UGB: WTF?

If there is any topic on which I lack familiarity but need understanding, it’s the Urban Growth Boundary. It’s an aspect of life in the Metro region that, frankly, could determine if Portland and the surrounding tri-county area will grow as an area aimed as humanity and livability or as an area meant to provide profits for developers and a small number of business owners. It is that important.

And it’s up for grabs.

Metro’s chief operating officer, Michael Jordan, told the Metro Council on Tuesday that the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) as it is delineated today will continue to work for the next 20 years, even with a million more people expected to move into the Portland area. As the Oregonian’s Eric Mortenson asked, how:

How? Through redevelopment of old buildings and once-polluted industrial sites. By infill and increased density within existing city centers. By building up, not out. With a tight hold on the urban growth boundary and less reliance on cars. With smarter spending on the pipes, streets, wires and other public facilities that make life go.

In fact, said Jordan, we’re not even using the land resources we already have:

Making a case that a tight growth boundary will work, Jordan said the area has added 20,000 acres to the UGB in recent years with little development to show for it, primarily because providing sewer, water and other infrastructure is too expensive. During the past 10 years, nearly 95 percent of housing has been built inside the original growth boundary established in 1979, he said.

Anyone who gets around the Metro region knows anecdotally that what Jordan is arguing is likely true. The amount of unused, run-down, “wasted” space is tremendous. There is plenty of space for those businesses who claim a need to grow “out” — area for shipping and storage facilities — especially, I’m sure, as such areas become vacant with the demise of older businesses.

Developers, of course, want more land added. They’ve already pushed Washington County to recommend a huge increase in the UGB, but, then, Wash Co never seems to tire of spreading itself out regardless of whether what’s being built is livable or not. The thinking on the west side seems to be, if you can get a truck or car there — eventually — it must be livable.

I find it hideous. I find 82nd Avenue hideous as well, not to mention NE Columbia, the Clackamas Town Center area and all the rest of the region that has bowed down to the automobile at the expense of human livability. Being able to slog from point A to point B in a car — eventually — does not create a livable community. It creates the ability to transport meat sacks via metal container.

Like a tuna packing plant.

But you can guess how many people who live in or near the UGB are going to care about all this. Do I have a job? Can i get to where I need to go — eventually? Will I have cable and internet access? Ok, check — check — check. What’s the problem, dude?

The problem, of course, is livability, and being able to get home in time to watch American Idol does not equate to have a livable community. The more people we add to the region, whether we build up or out, the more difficult it will be to maintain even a meager livability. Science fiction writers have been speculating on such things for decades, creating all manner of dreary, dystopian visions based on precisely the kinds of problems Metro is addressing. Harry Harrison’s "Make Room! Make Room!" is typical — the title says it all, and most people know of the movie version: “Soylent Green”. That may be the extreme end of what we’re facing, but it’s the slippery slope that bad decisions can lead to.

Metro will designate what areas will be urban reserves, land set aside for development, and what will be rural reserves, literally the area that will enclose where we live and work, in the summer of 2010. That’s time to learn what’s going on and work for a humane future, a livable future. For too long, Americans have allowed the developers and corporations to make those defining decisions. The result is sprawl, destruction of natural areas, the loss of family farms, jobs shipped offshore and an economy that profits a few while most people slide towards obsolescence.

Yes, it really is that extreme and grim.

I plan to learn and do what I can. There are local organizations already hard at work on this; obviously, much can happen by joining forces with them. I know there are members of Metro and city and county councils who want to hold the line. Against that, of course, are those for whom livability means little more than a chance to extract maximum profit. They will lie, obfuscate, bribe, deceive, threaten, sue and use every trick in the book, not to mention others too grotesque to write down, in order to get their way.

A perfect time for Metro-area progressives to step up and say, “No more”.

Do I have any specific recommendations? Yes: pay the fuck attention. Learn. I’m guessing a googly search on “urban growth boundary” will yield a few items. Learn about cities like Houston, which has virtually no limits on growth and development; in the area that city has sprawled, you could pack another 2 or 3 Houstons. If you’ve ever been to Houston, or Atlanta, or much of Los Angeles, you’ll see what we need to avoid. “Packing people in” may sound bad, but packing your ass into an automobile for the rest of your life is inviting?

Do you want to live in a community that is full of roads, cars and requires you to spend 20% of your life just getting fro place to place? Or would you prefer to spend that time doing things you enjoy, in a way that makes you happy? That’s what this is about: quality of life.

And whether or not we remain the developers’ bitches.