It’s official. Not only is Portland the most depressed major urban area in the U.S. (measured using such criteria as sales of anti-depressants), Oregon is the unhappiest state (measured using more conventional criteria such as unemployment and foreclosure rates). Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 are Florida, California, Nevada, and Rhode Island, all states with smart-growth laws (or, in the case of Nevada, federal limits on urban expansion).
Meanwhile, the happiest states are Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Hawaii, and Louisiana. All but Hawaii have no smart growth laws. How did Hawaii rank so high despite having the nation’s oldest growth-management law? A flip answer is that it would be hard to live in Hawaii and be unhappy, but it seems the real answer is that Hawaii has the lowest “non-mortgage debt as a percent of annual income.” Perhaps this is simply because there are a lot of rich people in Hawaii.
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Michigan and Ohio are pretty unhappy, but that can be credited to the decline in the auto industry. These lists really aren’t very meaningful, but the underlying data are. They show a pretty strong correlation between smart growth and foreclosure rates, and a moderately high correlation between smart growth and unemployment.
Main Street: Just as the U.S. economy evolves, so too will the MainStreet.com Happiness Index. Although Oregon currently falls at the bottom of our list, the state is well positioned for a boost in the future due to its potential for an influx of green jobs.
The opposite case can be made for Nebraska, which could fall from the top of the list with time. Its economy relies heavily on corn production, which is subsidized by the government to create corn ethanol – an alternative energy source. But the future of corn ethanol is uncertain. Many believe that it’s no longer a big part of the solution to our climate change or foreign oil problems. That could be bad for Nebraska and ultimately make it a less happy place to live.
THM influx of green jobs.
JK: Do you really expect those min wage green jobs which replace family wage jobs that are being driven out by Oregon’s nutty policies to help Oregon?
Thanks
JK
BS, BS, BS…
You cannot measure happiness. At least not by the criteria that the “reports” you site use. As for,
“They show a pretty strong correlation between smart growth and foreclosure rates, and a moderately high correlation between smart growth and unemployment,”
I think the correlation has to do with development conditions that lend themselves to local governments and voters to adopt smart growth policies, but those conditions are also responsible for the foreclosures. Smart growth did NOT cause the foreclosures and unemployment in these states.
They show a pretty strong correlation between smart growth and foreclosure rates, and a moderately high correlation between smart growth and unemployment.
Shorter Randal:
I hope if I spread my long-ago refuted bullsh– enough times, people will forget my bullsh– was refuted long ago and the bullsh– will become true!!!!!
DS
Looking at the other states, I see zero correlation between “smart growth” states and happiness. New York, Virginia, Wisconsin and Maryland are up there. I might mention, you and Wendell lump the word smart growth without going into detail of the various regulations that states have.
I would hardly consider Las Vegas as “smart growth”. Yes, there’s BLM land surrounding the city, but the city itself has too much supply of housing on the market (not a shortage of), which would not account for the massive real estate explosion they just had.
Regarding Portland’s UGB, by state law it has to supply 20 years worth of land within its limits. Land is controlled, but housing stock is not. Yours and Wendell’s “analysis” of smart growth falls incredibly short and it just lumps state’s policies together and makes broad-based conclusions.
What’s next, blaming Smart Growth for AIDS and cancer?
Blaming Smart Growth and other land use restrictions for the housing bust is a reasonable but somewhat incomplete position to take. I would say those restrictions exacerbated the problem by driving up costs and creating a harder fall when the bubble burst.
Portland like all cities in the state must keep a twenty year inventory of land but the problem is how they count up the available acreage. Small individual parcels, dividable parcels, and isolated parcels are all used in the inventory even though the actual development potential of that land is close to zero. They do the same thing with commercial and industrial land. Those twenty year inventories are overstated by a long shot. The best proof of constricted supply is to look at the price of land.
With Smart Growth states suffering the most from the housing decline I would expect any sort of happiness index to be down. Throw in the self loathing attitudes of liberals and you have a complete circle of correlation. Oregonians feel crappy because we are polluting the planet, our cities are sprawling, our jobs are leaving, and our politicians say it’s our fault for not paying them enough taxes. What do have left to feel good about?
I think if you asked any Oregonian if they would be happier in Nebraska, you would get a resounding “no”. Nebraska, and so called “red states” would be in more financial troubles if those crazy liberal states like California, Washington, Illinois, New York, and Oregon weren’t propping up their state’s budgets with pet projects and pork barrel spending produced from federal taxes (generated by economic activity of those states)
California, New York, and Illinois overwhelmingly subsidize the “happiest states” on the list. What’s not to be happy about getting free money?
StevePlunk said: Blaming Smart Growth and other land use restrictions for the housing bust is a reasonable but somewhat incomplete position to take. I would say those restrictions exacerbated the problem by driving up costs and creating a harder fall when the bubble burst.
Portland like all cities in the state must keep a twenty year inventory of land but the problem is how they count up the available acreage. Small individual parcels, dividable parcels, and isolated parcels are all used in the inventory even though the actual development potential of that land is close to zero. They do the same thing with commercial and industrial land. Those twenty year inventories are overstated by a long shot. The best proof of constricted supply is to look at the price of land.
Henry David Thoreau: Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. All Walden Wood might have been preserved for our park forever, with Walden in its midst. [HDT 1859]
With Smart Growth states suffering the most from the housing decline I would expect any sort of happiness index to be down. Throw in the self loathing attitudes of liberals and you have a complete circle of correlation.
Strawman much? Can’t you do better than make sh– up to have an argument?
DS
What ‘smart growth’ in Hawaii?
Don’t know what Mr. Antiplanner is talking about with that one.
We have a natural growth boundary for each island, the Pacific Ocean.
California, New York, and Illinois overwhelmingly subsidize the “happiest states†on the list. What’s not to be happy about getting free money?
Well, who’s fault is that? Who is for big government, high taxes and wealth redistribution? Don’t blame the recepients if your state is shoveling money toward the Washington clearinghouse.
Lorianne:Well, who’s fault is that? Who is for big government, high taxes and wealth redistribution? Don’t blame the recepients if your state is shoveling money toward the Washington clearinghouse.
ws: Who’s to blame are the “fiscally responsible” politicians who have no problem saying one thing, but don’t blink an eye regarding getting earmarks for their respective states.
I just find it troubling how these states can get so much, but produce so little in terms of GDP. Yes, big Gov is partly to blame, but paradoxically the anti-subsidy states don’t realize just how subsidized they really are.
Hey, as long as ‘big government’ types are willing to keep sending boatloads of money to the Washington Clearinghouse, there will be no shortage of pigs with their heads so deep in the trough all you can see is their curly little pink tails!
After Congress members get theirs of course.
Keep sending in those tax monies!
Where I live in Portland, there is no sadness, only high aggravation