Copied from the website of Alternatives to Growth Oregon:
Oregon's Population Growth: Its Causes and Cures
by
Andy Kerr
President, Alternatives to Growth Oregon
In 1998, Governor John Kitzhaber said:
"If I had the power, I'd turn off the spigot and keep Oregon as it is
today."
Amen.
A recent debate on expanding the Portland Metro Urban Growth Boundary
was a debate on how, not whether, to grow - in both population and land
area.
The choice was reduced to two options: sprawl like Los Angeles or
densify like Los Angeles. (Yes, LA is more densely populated than
Portland.) The course chosen by Metro was to do both. The option of not
growing - or even slowing growth - was not considered.
Ironically, surveys reveal that overpopulation is the greatest fear of
Oregonians. Approximately 62% believe the state's growth is undesirable.
When Metro asked citizens a few years ago whether they wanted to
grow-out or grow-up, most volunteered that they preferred neither. This
advice was rejected out-of-hand.
Growth is a race one loses the faster one runs.
A quarter century ago, Governor Tom McCall was worried about growth. He
led the state to adopt a critically acclaimed land use planning program.
McCall apparently hoped that planning could adequately mitigate the
impacts of growth.
He said in 1973:
"Sagebrush subdivisions, coastal condomania, and the ravenous rampage of
suburbia in the Willamette Valley all threaten to mock Oregon's status
as the environmental model for the nation."
Tom - wherever you are - we have those sagebrush subdivisions, coastal
condomania and the ravenous rampage of suburbia. But I do have to say,
they are well planned. Rather than sprawl dotting the landscape like
poxes, the sprawl is spreading like gangrene across the land.
Planning alone - in the face of population increase - cannot keep Oregon
Oregon.
Oregonians should not be misled into believing that planning is all we
must - or can - do to maintain livability.
Oregon is on its way to becoming a better-planned California; the
Willamette Valley another Puget Sound, and Portland a Los Angeles with
light rail (maybe).
Metro says:
We can all see the effects of rapid growth on our highways, housing,
shopping and open spaces. But growth doesn't have to just happen.
(Metro) provides planning services .... so that we can maintain our
livability while planning for the next 50 years of growth.
"(M)aintain our livability" and "50 years of growth"? Pick one and call
me back.
"But growth doesn't have to just happen," says Metro. Alternatives to
Growth Oregon says: "But growth just doesn't have to happen."
The assumption is of another 500,000 people - about the present
population of Portland - moving to the Metro area in the next 20 years.
Where do we put the next 500,000? And the next half-million after that?
In the Willamette Valley, the projection is another 1 million people by
2040. That's the equivalent of two Portlands, or eight Salems or
Eugenes, or twenty Corvallises.
A 3% growth rate doubles our population in a generation.
A 1% growth rate doubles our population in a lifetime.
Like an adult human, Oregon has matured; any further growth is either
fat or cancer.
"'Smart growth' is an oxymoron," said my favorite billionaire Ted
Turner. "'Less-stupid Growth' would be a better name," he said.
Ted does have six children. In response to a reporter's question he said
he had all his children by the age of 30, he didn't know any better, and
"once they were here, I couldn't shoot them."
We could book our favorite fishing hole or mountain top through
Ticketmaster, but is that the Oregon we want to live in?
The planning establishment is telling us that Oregon is doing a better
job than anyone else. The fact that Portland today or tomorrow is, or
will be, more livable than Newark, Los Angeles, Dallas, Mexico City or
Calcutta is of little comfort. I am only interested in an Oregon that is
at least as
good to live in in 2040 as it is today.
The only smart growth is no growth.
Remember the words of Isaiah 5:8:
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field till
there be no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the
Earth.
THE COSTS OF POPULATION GROWTH IN OREGON
What are the costs of population growth in Oregon?
Excessive population and consumption is a global problem and a local
problem. In the past century, the world population tripled while the use
of energy and raw materials grew more than ten times. Materials use in
the US has grown 18-fold over the same period, with the average American
using at least 222 pounds of material every day. Sustaining the whole
world at this level of resource use "would require the land area of
three Earths" says WorldWatch Institute.
Population is increasing in the Pacific Northwest at twice the national
rate and 50% more than global rates.
Even though Portland's population has increased 50% since 1970 - the
passage of the Clean Air Act - the city's view of Mount Hood is the best
in a generation. Two decades ago city haze was so bad the mountain could
be seen only 35% of the time on clear days. Now it is visible more than
twice as often. The reason is technological improvements of factories,
wood stoves and automobiles. But technology has its limits. Planners
estimate that air quality will peak between 2001-2010 as population
increase overwhelms the technological gains.
(Speaking of Mount Hood, the current Forest Service effort to limit the
use of the Mount Hood Wilderness to protect legally required solitude,
is but another manifestation of excessive population.)
In the Portland metropolitan area, where one-half of the state's
population lives, most residents drink unfiltered water from the
relatively pristine Bull Run Watershed. Relatively little chlorine is
needed to treat the water.
Population growth is propelling plans to drink from a watershed where
70% of the state's residents live and excrete. 93% of all Willamette
River fish have dioxin in their tissues. The intake for this new
filtration plant would be downstream from a stretch of the river where
up to 74% of the
squawfish have skeletal deformities - including 3-eyed fish. The only
reason to drink from the Willamette is that the region has "outgrown"
the Bull Run Watershed.
Planners have estimated that to maintain the existing "quality of
traffic" and to accommodate the next 20 years of population increase in
the Portland area, $13.5 billion would have to be spend on roads and
other transportation. They estimate that perhaps $3.5 billion could be
found, but only if the voters approve a 25¢ per gallon increase in the
gas tax. Even under these projections, what is intolerable traffic today
will be commonplace tomorrow. If you wanted to fully maintain existing
quality of traffic, we'd have to raise the gas tax 96¢ per gallon and
build lots of freeways. 24-hour traffic reports, even on weekends.
As population grows, urban growth boundaries are expanded to always have
a 20-year supply of developable land. Any person can see that at some
point - in our lifetimes- where all the urban growth boundaries in the
Willamette Valley touch either each other or public forestlands. Urban
growth boundaries are more accurately called urban growth bungies.
Despite the promises of developers and their chorus - chambers of
commerce, most government officials, much of the media, etc. - the
significant and rapid population increase of the last two decades has
not lowered taxes. In fact, it has raised them as the cost of providing
services to new indofficials, much of the media, etc. - the significant
and
As the Governor's Task Force on Growth noted, growth exacerbates
government revenue problems, it does not relieve them.
The City of Portland used to pick up the leaves three times each fall,
but now only once. City worker salaries haven't tripled nor has leaf
production dropped by two-thirds. The money has been diverted to
subsidize growth. Popular government services - such as libraries - are
increasingly funded through voter-approved serial levies and bond
measures. Politicians know the voters will approve such measures, but
wouldn't approve of their tax moneys going to subsidize new industry and
new residents.
It would be cheaper for local government to buy up all the undeveloped
land within their borders to prevent - rather than subsidize - its
development.
Eben Fodor, a planner from Eugene has authored a new book: Better, Not
Bigger. In it, he has identified these factors which are detrimentally
affected by growth:
• air pollution,
• water pollution,
• noise pollution,
• lost mobility,
• lost fish and wildlife habitat,
• higher cost of housing,
• higher cost of living,
• more crime, less safety; and,
• loss of community.
I would add to these the loss of democracy and freedom. As there are
more of us, each vote is worth less. As there are more of us, we are
closer together, and therefore need more rules and regulations to
maintain a civil society.
THE CAUSES OF POPULATION GROWTH IN OREGON
What are the causes of population growth in Oregon?
Alan Durning and Christopher Crowther, in their book Misplaced Blame:
The Real Roots of Population Growth, identified five root causes.
The first three are causes of so-called "natural increase": births
exceeding deaths. One-third of Oregon's population growth is due to
natural increase.
The first factor is child poverty. Youth poverty is the single largest
cause of high birthrates in North America. Outside of its poorest
groups, Oregon does not have a high birthrate. The middle and upper
class are at replacement levels. The poor do not seek pregnancy but are
less aggressive in preventing it. They accept it when it happens because
they don't see other options as available to them. Options such as
college, career, etc. Parenting is one of the few, and one of the more
rewarding, options potentially available to them.
The second root cause of population growth in the Northwest is sexual
abuse. Victims of child sexual abuse often feel that having a child will
help them heal from the violation they have suffered. A child having a
child can also be a ticket out of an abusive home.
The third root cause of population growth is inadequate family services.
Ten percent of the babies born in the Northwest are unwanted at
conception. They are accidents at a time when the mother wanted no more
children.
Two thirds of Oregon's population increase is due to migration.
The fourth factor identified in Misplaced Blame is subsidies to domestic
migration.
Eben Fodor, in his report, "The Cost of Growth in Oregon," found that
each new house costs the taxpayers at least $33,000 in infrastructure
costs that are not paid by either the developer or the new house owner.
What does he mean by "infrastructure?":
• schools,
• sewers,
• storm drainage,
• transportation system,
• water,
• parks and recreation,
• fire,
• library,
• police,
• open space,
• general government services,
• electric power generation and distribution,
• natural gas distribution; and
• solid waste.
For every three new houses you see, you don't see a firefighter, police
officer, school teacher, or librarian.
In the name of jobs, taxpayers also subsidize corporations.
These jobs attract new residents - most new Oregonians move here without
having a job - which demand new houses, which receive tax subsidies.
The highest amount and rate of unemployment in Alaska was at the same
time it had the highest amount of employment: that boom of all booms -
construction of the oil pipeline.
Fodor identified five ways that citizens and taxpayers are affected by
these subsidies to growth:
1. Increased taxes,
2. increased financial debt (usually as municipal bonds),
3. infrastructure debt (falling behind on needed facilities to
accommodate growth),
4. facility maintenance debt (diverting maintenance funds to accommodate
new growth), and,
5. reduction in public services (shorter library hours).
Yes, we Oregonians are paying to foul our own nest.
The fifth and final factor is misguided immigration laws.
Twelve percent of Pacific Northwest immigration is from other nations.
70% of US immigrants come to California. Los Angeles is an
immigrant-magnet city; Portland, Bend, Corvallis, Eugene, Salem, Ashland
and Medford are all native-magnet cities.
Canada and the US ,with 1/20th of the world's population, are home to
one-fifth of the world's living international immigrants.
Up to 70% of the US population increase in the next 50 years is
projected to come from immigrants and their offspring.
US immigrants can be divided into three major categories:
• family reunifications,
• employment visas, and
• political refugees.
Family reunifications is the reason for nearly three-fifths of US
immigration. Under recent changes in US law, not only are spouses and
minor children eligible for reunification, but so are the adult siblings
of immigrant spouses.
The second category, about one-sixth of immigration, is employment
visas. This includes highly skilled workers such as doctors and
engineers and the lowly skilled such as farm workers. NAFTA and GATT are
exporting US manufacturing to the cheap labor. You can't move farmland,
so the cheap labor comes here.
The final one-sixth of US immigration is political refugees.
The United States ought to always be open to political refugees. But we
should equally ensure that US government policies and the actions of our
corporations are not causing people in other nations to become refugees.
Can we afford such a liberal policy of extended family reunifications?
This pool of potential immigrants grows exponentially.
Can the source countries afford it? Immigration to the US results in
brain drain from the developing world. Three-quarters of foreign medical
students who come to the US to study, stay for good, doing a great
disservice to their home countries. These immigrants are the potential
leaders that ought to be leading either reform movements or revolutions
in their native countries.
Allowing workers into this nation corrodes the prospects of both our
poor and middle-class, further diminishing the value of their labor.
Illegal immigration is one-fourth of all immigration and must be
stopped. But we should spend equivalent resources on Europeans who fly
in and overstay their tourist visas as we are for Latinos who walk or
swim in without visas.
Immigration is a very divisive and sensitive issue that nonetheless must
be discussed. To those who support generous immigration, I ask you this:
Why are you on the same side as Microsoft and the other huge computer
corporations, and of Archer Daniels Midland and the rest of the
agri-business lobby? How can you support a policy that helps ensure that
our existing poor will never be adequately valued for their labor?
To those who oppose immigration because of racist and/or xenophobic
reasons, I say to you: Go to hell. The issue is immigration, NOT
immigrants.
I come to my support of immigration reform from an ecological
carrying-capacity perspective. Be it a house, a block, a city, a
watershed, a state, a bioregion, a nation, a continent or a planet; all
have a carrying capacity.
Is the Problem Population or Consumption?
Some argue that the absolute level of population is out of control and
must be limited. Other argue that the real issue is consumption,
especially in the United States. They note that in a lifetime a person
from an overdeveloped nation consumes 40-50 times the resources than a
person from
an underdeveloped nation.
The American consumes way too much and the Bangladeshi not enough. The
issue is partly - but not entirely - a matter of equity. If resource
consumption and resultant pollution continue to rise, it won't make
enough difference that population is stabilized. Similarly, if recycling
doubles,
nothing is gained if population also doubles.
The problem is not population or consumption. It is both.
STABILIZING AND THEN REDUCING POPULATION GROWTH IN OREGON
A member of the Governor's Task Force on Growth, a developer from
Ashland, said he didn't see any problem with another two million people
in Oregon or "however many God wants to send us."
Lord knows we have enough people in Oregon now.
Since even the most rapacious Oregon developers say they don't want
Oregon to become another California, the question arises: Then when do
we stop growing?
The question is not "how many people can we tolerate to stuff in our
state," but rather "what is Oregon's optimal population?"
Will growth stop only when the quality of life in Oregon is perceived to
be no better than elsewhere?
To answer what's best - what is an optimal population for Oregon? - we
need to have a statewide conversation where we decide on the kind of
Oregon we want.
How clean do we want our water and air?
How crowded do we want our classrooms and roads?
Do we want enough salmon to eat? Do we want salmon just hanging on? Do
we want salmon at all?
Do we all want to ride the bus and live in apartment buildings?
After we answer these and similar questions, it is a simple matter for
the planners to develop models which tell us how many Oregonians we can
have and still have what we decide is a necessary and desirable quality
of life.
After plugging our assumptions and desires in the model, what will we
find?
That Oregon's present population of 3.2 million people is optimal? If
so, we need to stop growing so it doesn't become suboptimal.
Or that we've overshot Oregon's optimal population? If so, we need to
figure out how to return to a sustainable level as soon as possible.
Personally, I think we have overshot. Demographers and other scientists
have estimated that if we want everyone on Earth to have a Western
European/North American/Japanese standard of living - and assuming
easily obtainable efficiency improvements in energy and materials use,
leaving
room for nature and living off solar income - this Earth can support
about 2 billion people in the long run. We have six, going on ten
billion.
Astronomers are looking for other planets like Earth, but they haven't
found one yet, let alone three more. And if they do, maybe they are
already full. Maybe those inhabitants are looking for our planet for the
very same reason.
Interpolating for Oregon, this means, about one million people, not
three million. We had one million in my parents' lifetime. If everyone
who wants children limits themselves no more than two, Oregon could be
at one million in another lifetime. No one has to leave early to achieve
a sustainable population.
Am I right? Who knows? Let's discuss it. We're not evening asking - let
alone answering - this vital question.
Let us recognize and embrace limits now that are optimal; not wait to
have limits imposed because we have no other choice.
China is increasing food production by turning graveyards and parks into
farms. The reason the Chinese practice Chinese-style birth control is
that they didn't act earlier.
NO LINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSUMPTION & HAPPINESS
"Grow or die" is the battle cry of both developers and of cancer cells.
At some point growth will stop. Why not stop it now, before it's too
late?
Most estimates project the global population leveling off at 10 billion.
When population levels off, what happens to the growth economy then? And
what happened to our environment and elbow room?
What kind of an economy do we have that depends upon an ever-growing
population and rate of consumption?
Since 1970 the average house being built has increased to 2100 square
feet from 1600 square feet. At the same time, occupancy of the average
house has dropped 16% to 2.6 members. Between 1970 and 1990, housing
increased at twice the rate of population increases. Divorce is a
factor, as is second, third and fourth homes.
Materially, Americans are four times richer than their grandparents. Are
we four times happier? The practice of thrift by grandparents has died
out. The adage of "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" has
been replaced with "Buy it up, toss it out, buy some more, don't do
without."
Do you want more stuff or do you want more time? The average American is
working 160 hours more each year - four 40-hour weeks - than we did 25
years ago.
A result of global mass media is that we are no longer trying to keep up
with the Jones' next door, but with the Gates'.
Sen. Avel Gordly recently asked "At what point do we question the whole
notion of creating wealth for the sake of having dollars and give that
more value than creating community?"
The Gross Domestic Product is going up. How good is that? The GDP is
merely a summing of financial transactions. Hurricanes, AIDS, and war
all increase the GDP. (They also create jobs.) The GDP has more than
doubled since 1950.
Robert F. Kennedy, speaking in 1968 said:
We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a
mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of
worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones
Average, nor national achievement by the gross national product. For the
gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for
cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of the carnage. It
counts special locks for our doors, and jails for our people who break
them. The gross national product includes the destruction of the
redwoods, and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production
of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads.... It includes Whitman's
rifle and Speck's knife, and the broadcasting of television programs
which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.
And if the gross national product includes all of this, there is much
that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our
families, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It is
indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our
streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the
strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the
integrity of public officials.... The gross national product measures
neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning,
neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures
everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile; and it
can tell us everything about America-except whether we are proud to be
Americans.
The Genuine Progress Indicator-the "GPI" - which assigns costs to such
things as crime, family breakdown, underemployment, and the loss of
species and farmland - reveals that GPI increased from 1950 to 1970 and
has had a steady decline since then.
A Growth Free Future
What would a growth-free future look like?
If population growth ended in Oregon, a whole set of problems would just
not happen:
• Drinking water out of the Willamette River,
• Declining air quality,
• Sprawl, and,
• Traffic gridlock.
If population growth ended in Oregon, another whole set of problems
would be solvable:
• Rebuilding our cities to favor people more than automobiles,
• Repairing our economic infrastructure,
• Restoring our natural infrastructure, and,
• Making our economy energy and materials efficient.
If population growth ended in Oregon a final set of problems would be
reduced. If we got off the growth machine:
• we'd have the resources to directly address poverty and child abuse,
• we could all work less,
• we'd all have more time for ourselves (Prozac and cocaine consumption
would decline),
• we'd all have more time for our families (the problem of latch key
kids goes away), and,
• we'd all have more time for our communities (volunteering to help).
A 10-STEP ACTION PROGRAM
Here are 10 things that we could to do to improve both the quality of
our own lives, those of our family and of that of the community.
1. Identify that unsustainable portion of our economy dependent on
growth and convert it to sustainable pursuits. We can transform
developers of farmland and open space into redevelopers of downtowns and
ghettos.
2. Change tax policies to favor small families. Society should pick up
most of the costs for the first child by generous assistance and/or tax
credits. The costs of the second child should be equally shared between
the state and parents. Parents should pay the full societal cost for
additional children. The difference between a population explosion and a
stable population is a third child.
3. Directly address poverty in this state. Since Social Security and
Medicare for the elderly were implemented, senior poverty has declined
two-thirds. People at the beginning of their lives deserve help as much
as at the end of their lives.
4. Make Oregon government growth-neutral. Let's quit subsidizing
developers and new homeowners. One-third of the savings should go to
lower taxes, one third to restoring lost government services and one
third to new socially desirable investments. Spend the saved money on
making Oregon better, not bigger.
5. Reform the tax system. Let's quit taxing "goods" like savings and
income and start taxing "bads" such as excessive consumption and
pollution.
6. Internalize those externalities. Let's be economic and force those
who cause costs to bear those costs, rather than society or the
environment. By doing so, a lot of problems would self-correct.
7. Determine Oregon's optimal population. Let's urge the Governor to
appoint a blue-ribbon panel to address the question of Oregon's optimal
population.
8. Reduce the work week. Let's share the good jobs and the bounties of
increased productivity. The minimum wage should also be raised to a
living wage.
9. Limit immigration to the United States to be equal to that of
emigration. About 100,000 people leave the US each year. That's enough
to take care of political refugees, especially if we also change US
government foreign and corporate policies that create these refugees.
It's also enough for immediate family reunifications.
10. Make every pregnancy a wanted pregnancy. Access to birth control of
all kinds is vital to control our population.
ALTERNATIVES TO GROWTH OREGON
A few Oregonians are making quite a killing on growth, more are making a
living on growth, while most Oregonians are paying for growth that is
killing the Oregon we love.
Alternatives to Growth Oregon supports economic progress based on
appropriate technological improvement, increased realization of human
potentials, and energy and materials efficiency. It opposes economic
growth that depends on increased population and/or consumption. Making
our economy more productive and efficient is desirable - as is the
creation of meaningful work for all. Making it more consumptive is not.
The motto of Alternatives to Growth Oregon is Better, Not Bigger. If
anyone would like to learn more about us, we're on the web at
AGOregon.org or give us a call. We're listed in Portland information.
CONCLUSION
Do I have all the answers? Of course not. I have some ideas and so do
you. To come up with the right answers, we first have to ask the right
questions. So far, we've been afraid to ask ourselves questions like:
"What is Oregon's optimal population?" "Is growth inevitable?
Twenty-five years and 57 million fewer Americans and one million fewer
Oregonians ago, a Nixon commission on population noted:
There would be no benefits to a growing population, that the health of
our economy does not depend upon it, that the life of the average
citizen is not enhanced by it, that democratic representation is diluted
by it and that most of our serious problems would be easier to solve if
we stopped growing.
Governor Kitzhaber, in your second term and with your mandate, if you
exercise statesmanship, you might just find that you do have the power
to turn off the spigot.
Any good cause is a lost cause if we don't stabilize population at
sustainable levels.
While we must plan for growth, let us also have - as our first choice -
a plan not to grow.
The only thing more radical than not growing is growing.
Thank you.
Given:
Washington County Public Affairs Forum, January 1999
Clackamas Rotary, February 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Bend), April 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Eugene), April 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Corvallis), April 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Ashland), April 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Florence), April 1999
Alternatives to Growth Workshop (Salem), May 1999
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