Urban Growth Boundaries: Effective or Worthless?
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Date: 2022-05-17
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Comments and reviews: 9
Millie
As a person who grew up in suburbs I would say it's more complicated. It seems that this only protects farmland but not wildlife which in theory would father out the boundary.
However say it's complicated bc when I grew up watching a rural area woodland turnout suburbia I watched a lot of wildlife die in the creation of suburb and high density building.
However I also saw how wildlife adapts after it's at first devastating but nature finds away the problem be comes people don't want to adapt to wildlife. We actually plant a lot of things wildlife enjoys so there's a lot they enjoy eating. Most animals live by woods but not deep into it. If people let go of their perfect lawn/garden ideals animals can adapt. So if you a yard instead of planting whatever you plant or non evasive species. Plant for wildlife the foods they like. Deer to give an example will eat almost anything. Our family old house is a bit run down after all these years it's nestled right next to the woods.
High density isn't the best to protect wildlife in my opinion at least right next to like that. Actually I would divide into grove spots. People who have lawns can leave mostly natural. And in-between which home would be the grove spot. I place wildlife and can find refuge. Most will come into the yards to eat but return their groves for rest, to nest. High density won't be a good idea in these areas. As they are disrupted. In other words suburbs would work as conservators in these areas. Now the suburbs would not look like they do now. For instance fence yards would be a lot smaller to all freedom of movement of wild life. If it's possible for your home to be a duplex this is fine.
Granted I agree that urban sprawl needs to be less. And I'm not saying I'm completely against high-density especially in some areas where they have no boundaries between woodlands and wildlife areas.
By the way if forge goes to the perfect lawn plant foods deer love they basically keep wild grasses and weeds from growing too high. They aren't much different from cows and goats then they graze.
Of course though forget about planting food for yourself unless you plant where they can't get to them like the roof, balcony or inside your house. RIP tomatoes plants
reply
As a person who grew up in suburbs I would say it's more complicated. It seems that this only protects farmland but not wildlife which in theory would father out the boundary.
However say it's complicated bc when I grew up watching a rural area woodland turnout suburbia I watched a lot of wildlife die in the creation of suburb and high density building.
However I also saw how wildlife adapts after it's at first devastating but nature finds away the problem be comes people don't want to adapt to wildlife. We actually plant a lot of things wildlife enjoys so there's a lot they enjoy eating. Most animals live by woods but not deep into it. If people let go of their perfect lawn/garden ideals animals can adapt. So if you a yard instead of planting whatever you plant or non evasive species. Plant for wildlife the foods they like. Deer to give an example will eat almost anything. Our family old house is a bit run down after all these years it's nestled right next to the woods.
High density isn't the best to protect wildlife in my opinion at least right next to like that. Actually I would divide into grove spots. People who have lawns can leave mostly natural. And in-between which home would be the grove spot. I place wildlife and can find refuge. Most will come into the yards to eat but return their groves for rest, to nest. High density won't be a good idea in these areas. As they are disrupted. In other words suburbs would work as conservators in these areas. Now the suburbs would not look like they do now. For instance fence yards would be a lot smaller to all freedom of movement of wild life. If it's possible for your home to be a duplex this is fine.
Granted I agree that urban sprawl needs to be less. And I'm not saying I'm completely against high-density especially in some areas where they have no boundaries between woodlands and wildlife areas.
By the way if forge goes to the perfect lawn plant foods deer love they basically keep wild grasses and weeds from growing too high. They aren't much different from cows and goats then they graze.
Of course though forget about planting food for yourself unless you plant where they can't get to them like the roof, balcony or inside your house. RIP tomatoes plants
reply
John
Cities sprawled because governments stopped building transit (and actually removed transit in a lot of cases. So peoples' only transportation option became the car, which resulted in lower density development. Then they used the property tax revenue from the new neighbourhoods to pay for the infrastructure maintenance of the older neighbourhoods. Eventually the municipalities ran out of new land to develop inside their boundaries, which meant that they would soon start running out of money to maintain their aging infrastructure. What they needed was a way to force people to redevelop the existing urban fabric with higher density without them having to build things such as train networks and bike paths which would attract high density organically.
All UGBs are is a lazy way for politicians to solve a revenue problem. But no one would vote for we mismanaged zoning and property taxes for 70 years and the alternative is that we need to raise your property taxes. So instead they say it's about sustainability to save the environment. If they really cared about sustainability these metro areas would have much better public transit. The vast majority of people in Portland, Ottawa and Toronto still drive everywhere, despite the increased density. Meanwhile, the housing prices have sky-rocketed due to the artificial scarcity, so people have to take out mountains of debt just to afford a place to live. Not very sustainable if you ask me.
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Cities sprawled because governments stopped building transit (and actually removed transit in a lot of cases. So peoples' only transportation option became the car, which resulted in lower density development. Then they used the property tax revenue from the new neighbourhoods to pay for the infrastructure maintenance of the older neighbourhoods. Eventually the municipalities ran out of new land to develop inside their boundaries, which meant that they would soon start running out of money to maintain their aging infrastructure. What they needed was a way to force people to redevelop the existing urban fabric with higher density without them having to build things such as train networks and bike paths which would attract high density organically.
All UGBs are is a lazy way for politicians to solve a revenue problem. But no one would vote for we mismanaged zoning and property taxes for 70 years and the alternative is that we need to raise your property taxes. So instead they say it's about sustainability to save the environment. If they really cared about sustainability these metro areas would have much better public transit. The vast majority of people in Portland, Ottawa and Toronto still drive everywhere, despite the increased density. Meanwhile, the housing prices have sky-rocketed due to the artificial scarcity, so people have to take out mountains of debt just to afford a place to live. Not very sustainable if you ask me.
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Chris
I grew up on the Oregon coast and I am only 39, so I didn t live in the state before the advent of the UGB. I know that it was wildly unpopular in small towns, which were already suffering from the loss of the timber and commercial fishing industries. People in rural Oregon felt neglected by Portland and Salem. Moreover, there was an overwhelming sense that the population center in the Willamette Valley was actively strangling the south coast with regulations. Even worse, once the industry had died out, (relatively) wealthy Portlanders and Californians started retiring on the south coast, or worse, just bought vacation homes there. This put the cost of living even more out of reach for middle class or working poor locals. On top of that, rural Oregon didn t see any of the benefits of urbanization, like a slick light rail train, hip breweries, or well-paying jobs.
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I grew up on the Oregon coast and I am only 39, so I didn t live in the state before the advent of the UGB. I know that it was wildly unpopular in small towns, which were already suffering from the loss of the timber and commercial fishing industries. People in rural Oregon felt neglected by Portland and Salem. Moreover, there was an overwhelming sense that the population center in the Willamette Valley was actively strangling the south coast with regulations. Even worse, once the industry had died out, (relatively) wealthy Portlanders and Californians started retiring on the south coast, or worse, just bought vacation homes there. This put the cost of living even more out of reach for middle class or working poor locals. On top of that, rural Oregon didn t see any of the benefits of urbanization, like a slick light rail train, hip breweries, or well-paying jobs.
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Palpatine001
My home town of Auckland (New Zealand) has what is called the Rural Urban Boundary set in both our Auckland Spatial Plan, and the Unitary (Land Use) Plan - effectively your Urban Growth Boundary. The RUB dictates the maximum limits the City can grow to over the next 50 years with Rural preserved on the other side of the side. It can also dictate Greenbelts between the main urban area and a Satellite centre like where I reside at the moment. Is it effective? So far it is proving to be at 80% of all new consents are for intensification rather than sprawl. However, the full verdict wont be in for 50 years. Meantime I have given a few via Cities Skylines tutorials and overviews of growth boundaries and what can theoretically happen.
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My home town of Auckland (New Zealand) has what is called the Rural Urban Boundary set in both our Auckland Spatial Plan, and the Unitary (Land Use) Plan - effectively your Urban Growth Boundary. The RUB dictates the maximum limits the City can grow to over the next 50 years with Rural preserved on the other side of the side. It can also dictate Greenbelts between the main urban area and a Satellite centre like where I reside at the moment. Is it effective? So far it is proving to be at 80% of all new consents are for intensification rather than sprawl. However, the full verdict wont be in for 50 years. Meantime I have given a few via Cities Skylines tutorials and overviews of growth boundaries and what can theoretically happen.
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Colorme
One generally unstated objection to UGBs is that it looks a bit like typical political kicking of the can down the road (but what isn't. I've long maintained that there is a massive amount of unrealized affordable housing that can be unlocked by implementing a single federal law: Allowing owner-occupied single-family homes to offer garage apartments, mother-in-law suites, or casitas for rental no matter what outdated zoning ordinances and HOAs say about it. Making owner occupancy of the primary residential space a requirement should allay the most common objections. The rental spaces would have to be up to code. There's already a surplus of parking in most suburban neighborhoods. It's not a magic bullet, but it would help.
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One generally unstated objection to UGBs is that it looks a bit like typical political kicking of the can down the road (but what isn't. I've long maintained that there is a massive amount of unrealized affordable housing that can be unlocked by implementing a single federal law: Allowing owner-occupied single-family homes to offer garage apartments, mother-in-law suites, or casitas for rental no matter what outdated zoning ordinances and HOAs say about it. Making owner occupancy of the primary residential space a requirement should allay the most common objections. The rental spaces would have to be up to code. There's already a surplus of parking in most suburban neighborhoods. It's not a magic bullet, but it would help.
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symphwind
I live in TN and was surprised to learn that there are UGB requirements here. The suburban sprawl is absurd, with cities like Murfreesboro having large, booming populations living almost exclusively in single-family homes. Nashville does allow duplexes/two standalone houses on many low-intensity residential lots, predating the Portland and Minneapolis zoning changes, and this has increased infill/density in some neighborhoods. but the resulting units are hardly affordable. It is also notable that such duplexes sometimes decrease population density because the smaller, older houses they replaced had housed larger families while the new units are bought by young professional couples.
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I live in TN and was surprised to learn that there are UGB requirements here. The suburban sprawl is absurd, with cities like Murfreesboro having large, booming populations living almost exclusively in single-family homes. Nashville does allow duplexes/two standalone houses on many low-intensity residential lots, predating the Portland and Minneapolis zoning changes, and this has increased infill/density in some neighborhoods. but the resulting units are hardly affordable. It is also notable that such duplexes sometimes decrease population density because the smaller, older houses they replaced had housed larger families while the new units are bought by young professional couples.
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Mutantcy1992
I'm gonna say in some cases, they can be important. I'm from near Folsom, CA, a city which has been growing rapidly basically all of my lifetime.
But a quirky thing about it was that the one main freeway going through it divided nearly untouched land from the actual developed parts of the city.
A few years ago, I drove through and saw cookie cutter home developments on the other side. And it was really sad, because the beauty of having undeveloped land on one side and fully developed dland on the other was that you got the best of both worlds. You got to see the natural foothills and you got your homes and stores too.
Now that's ruined and my rant is over.
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I'm gonna say in some cases, they can be important. I'm from near Folsom, CA, a city which has been growing rapidly basically all of my lifetime.
But a quirky thing about it was that the one main freeway going through it divided nearly untouched land from the actual developed parts of the city.
A few years ago, I drove through and saw cookie cutter home developments on the other side. And it was really sad, because the beauty of having undeveloped land on one side and fully developed dland on the other was that you got the best of both worlds. You got to see the natural foothills and you got your homes and stores too.
Now that's ruined and my rant is over.
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Philip
I m from Australia and we have a limited legacy from Urban Growth Boundaries. Melbourne has one that is consistently amended. Sydney has legacy National Parks in the North, South and West. In Sydney sprawl tends to follow old agricultural areas and then Sydney has unusual ribbon developments through the road and rail corridors adjacent to National Parks. These are often the most desirable ex urban real estate but when you hear about devastating bushfires these communities are typically on the front line. Basically a planning mess with a small number of amazing private homes with amazing bushland and/or water views.
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I m from Australia and we have a limited legacy from Urban Growth Boundaries. Melbourne has one that is consistently amended. Sydney has legacy National Parks in the North, South and West. In Sydney sprawl tends to follow old agricultural areas and then Sydney has unusual ribbon developments through the road and rail corridors adjacent to National Parks. These are often the most desirable ex urban real estate but when you hear about devastating bushfires these communities are typically on the front line. Basically a planning mess with a small number of amazing private homes with amazing bushland and/or water views.
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Nicholas
I agree that we need to limit suburban development in urban areas, and I think we can do this without banning suburbs -- some people like having a plot of land that they largely control. There's a place for everything-- let's make single-family housing optional and not a requirement per zoning codes. With that price model, we'll naturally see denser housing next to city centers and more single-family as we go out, while leaving room for anomalies where people are willing and able to pay the full price of putting a single-family home on urban land.
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I agree that we need to limit suburban development in urban areas, and I think we can do this without banning suburbs -- some people like having a plot of land that they largely control. There's a place for everything-- let's make single-family housing optional and not a requirement per zoning codes. With that price model, we'll naturally see denser housing next to city centers and more single-family as we go out, while leaving room for anomalies where people are willing and able to pay the full price of putting a single-family home on urban land.
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