The Antiplanner

An Open Letter to Jack Bogdanski

8th November 2007

An Open Letter to Jack Bogdanski

posted in News commentary |

Dear Jack,

Well, Jack, you made your choice. I hope you will be happy with it.

For several years now, you have blogged incisively about Portland’s high-density mania, its weird transportation projects, and its corrupt political system — or, as I like to call them, the Three Big Cons: condos, congestion, and con artists swindling taxpayers out of their money.

For years, Metro planners have told you that you have a choice: grow up or grow out. Growing up means the Three Big Cons, because higher densities mean more condo towers, more traffic congestion, and more pork-barrel subsidies to rail transit and developers. Growing out would mean some relief from those cons.

Measure 37 might have provided some of that relief. After more than a decade of studying land-use planning all over the U.S. and Canada, I’ve learned how important competition is to the quality of municipal services. If developers can build on vacant land outside of cities, the cities will fall all over themselves to provide quality services to the public to keep them from leaving. But if the cities can get control of rural land uses, they eliminate that competition and then start acting for special interests, cutting essential services so as to fund expensive but pointless urban monuments such as rail systems and clusters of condo towers.

Measure 37 gave some homebuilders an opportunity to escape the stifling regulation found in Portland, Gresham, and other cities under Metro’s jurisdiction. While measure 37 was not going to solve all of Portland’s problems by itself, it was an essential first step.

I know a lot of people were bugged by a couple of billboards that someone put up after filing a measure 37 claim (and, as far as I know, those were practically the only things anywhere that have been built under measure 37). But measure 37 offered an alternative: pay the landowner not to put up the billboards. If the city didn’t want to do it, anyone else could. Just as the Oregon Water Trust pays farmers to leave in the streams for fish, an Oregon Scenic Trust could pay people to not build eyesores in particularly scenic areas.

But really, the issue wasn’t about a couple of billboards. The people who measure 37 really upset were those who benefit from the Three Cons: downtown property owners, infill developers, rail contractors, some hobby farmers who already have their rural homes, and in general everyone in Goldschmidt’s light-rail mafia. So they came up with measure 49, which all but repealed measure 37.

I knew measure 49 would pass when you endorsed it. You are exactly the kind of voter measure 37 appealed to: the angry urbanite pissed off about failed utopian land-use policies, transportation plans that spent three-fourths of the regions funds on 3 percent of the region’s travelers, and development subsidies to guys like Homer Williams and Joe Weston.

So measure 49 gave you a chance to vote on Metro’s proposition: grow up or grow out. And you, along with a majority of other Oregonians (curiously, but almost exactly the same margin that supported measure 37), voted for growing up — for the Three Big Cons.

Measure 37 was partly about property rights, the rights of the minority of Oregonians who own rural property downzoned by Oregon’s planning system. The Constitution is supposed to protect minorities by offering freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the freedom to own property without fear it will be take without compensation. If we treated any of the other freedoms the way we treat property rights — saying, for example, that you can print anything you want as long as the government censors no more than 90 percent of it or that you can worship in any of the 10 percent of churches approved by the government — there would be a revolt. But for some reason, the Supreme Court has decided that property rights don’t merit the same protection as other rights, and you and 61 percent of other Oregon voters apparently agree.

The American Planning Assocation promotes a book called The Land We Share. In a nation where 30 percent the land is owned by the government, you would think a book of this title was about public land. But no, it is about the other 70 percent, the land we used to call “private land.” According to this book — and, as a supporter of measure 49, you clearly agree — everyone has partial ownership of all private property, so everyone has a right to have a say in how all private landowners use their land.

That means that if “we” decide that rural landowners no longer have a right to do anything but grow food or trees on their land, so be it. And if “we” decide that urban homeowners no longer have a right to expect their neighborhood to remain single-family homes, then so be it. And, of course, the “we” who get to decide are not you or me but planners, elected officials like Sam the Tram Adams, and special interests like Homer and Joe.

As much as I’d like to think you were an idealist, I don’t expect you to have much sympathy for the Dorothy English‘s of the world, much less the Stimson Lumber companies. But how about the many Portland-area residents whose neighborhoods have been upzoned from single-family homes to apartments? How about the residents of any neighborhood within a quarter-mile of a light-rail station whose land has been rezoned for mixed-use developments? How about the people in neighborhoods who are suffering a transit-oriented crime wave thanks to density and light rail?

How bad would it have been to let measure 37 stand? According to a PSU database, all of the measure 37 claims to date add up to less than 1.3 percent of the state. It is likely that most of those claims would not have resulted in much development as many were in eastern Oregon or other remote parts of the state.

What if we went further and got rid of the urban-growth boundaries and let all landowners do what they want with their land? We can get a pretty good idea by looking at census data.

According to the 2000 census, just 1.1 percent of Oregon was urbanized — that is, in developments of 2,500 people or more. That pretty much agrees with LCDC, which says that all of the land in all of the urban-growth boundaries covers just 1.25 percent of the state. The census found that Oregon’s urban areas have an average population density of about 3,140 people per square mile. This compares with an average density in states that don’t have growth boundaries or other strict land-use regulation of about 2,000 people per square mile.

So imagine we never had any urban-growth boundaries and urban Oregonians sprawled out at 2,000 people per square mile. Then all the cities and towns and suburbs would cover about 1.4 percent of the state. That’s right, all of this fighting is over about a third of a percent of the land area of the state — which again suggests that most of the measure 37 claims would have resulted in minimal new development.

Someone is bound to say “but that third of a percent might all be prime farmland! We might pave over the Willamette Valley!” Nope. According to a pro-planning publication, under Oregon’s current planning rules, about 6.6 percent of the Willamette Valley will be developed by 2050. But if we got rid of all those rules, it would be 7.6 percent. All of those rules protect just 1 percent of the 7.5 million acres in the Willamette Valley. (You can see the arithmetic behind these numbers here.) Even in the unlikely event that all the measure 37 claims in the Willamette Valley — 295,000 acres — were fully urbanized, they amount to less than 4 percent of the valley.

Preserving a third of a percent of Oregon or 1 to 4 percent of the Willamette Valley means that Oregon homebuyers have to pay roughly twice what housing should cost. It means that Portlanders have lost all kinds of urban services in order to subsidize the high-density housing — services that might have saved a person’s life. It means that Portland is closing schools as it becomes a childless city because families with children are fleeing to places like the Couv where they can afford to buy a home with a yard (so much for “diversity”).

Is it really worth paying all those costs — not to mention trampling over people’s property rights — just to preserve a third of a percent of the state’s land? Or 1 or even 4 percent of the Willamette Valley? If you knew for certain that was the trade off, would you still have voted for measure 49?

Maybe you thought you could have it all: that Oregon could protect its rural areas from development without densifying its cities. Of course, we’d have to stop people from moving in. One way to do that would be to really drive up housing prices, like California or a few other places have done.

The only problem with that is the Couv, the relief valve that Portland can control only by limiting the crossings between Oregon and Washington. Unless Portland somehow persuades Vancouver to join Metro, Portland will have to continue subsidizing condo towers and other high-density developments, or risk losing even more new residents (and jobs) to the north side of the Columbia.

It’s time to get real. You can’t have it all. You have to make a choice. Metro gave you the choice: grow up with the Three Big Cons, or grow out and allow some (but not much) rural development. You made your choice when you voted on measure 49.

I wonder where your kids and their friends are going to live when they grow up. Will they be among the elite to afford one of Oregon’s scarce single-family homes? Will they enjoy living in a high-rise condo? Will they be renters all their lives? Or will they end up moving to Boise, Omaha, or some other more affordable city?

I don’t expect to change your mind. But the next time you criticize the PDC for subsidizing some condo tower, the next time you fret over a high-cost streetcar line, the next time you chortle over some inanity committed by Portland’s city council, I hope you feel a pang of guilt. Because you had a choice, and you chose density, congestion, and subsidies over freedom and property rights.

Let me know how that works for you.

Best wishes,

The Antiplanner

Update: Jack says he did not vote for measure 37 either. This just means he made his choice earlier than I thought.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under News commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 17 responses to “An Open Letter to Jack Bogdanski”

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  1. 1 On November 8th, 2007, Dan said:

    Property rights are granted by society, they aren’t something that was handed down from between clouds on stone tablets. And society says they like the the current protections on their property just fine, thank you, and no you can’t take them away. And Oregonians have had some time to think about it and said ‘no, thanks – give them back’.

    In fact, every state or place in this country (save AZ, where it rode on Kelo’s coattails) has roundly rejected this scheme, which takes away the three neighbors’ property rights in favor of the one’s.

    And while it would no doubt be good for the Starbucks franchisees in Omaha if lots of folks moved there, it would be counter to human nature, which is: people that can migrate move to warmer places, preferably with water nearby. That’s how it is, that’s why VanBC, SEA, PDX, SFO, SJC, SMF, SBA, LAX, LAS, PHX are so popular and flyover country is not.

    DS

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 5:51 am

  2. 2 On November 8th, 2007, davek said:

    Property rights are granted by society…

    Property rights are inherently attached to individuals as a condition of their existence. To believe otherwise is to defend slavery, the subjugation of women, and any other type of oppression sanctioned by the majority.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 8:03 am

  3. 3 On November 8th, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    Thank you, Dan, for articulating the view of many urban planners: “Property rights are granted by society” is the view presented in the book, The Land We Share. And thank you DaveK for articulating the view of many libertarians who believe in “natural rights”: “Property rights are inherently attached to individuals.”

    I don’t hold either view. But I do agree with Constitutional scholars such as Richard Epstein that the Constitution reserves property rights that are equal to other rights in the Constitution. While the Supreme Court, in a series of 5-4 decisions, does not always agree, as I say in my post, I think even DanS would protest if the U.S. decided to censor up to 90 percent of his speech.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 8:39 am

  4. 4 On November 8th, 2007, msetty said:

    Regardless of how much you may try to muddy the waters, Randal, property rights are indeed “granted by society.” They are granted by a human-written document, the U.S. Constitution, not from “on high.” The quasi-religious tone that surrounds Libertarian and other exhortations on this subject are increasingly tiresome, and moot anyway, since most people aren’t absolutists on the topic as amply demonstrated by Measure 49.

    I agree that property rights are as fundamental to this society as all the other rights granted by the U.S. Constitution, but I’m not going to get religious about it, like Southern slave owners did about their “property rights” in slaves! Fixing that particular delusion took a bloody Civil War and several constitutional amendments.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 10:51 am

  5. 5 On November 8th, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    MSetty,

    Interesting you brought up the Civil War argument. We could have bought the slaves and freed them (a solution advocated by, among others, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee). But the abolitionists made such a solution impossible (“why pay for something that shouldn’t be owned in the first place?”), leading to the civil war.

    Do you think blacks are better off today because we fought a civil war instead of buying the slaves and freeing them? If not, then who is better off other than some munitions companies?

    If you follow me so far, then why don’t you support a similar compensation solution to land issues today? Or are you advocating that we fight another civil war over those issues? Which is, in fact, what we are doing.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 11:31 am

  6. 6 On November 8th, 2007, Builder said:

    I always felt that the term “Planning Fascist” was overstated, but the things I am reading here makes me think that it is frighteningly accurate.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 11:44 am

  7. 7 On November 8th, 2007, StevePlunk said:

    I hesitate to make such a strong statement but just about everything Dan said was wrong. With due respect to Dan I just don’t know how else to say it.

    Our founding fathers elevated all of our basic rights above the whims of men (society) in order to protect them. To now say our rights (you must include all of them or none of them) are subject to grants by the majority rejects the very principals we were founded upon.

    Planning itself has become the mechanism for taking away one neighbors’ rights in favor of anothers’. The politically connected have been gaming that system for a good while.

    It’s not land use planning that keeps flyover country as it is. Dan said it himself, it’s warm weather with water nearby and the jobs that move them from there to here. Our land use laws don’t hold an attraction for many, especially once they get here.

    As for Jack Bog, the guy is smart but he isn’t anything close to fair minded or reasonable. Dialogue with such people is a waste of time.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

  8. 8 On November 8th, 2007, Dan said:

    I always felt that the term “Planning Fascist” was overstated, but the things I am reading here makes me think that it is frighteningly accurate.

    Reality = fascism. Can’t we do better than that? Don’t we have an answer to why the Private Property Rightists’ scheme isn’t getting play?

    Nonetheless, I had a power outage & lost my reply to #3. Generally, the Founding Fathers did not define ‘property rights’ nor did they define ‘just compensation’, as they knew in their wisdom that society would define these things, as stuff changes and evolves.

    For example, what has evolved is we no longer have air rights over our property. Nor do we have women as property. Nor do we allow lunch counter owners to refuse to serve African-Americans in their property.

    But fundamentally, folks like zoning. They like the fact that zoning protects their property rights. Taking away that protection is a non-starter.

    DS

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

  9. 9 On November 8th, 2007, Dan said:

    Planning itself has become the mechanism for taking away one neighbors’ rights in favor of anothers’.

    No.

    This is why the Private Property Rightists can’t get play.

    I wrote a lengthy column on this after I-933 was defeated (I worked on the framing in the campaign). It’s the exact opposite, as it is bleeding obvious that the rights of protection are taken away.

    Look. The general public likes the public good – get over it. They perceive (and rightfully so, look at these crazy-*ss development schemes being proposed in OR) that the Private Property Rightists are suborning the public good for private benefit. Witness the resounding defeats where these have come on the ballot and the 49 passage. These schemes are too extreme.

    And to assert To now say our rights (you must include all of them or none of them)
    are subject to grants by the majority rejects the very principals we were founded upon
     shows a lack of historical knowledge, as I’ve shown above.

    IOW: You’re not going to dump zoning where it exists any time soon.

    DS

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

  10. 10 On November 8th, 2007, Francis King said:

    On property rights –

    Property rights ARE handed down from on high.

    Exodus 20:15 – “Thou shalt not steal”.

    Of course, just because someone owns something, doesn’t mean that they can do what they like with it. If they own a stick, it’s their’s, but they do not have the right to hit someone with it.

    Slavery was a violation of the right to withdraw labour. Slavery was also a violation of other rights, such as the right to a family life (slave families were often split up when they were sold), and the right to redress under the law. Slave owners, naturally, made much of their property rights, but made little of the rights that THEY were breaching.

    Antiplanner is wrong about the plan to buy up slaves. It wouldn’t have worked. The southern states did not see themselves as would-be northeners, but with a small problem of slave ownership to resolve. They saw themselves as a better kind of person – whereas in the north, poor whites worked in menial tasks, in the south even the poorest white person was better than a black slave. As antique as that view seems to us today, that is how they saw it. Lee had strongly pro-Union leanings, and was offered a command in the new Union army, but decided to fight for his state, Virginia, which left the Union. A good book on the subject is the Pullitzer prize-winning ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’ – highly recommended. I picked up a copy whilst I was touring the civil war battlefields.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

  11. 11 On November 8th, 2007, StevePlunk said:

    Dan,

    The Founding Fathers thought enough of private property to protect the homes of citizens (3rd amendment), to protect privacy (4th amendment), to protect property with due process (5th amendment), to protect property from public use without just compensation (5th amendment), to protect property with jury trials (7th amendment), the 8th amendment protects private property from excess fines. I defend my understanding of history with those quick assertions.

    The Boston tea party was because of excess taxes being levied, certainly a defense of private property.

    The Declaration of Independence states a man’s right to pursue happiness or accumulate property and security from the government. It decries the King’s government and it’s officers who “eat out” the substance of the people. It complains of taxes and laws that diminish trade opportunities. These are issues of private property and the rights surrounding it.

    So it seems my knowledge of history is sound.

    The reason the general public likes the public good argument is they don’t pay for it directly. Whoo hoo! Imagine that, people like something they don’t have to pay for.

    The issue here isn’t dumping zoning but protecting those who are damaged by zoning. Since benefits are gained by some from zoning why shouldn’t those harmed be made whole?

    A more complete explanation of why planning does not take rights from some and give to others would be appreciated. Most who visit here see that injustice abundantly clearly.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

  12. 12 On November 8th, 2007, Dan said:

    A more complete explanation of why planning does not take rights from some and give to others would be appreciated. Most who visit here see that injustice abundantly clearly.

    No one says it doesn’t. But it’s more than just _rights_, it’s about _responsibilities_, and these Private Property Rightist schemes throw responsibility out the window, hence their resounding defeat across the country (so what does this mean, now that the PPR movement failed at the federal level and now at the state level?).

    But anyway, the few who feel aggrieved don’t outnumber the many who don’t want to lose their property rights, already in place and backed by reasonable expectation of protection. Nollan and Dolan plus Lucas helped define these ‘taking’ limits, as did Penna. Coal and others. BTW, Penna. Coal specifically took away a private landowner’s rights for the public good (note: mentioning this fact does not mean I endorse the USC decision).

    Again, the Founding Fathers did not define ‘property rights’ or ‘just compensation’, as these things change over time as societites change.

    If the above arguments are so compelling, then the public should find them compelling too, right? Right? No? Huh. Maybe it’s time to rethink the strategy, as this one isn’t working either. The feds don’t want it, the states don’t want it, and even the locals don’t want it. No one wants it. Change the strategy.

    DS

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 4:04 pm

  13. 13 On November 8th, 2007, msetty said:

    The reason the general public likes the public good argument is they don’t pay for it directly. Whoo hoo! Imagine that, people like something they don’t have to pay for.

    So who owns the sky? The energy from the sun? Who is entitled to put a meter on the oxygen we breathe? And if “someone” has the right to “collect” who gets the revenues?

    This absurd religious devotion and singling out of “property rights” as opposed to the entire bundle of rights granted by a collective organized by SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (in the case of the U.S., the framers of the U.S. Constitution) is quite perplexing. Being secure in your person–because you’re a human being, not because you “own” yourself”–is a much more fundamentally important starting point than “stuff,” per se. If they can scoop you off the street because, say, Bush declares you to be an “enemy combatant” without due process, then your “property rights” are probably the last thing you’d be worried about hidden away at some Navy or CIA jail, or “rendered” by your own private jet overseas to “allies” such as Pakistan or Egypt.

    There is no question that the U.S. Constitution gives more attention to property than other sources of fundamental rights, such as the French Declaration of Human Rights, but the fetishism and bizarre metaphysics surrounding “property rights” is often quite remarkable.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

  14. 14 On November 8th, 2007, zebster said:

    As for Jack Bog, the guy is smart but he isn’t anything close to fair minded or reasonable. Dialogue with such people is a waste of time.

    That nutshells it. He has banned me numerous times from his blog for disagreeing with him. Not for being rude or coarse or profane or obscene. Just the mere act of stating a different viewpoint. The guy is a Nazi when it comes to his own opinions. It’s a little bit unsettling that he has any dominion over students.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

  15. 15 On November 8th, 2007, StevePlunk said:

    Dan,

    I don’t see the PPR movement failing. This particular setback is just that, a setback. The public may yet find these arguments compelling. In southern Oregon measure 49 failed but was won statewide by the power of Willamette valley voters. The rural/urban split has an effect on may statewide issues.

    Msetty,

    I hardly see proponents of property rights as having a “religious devotion” but rather we seek common sense and fairness. To down zone a piece of property devaluing it to the owner while creating a windfall to someone else is simply unfair. We seek justice with reason and logic, there is no faith involved as most religions would require. “Bizarre metaphysics” is usually a refuge of leftist new age thinkers, not property rights advocates.

    This particular right is single out because our host of this site deals with the subject. In other online communities you will find discussions concerning our other civil rights. We unbundle these rights for ease of debate.

    I would argue it is just as important to protect a man’s “stuff” as his person for without his “stuff” a person cannot feed, house, clothe himself or his family. A corrupt government is just as likely to take a man’s property than imprison him. All of the rights are important.

    As far as who is a threat to our rights, I have contended for years it is your local city council, police department, or planning commission that will violate your rights before the federal government will. Many examples abound of such abuses while the legality of declaring enemy combatants (one case) and renditions (non-citizens) have been tested in the courts and have developed into what we have today.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

  16. 16 On November 8th, 2007, davek said:

    Property rights are a logical extension of self-ownership, and rely on no support from the supernatural.

    Self-ownership is one of three ways in which an individual may be owned. The second is collective ownership of every individual by every other individual. The third form is any variant of an individual or group owning another individual or group. This form ranges from slavery, murder, and absolute dictatorships to the modern world’s most liberal democracies.

    The second form of ownership fails because resources are scarce, and must be allocated by some means. The person or group who determines the allocation exercises the property right, and is the de facto owner. Thus the second form, mutual collective ownership, will always degenerate into the third form. The third form argues that ownership rights are determined by society. If society says one may own a slave, then one has that right. If society says one may own one’s spouse, then one has that right.

    This position is unsound because it fails to differentiate rights from consent. It argues that one has no right to self-ownership without the consent of society. If one society can use force to enslave another, the enslaved society is viewed as no longer having a right to self ownership. I have never read, seen, nor heard an argument for this position that recognizes that a right exists even when its holder is unable to exercise it. They all depend on defining rights as permission, and therefore fail entirely in arguing that an individual or group has a “right” to own another group or individual.

    This leaves self-ownership, the foundation property right from which all other property rights are derived. As everyone can see, there are no stone tablets or omnipotent authority involved. Its defence does not rely on misuse of language. Simple reason is sufficient.

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 9:20 pm

  17. 17 On November 8th, 2007, Dan said:

    The rural/urban split has an effect on may statewide issues.

    My op-ed mentioned above said we need to acknowledge these issues. I think the WA State Lege did a good job at trying to bridge the gap last 2 sessions. I also said if the rural folk hitched their wagon to anyone who continued these same loser tactics (see Mat-Su Borough) then they’d continue to lose & they’re better off changing tactics.

    The letters to the editor in reply ignored my suggestions for achieving some sort of compromise to gain a foothold, and instead suggested I was socialist or something, so I wonder about the ability to push the pea forward. Just a thought.

    DS

    posted on November 8th, 2007 at 9:26 pm

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