Oregon Plans: The Making of an Unquiet Land Use Revolution

Oregon Plans provides a rich, detailed, and nuanced analysis of the origins and early evolution of Oregon’s nationally renowned land use planning program. Drawing primarily on archival sources, Sy Adler describes the passage of key state laws that set the program into motion by establishing the agency charged with implementing those laws, adopting the land-use planning goals that are the heart of the Oregon system, and monitoring and enforcing the implementation of those goals through a unique citizen organization. Oregon Plans documents the consequential choices and compromises that were made in the 1970s to control growth and preserve Oregon’s quality of life. Environmental activists, farmers, industry groups, local governments, and state officials all played significant roles. Adler brings these actors–among them governors Tom McCall and Robert Straub, business leaders John Gray and Glenn Jackson, 1000 Friends of Oregon, and the Oregon Home Builders Association–to life. Adler’s story is about unusual conditions, purposeful action, dynamic personalities, and the messiness of democratic and bureaucratic processes. His conclusions reveal much about how Oregonians defined liveability in the late twentieth century. –William L. Lang, from the Preface
A volume in the Culture and Environment in the West series. Series editor: William L. Lang