate in defining urban growth boundaries with the onset of a growing urban population. Like the case in Portland, OR, the urban growth area (UGA) of Knoxville is designed not only to be reasonably compact, but also adequate to accommodate the city’s expected growth for the next 20 years. Unlike Portland, however, Knoxville does not provide public facilities and subsides to encourage development. In addition, the UGB of Knoxville was drawn in response not only to
concerns over growth management, but also to the fallout from local annexation battles. The UGBs of Knoxville allow these annexed areas to be included.
In a 2008 study, researchers in the Knoxville area used econometric means for analyzing the effect that the UGB had on housing prices within and just outside of the Knox County boundaries (Cho, Chen, & Yen, 2008). The findings of this study show that the values of newly developed houses after the implementation of a UGB are likely to be higher within the urban growth area than those outside, all else equal. More people were developing units just on the inside of the boundary however, still garnering access to pubic infrastructure. This may reflect residents’ stronger preferences for urban-fringe communities with greater natural amenities over the convenience of ease of access to work. Overall, the results of the Knox County UGB and housing prices investigation are very similar to what has been found to date regarding Portland’s UGB.
Growth Management in Shanghai, China
In a slightly different case study of growth management in Shanghai, China we see somewhat different results and reasoning behind the strategies found there. Obviously Shanghai is a much more heavily populated (with 14.35 million people as compared to Portland’s 609,500), much more dense (2059/km^2 as compared to Portland’s measly 129/km^2), and much more culturally collectivist area than many American cities, especially Portland, Oregon so it is hard to compare the effect of growth management strategies in these two strikingly different locales, though I think that it proves to produce some interesting results.
A recent study in Shanghai shows that as much as 60% of the rural workforce in Shanghai is migrating to urban areas for work, leaving farmland vacant (Yishao Shi & Shuangyan Li, 2007). Some argue that this is a waste of resources, so the governments of villages and towns are encouraged to transfer farmland use rights to farming families. This could possibly be due to their more collectivist culture, as well as their affinity for communism. What is also interesting from this case is that most growth in Shanghai is in outlying districts: In 2003, only 6% of the developed land area in Shanghai was within the inner loop line of development plans; the area between the middle loop line and the inner loop line accounted for 9%; between the outer loop line and middle loop line accounted for 16%; and beyond the outer loop line accounted for 69%. This shows that there was already a significant amount of sprawl past the outer limits of the city, even 13 years ago. A wish to continue to develop the region has caused many issues as the land tends to be developed without regard for the public welfare, and undue emphasis is placed on the business aspect of real estate.
In order to combat this the government of Shanghai is pushing forward the joint development of industrialization and urbanization simultaneously by moving more people out to the suburbs and intensifying farm production by giving land to fewer people. With all said and done, Shanghai’s development plan has taken the trajectory of forming a multi-center metropolitan area. This plan is much different than those of many cities in the United States as American cities tend to adopt a model of one large city center with smaller townships surrounding the area. Again, it is hard to compare the two locales of Shanghai and Portland but also important in understanding how some growth management systems work outside the United States.
American Green Belts- an Alternative to the UGB
What is also important to consider is how different types of growth management plans are carried out in the United States. One such strategy is the use of green belts to create a natural buffer to urban sprawl. In the implementation of green belts urban areas buy out land from landowners or have land donated to them that is put under a term of conservation easement for only farming use, forestry, or open space uses. This strategy preserves the land in this way in perpetuity unless a court decision is made to change the zoning of the land, thought this is a very rare occurrence. The goals of green belts are to providing recreation, protect agricultural land, protect air and water
quality, separate urban areas, and contain urban sprawl. The first example of a green belt in America was the 440-hectare network of public parks, known as the Emerald Necklace around Boston in 1878. Another early pioneer of green belts was Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago featured a huge public park system extending from the city to the region. Since the early 1900’s many other metropolitan areas have come to adopt green belts, including Baltimore County, MD; Boulder County, CO; Fayette County, KY; Lancaster County, PA; Marin County, CA; and Sonoma County, CA, which were all the focus of the present study (Daniels, 2010).
Agricultural zoning established the foundation for the green belt strategy in these six counties and all six counties examined have aggressive programs to purchase development rights to farmland. In the aggregate, these counties have preserved more than 110, 000 hectares, about 7% of the nearly 1.6 million hectares of agricultural land preserved in total in the US. Lancaster and Sonoma counties have pursued the purchase of development rights to farmland next to urban growth boundaries. This strategy seeks to make parts of growth boundaries permanent, blocking the future
extension of urban services and urban development. The green belt programs appear to have helped most the agricultural industries in Fayette, Lancaster, and Sonoma counties where agriculture is one of, if not the most important industry, generating over $100 million a year in revenue.
It is acknowledged by the authors that a green belt that acts as a growth boundary could restrict the
supply of buildable land and force up housing prices. This is much the same as what is happening in Portland, though without the green belt and instead with an administrative line of the urban growth boundary. The study found that in Boulder, housing was 48% less affordable than for the nation as a whole and in Marin and Sonoma, housing was three times as unaffordable as housing
nationwide. Lancaster and Fayette Counties were the only areas studied where housing was more affordable than the US average. These results, though varied, suggest that green belts can restrict developable land supply and push up housing prices, again the same as findings in Portland.
Comparative Studies in Summation
Overall we see that no matter what type of growth management strategy is adopted or in what location, all plans have their benefits and their detriments. There is no perfect plan to future development, no one solution to urban sprawl, but rather many different strategies that will come to affect an area differently depending on the amount and quality of farmland, projected population growth, and economic incentives for zoning outer city boundaries in certain ways. Growth management is a tricky business with no one solution and much potential backlash. However, I do believe that by creating some plan for future developement, whatever the plan may be, is much better than just allowing market forces to act as they will for these plans, is nothing else, do tend to preserve natural areas and maintain air and water quality more than if they had not been put in place.
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