American Dream

The Supreme Court's Kelo decision found that cities did not have to consider neighborhoods to be blighted to condemn them and give the land to private developers. They only had to have a "plan" that would produce net benefits for the community.

However, some states and cities still have obsolete laws on the books requiring that neighborhoods be blighted before eminent domain could be used to take the land. So when developers wanted to redevelop a neighborhood in Norwood Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the developers commissioned a study to prove the neighborhood was deteriorating.

The study found -- no surprise -- that it was deteriorating. Why? Because it had "faulty street arrangements," namely cul de sacs. Also, it has small front yards, businesses close to homes (mixed use is a sign of deterioration?), and "diversity of ownership," which would make it harder for the developer to get the land without eminent domain.

The developer wants to build offices, condos, chain stores, and a parking garage. I wonder how long it will be before someone decides these are deteriorating and wants to condemn them for urban revitalization?

In an effort to "revitalize" downtown, the Fort Lauderdale City Commission has approved a plan to bring in 3,000 new units of housing -- but requires that 450 of them be "affordable."

Back in 1990, all housing in Fort Lauderdale was affordable. But then the city and Broward County approved a "growth-management plan" that was required by the 1985 Florida Growth Management Act. Since then, housing prices have shot through the roof -- something that Fort Lauderdale has in common with most other Florida cities. Before 1995, Florida housing was no more expensive than housing in Houston. Today housing prices are 50 to 100 percent more than those in Houston.

All thanks to urban planners.

Ten years ago, Metro -- Portland's regional planning dictator -- convinced voters to spend $136 million out of property taxes to buy more than 8,000 acres of "parks and greenspaces." Some of the voters felt cheated when they found out that 80 to 90 percent of the money went to buy wildlife habitat outside of the urban-growth boundary and very little went to increase park lands in or near existing neighborhoods. The wildlife habitat for the most part is not open to the public and its real goal is to act as a greenbelt to prevent urban sprawl.

Now Metro wants to do it again, only this time it wants $220 million to buy just 5,000 acres. Again, most of the acres will be outside the urban-growth boundary. If the growth boundary prevents those acres from being developed, why buy them? Possibly because the boundary will eventually be expanded to include these lands. But from the landowners' view, the action is a cheat as well. By leaving these lands outside the boundary, Metro has greatly devalued them. Now it wants to buy them at the devalued price. Sounds like extortion to me.

I moved out of Portland so I would not have to pay higher taxes for stupid ideas like these. But I hope Portland-area voters have learned their lesson this time.

USA Today published a sprawl index that finds that Portland is sprawling more than Los Angeles despite its urban-growth boundary. The boundary, says the newspaper, has simply forced people to move to communities outside the boundary, such as Vancouver, Washington and Salem, Oregon.

This is almost certainly true, yet USA Today's sprawl index is meaningless. The paper claims that it is "density rank plus change in density rank." But it is no such thing. Instead, it is "percentage of metro area population that is in urbanized area rank plus change in that percentage rank." Density never enters into the index.

A "metropolitan area" consists of a city, its suburbs, and all of the counties in which they are located, urbanized or not. The percentage of a metro area that is urbanized is arbitrary depending on the size of that area's counties. Los Angeles ranks as "non-sprawling" not because it is dense but because the non-urbanized parts of the region are mostly federal and so have no people in them. A state with small counties is likely to rank less sprawling on the index than a state with big counties.

Beyond this, the USA Today article accepts all the tired old cliches about "sprawl bad, density good." Obviously the reporters have not read Robert Bruegmann's new book, Sprawl: A Compact History, which shows that the problems of sprawl are overblown and the remedies are more dangerous than the supposed disease.

The Molalla Christian Church wanted to build on ten acres outside of Molalla, a small town about 30 miles southeast of Portland. Since it was outside of the city's urban-growth boundary, the county initially denied it a permit. But Dave Hunnicutt, the director of Oregonians in Action (which promoted the measure 37 ballot measure), took the case and argued that this was discrimination made illegal by the federal Religious Land Use Act of 2000.

Hunnicutt pointed out that zoning for the area would allow a community center and football field. "If we're talking about God, we can't (build on the site),: he said. "If we're talking about football, we can." Hunnicutt helped the church appeal the decision to Oregon's Land Use Board of Appeals, won the appeal, and then convinced two of the three county commissioners to approve the permit.

It may not be over. 1000 Friends of Oregon may decide to appeal the permit to the Land Use Board of Appeals. And there are still other churches in Oregon that have not been able to operate, build, or expand because of land-use rules. Stay tuned for further developments. And, hey, if a church can build, why can't I?

Long before Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer invented what is now called the "supercenter," giant stores selling both groceries and variety, back in the 1940s. But he died back in 1978 and Fred Meyer Stores are now a part of Kroger. The company has about two dozen supercenters in Portland and has long supported Metro planners who wanted to prohibit any more big-box stores in the region. They have effectively prevented Wal-Mart from opening any supercenters in competition with Fred Meyer in the Portland area, although there is one in Vancouver, Washington, and one in Woodburn, Oregon, about 30 miles south of Portland.

But now Fred Meyer wants to build a 181,000-square-foot supercenter in Beaverton and, guess what, the planners say "no." The area is designated a "town center," meaning no store bigger than 50,000 square feet. Besides, the people who live on the hillsides above the site don't want to have to look at a 181,000-square-foot roof.

The developer had actually proposed to build two different stores of 90,000 square feet and let Fred Meyer run half of its shops out of each of them. But one of the planners knows some arithmetic and figured out that 90,000 is bigger than 50,000. The developer is still hoping to get around the 50,000-square-foot limit and will propose to plant some flowers on the roofs of the buildings to keep the people on the hillside happy. He will also use "varied building materials and relief in the building face so that it's not a plain wall." Of course, all this means Fred Meyer will have to charge its customers a little more, but if Beaverton wanted economy, it would let Wal-Mart in.

Portland planners rezoned a neighborhood in southeast Portland to much higher densities. Now, what do you know, they are getting "poorly designed infill housing."

Planners had hoped for town centers, main streets, high levels of transit usage, and all sorts of other New Urban fantasies. They aren't getting any of that. But developers are tearing down 1950s-era homes and clearcutting hundreds of mature trees so they can build apartments.

I remember when the plan for this neighborhood was written. Portland planners targeted the neighborhood for 10,000 more residents. The neighborhood association fought the city to a compromise: 1,000 new residents. The ordinance was passed and then the planners went to the neighborhood apologetically and admitted they had "accidentally" submitted the original ordinance, not the compromise, to the city council. Fix it, the neighborhood said. "We can't," said the planners. "If we did, we would be effectively downzoning land and we would have to compensate all the property owners." This was well before measure 37 and planners downzoned all the time without worrying about compensation. It was just a ruse to meet the density targets set by Metro, the region's regional planning dictator.

The New York Times says that developers say they need eminent domain to do the downtown revitalizations that major cities have come to expect. Revitalizations such as Baltimore's Inner Harbor were done with eminent domain and developers say they would not have been possible without at least the threat of eminent domain.

In other words, if you can't use eminent domain to take people's property, you will get urban sprawl because developers will only place large developments where they can get large parcels from voluntary sellers, and that means near the urban fringe. No wonder the American Planning Association supports the Supreme Court's Kelo decision.

A developer is renovating two buildings in downtown Salem, Oregon's state capital. The refinished buildings will have stores downstairs and four to eight loft apartments upstairs. The Salem city council is so appreciative of the developer for helping to revitalize downtown that it publicly thanked him for investing in the area. But he said no thanks were necessary, as he has a long waiting list of people who want to live in his loft apartments.

Actually, the city thanked him in advance by giving him $1.4 million in low-interest loans and at least $200,000 in outright grants for the projects. The developer himself is putting in less than $200,000 in one of the buildings. The story does not say how much he is investing in the other building, but since it is twice as big it is probably no more than $400,000.

No doubt when the buildings open we will see stories such as this one about how everyone wants to move back to the cities with no mention of how those who moved back were heavily subsidized to do so. Nor will the stories mention that "everyone" is really a tiny minority of Americans. In fact, as Wendell Cox observes in this recent study, of the 53 metro areas with more than 1 million people, the cores of 43 lost population while their suburbs continued to grow. That hardly indicates an inner-city revival.

Portland is supposed to be all about transit, walking, and cycling instead of driving. But what happens when cycling conflicts with buses?

The last time I went cycling in Portland, I found myself on narrow streets (thank you traffic calmers) with wide buses (thank you federal incentives to buy overly large buses) that barely fit on those streets and therefore could not pass me. The bus drivers' responses were to honk at me. What was I supposed to do? Cycle on the sidewalk? That's dangerous too, not to mention illegal.

Randy Albright, who is described as "a well-known bicycle activist," has this problem too. When a bus almost hit him, and they met again at a red light, Albright did what I probably would have done: pulled out in front of the bus to let the driver know he was there so he would not hit him when the light turned green.

The driver responded by opening the bus door (which itself was a rule violation because it was not a bus stop) and letting a passenger off who proceeds to toss Albright and his bicycle out of the way. A downloadable video shows the entire incident, finishing with the man getting off the bus, grabbing Albright's bike, punching him, and shoving him onto the sidewalk.

This all happened two years ago, and now Albright is suing the transit agency. So much for Portland's bicycle-friendly reputation.

P.S.: Here is some response to the story in the Oregonian. I guess I am in the minority for sympathizing with the cyclist -- not even all cyclists agree with me.