ENST490_finalpaper

Urban Containment Policies as Sustainability Tools in U.S. Cities

Rachael Shook and Ben Campbell

ENST 490: Senior Seminar in Environmental Studies

Shook and Campbell 2

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Defining the U.S City……………………………………………………………………………..6

Need for Sustainability within the U.S City………………………………………………...…...10

Likeliness to Adopt Sustainability………………………………………………………...……..13

Urban Containment Policies……………………………………………………………………..15

Is the UGB Sustainable in the U.S. City?......................................................................................18

Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………..…19

Case Study 1: Portland, Oregon………………………………………………………….………21

Case Study 2: Knoxville, Tennessee………………...…………………………………………...30

Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………..38

Conclusion: Sustainable Urban Planning and Climate Change………………………………….41

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...43


Introduction

City planning is an important sustainability tool for cities worldwide. Because

researchers expect the Earth’s population to triple between 2000 and 2050, and the majority of

this growth to occur in cities (Stolman, 2012), it is imperative that cities implement strategies to

plan for future population growth through urban sustainability. The UN World Commission on

Environment and Development defines sustainability as the ability to “create development that

meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet

their own needs” (United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).

Some of the least sustainable practices occur in the United States, including high rates of

suburbanization, personal automobile use, and low-density housing (Stolman, 2012), which lead

to high energy use and fossil fuel emissions. In fact, the United States’s energy use ranks second

globally only to China, whose population is three times that of the United States. However, many

cities in the United States are implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One

such strategy is the urban containment policy (UCP), in which policymakers, “directly limit the

physical size of communities, significantly affect the growth and location of population and

economic activities, and influence the urban spatial structure at the regional level” (Woo &

Guldmann, 2011, p. 3512). In this paper, we will analyze how one type of UCP, the urban

growth boundary (UGB) reinforces sustainable city patterns in the United States. We will argue

that the UGB fosters city development that is more economically, socially, and ecologically

sustainable.

Our primary reason for choosing U.S. cities over other global cities is the element of

variation. Because of the size and cultural heterogeneity within the United States, there is great

regional variation within U.S. cities, especially when divided by the four U.S. Census Regions:


the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. Yet, there are also common themes throughout U.S.

cities that supercede this variation. These include high rates of homeownership, long commutes

and home-workplace separation, low residential density, socioeconomic distinction between the

central city and the suburbs, (Jackson, 1985), political fragmentation, and residential racial

segregation (Meyer, 2015). Urban planners characterize U.S. cities by underbounded cities and

battles over the division of political districts (Morgan & Mareschel, 1999), leading to rapid

increases in rates of urban sprawl. Suburbia creates a wide range of problems: several scholars

have cited the removal of population, jobs, and services from the central city (Woo & Guldmann,

2011; Jackson, 1985; Bengston, Fletcher, & Nelson, 2004). A declining central business district

results in a decreased tax base within the central city, putting serious financial strain on the city

and providing fewer jobs for inner city residents, many of whom are poor. Sprawl is reinforced

by low gas taxes, new road construction, and zoning policies that favor low-density, residential

areas (Woo & Guldmann, 2011). Thus, suburban land uses tend to be unsustainable.

Additionally, some scholars project that the U.S. city is undergoing fundamental

demographic changes. Ehrenhalt’s (2008) theory of demographic inversion describes a city

model where affluent, predominantly white residents are moving to the urban core, while the

poor are displaced to the city periphery. Ehrenhalt calls this model the Postmodern City. The

shift toward this model in large U.S. cities like Chicago and Atlanta adds complexity to the

problem of suburbia. The combination of a demographic inversion with increased urban sprawl

has serious implications for city sustainability. Although suburbia is literally greener, the central

city tends to be more metaphorically green. In cities, higher density development leads to more

efficient energy use. Many cities are reliant on walking, biking, and public transportation. If

more people flock to cities, as the Postmodern Model suggests, the carbon footprint of


individuals tends to decrease. However, there also arise problems with space as room: as land is

depleted in the central city, crowding could become a serious issue. This among other issues are

up for consideration in the future of U.S. city planning and policy.

However, the prevalent pattern in the present day is suburbanization. As urban sprawl

expands and the central city shrinks, metropolitan areas must decide how to address population

growth, as open land is becoming more scarce. Several metropolitan areas are tightening urban

growth restrictions through Urban Containment Policies (UCPs), which take three main forms:

greenbelts, Urban Service Areas (USAs), and Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) (Bengston et

al., 2004). Cities such as Portland and Knoxville have adopted policies focused on containing

urban spaces through the use of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), which Woo & Guldmann

(2011), define as “a line drawn around a municipality, with areas beyond the boundary not

allowed or discouraged to have new developments” (p. 3513). These policies have significant

effects on the morphology of the city, creating distinct patterns of urban and rural land use types.

Jun (2004) suggests that UGBs, “promote compact and contiguous development patterns that can

be officially served by public services and to preserve or protect open space, agricultural land,

and environmentally sensitive areas” (p. 1333).

In this paper, we analyze the sustainability of urban growth boundaries in the U.S. city

through the analytic lens of the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and

environmental. First, we highlight the need for sustainability in U.S. cities, bringing in elements

of environmental justice and ethics, and explain why some cities are more sustainable than

others. Second, we outline the characteristics of the Urban Growth Boundary, and make the case

for its use as a sustainability tool. Second, we explain our methodological approach for our two

case studies, Portland, Oregon, and Knoxville, Tennessee, and explain why we chose this


particular method of research. Fourth, we examine our case studies using Geographic

Information Systems (GIS) to assist us with analyzing the cities’ UGB policies through the lens

of various land uses. Fifth, we will discuss the results from our case studies in light of our

sustainability characterization, analyzing similarities and differences between Portland and

Knoxville. We will conclude by making final remarks about city sustainability through the case

of global climate change.

Defining the U.S. City

Central to our analysis is the idea of not only the city, but also the U.S. city. Before one

can understand how our analysis represents the city, it is important to note that the “U.S city” is

not merely vernacular in nature. The attempt to avoid ethnocentrism is central to our phrasing.

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of ethnocentric is, “having or based on the idea

that your own group or culture is better or more important than others” (Merriam Webster,

2015). The use of the term “American” indicates that America itself belongs to people from the

United States, which ignores other North and South American cultures and nations. Thus, our

analysis will use the phrase “U.S city” to describe any city within the political boundaries of the

United States of America.

The Geographical and Political City

The difference between the geographical and political U.S. city is one of the most

significant phenomena in our analysis of the sustainability of the city. The central cleavage in the

distinction of these two forms is in the differences between de jure and de facto city boundaries.

De jure directly translates to ‘according to law’ and de facto translates to ‘in actuality’ Therefore,


the de jure U.S. city is that which is bounded by legal definition. In our analysis, this entails the

area contained within the political body, which is the city government in most cases. These areas

also have relatively high urbanness. a high population density, and a lots of built environment.

Subsequently, the de facto U.S, functional city includes suburbs and nearby communities

(Meyer, 2015).

Among the literature on the subject, the geographical city has close ties to what scholars

refer to as the metropolitan statistical area, or MSA. An MSA is defined as a region with a

relatively high population density at its core and with areas surrounding it that have close

economic ties (The White House, 2008). These areas are neither legally part of the city, nor

uniformly part of another political body. The areas outside of the political city are not necessarily

entire counties, towns, or any other political unit, but can be a composite of them. The White

House, classifies an MSA using four criteria. The territory must, 1) have at least one urbanized

area of 50,000 or more, 2) have adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic

integration, 3) have a core defined by commuting times, and 4) be defined in terms of whole

counties. However, our definition of the geographical city differs from the MSA because it is

limited to counties and census tracts that directly intersect and are outside of the political city. In

the case of Portland, OR, this includes portions of each of the 5 counties: Clackamas,

Washington, Yamhill, Columbia, and Multnomah. For Knoxville, TN, the entirety of Knox

County is considered the geographical city. Due to the limitations of our paper’s scope, the MSA

would be too large in scale to be used as a unit of analysis. In particular,the scope of the MSA

would not allow for emphasis on the differences of land use on either side of urban growth

boundaries. This furthers our justification for using the U.S. city: the complexity and variation


among political boundaries among states and localities serves as a useful comparison tool for

analyzing urban policies.

Characterization of the U.S City

The United States consists of thousands of cities, differing in size, history, culture, and

demography. Despite this variation, cities tend to follow certain patterns based on regional and

national influence, with some anomalies. In understanding these anomalies and trends, we apply

Meyer’s framework of the six social science themes for explaining U.S cities’ spatial patterns.

The first of these themes is sociology, which looks at the history of racial segregation. Racial

tensions have been prominent throughout U.S. history, and manifest themselves in interesting

and often unexpected ways, especially regionally. Take the South for example: de jure racial

segregation occurred well into the 1960’s, rooted in historical racism through the prevalence of

slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and white power groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. However, when

examining the top 50 most segregated U.S. cities, we see that both the Northeast and Midwest

have more racial segregation than the South and the West (Frey & Myers, 2000). The theory

behind this apparent anomaly is that the South utilizes class as a segregative measure, whereas

the Northeast and the Midwest use spatial distance. Additionally, Southern and Western cities

are newer than cities in the Northeast and Midwest, and many were founded after segregationist

policies were abolished. This brings us to the second social science theme, history. The

development of the U.S. city has occurred over a wide span of years, resulting in a wide range of

the way residents have understood and constructed cities across the United States with time and

place. Some of these factors include law, transportation, and infrastructure (Meyer, 2015).

Third, the anthropological tradition of individualism has been pervasive throughout U.S.

culture. U.S. home residents illustrate the tradition of individualism through habits such as high


rates of automobile and home ownership and low residential density (Jackson, 1985). According

to the Hofstede Individualism Index, which measures “the degree of interdependence a society

maintains among its members,” with higher scores signifying less interdependence, the United

States scores a 91 out of 100 (The Hofstede Centre, 2015). This is the highest individualism

score out of any country in the world. Fourth, the United States’ political institutions reinforce

political fragmentation, where smaller units have relatively high autonomy in comparison to the

authority of county or state governments. Fifth, the economics theme indicates that the United

States has lots of income inequality, despite it being a wealthy, first-world country. This

manifests in city patterns through the spatial concentration of the poor in low-income areas with

poor infrastructure and few government services. Lastly is geography, which suggests that the

United States has an anti-urban culture inherited from the English Anglo-Saxon dislike of

urbanness. This highlights phenomena such as long commuting times, single-family, detached

home distributions, and a preference for the suburbs over the central city (Meyer, 2015).

Need for Sustainability within the U.S. City

Sustainability

In order to understand the implications for sustainability in U.S. cities, we must first

establish a working definition of sustainability. The UN World Commission on Environment and

Development defines sustainability as “the ability to create development that meets the needs of

the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

(United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). This definition

focuses on weighting future consequences in our present policies and decisions. Applying this


definition of sustainability to cities, Mallach (2013) suggests that city sustainability depends on

“whether the city furthers democracy, diversity, and equity” (p. 141). Lorr (2012) states that key

aspects to a sustainable city, in addition to the sustainability of environmental resources, include

a functioning economy, social cohesion, and competitive workforce. According to Lorr, a

sustainable city is one with a comprehensive approach to sustainability including public

transportation access, efficient land and resource use, sustainable economies, and community

involvement. These definitions emphasize a multifaceted approach to sustainability regarding

three pillars: social, economic, and environmental. In these analyses, cities can only be

sustainable if they foster social, cultural, and economic well-being, and account for human

stresses onto the natural environment. Thus, land use planning must account for future needs and

account for the social and economic wellbeing of residents. This includes, but is not limited to,

economic diversification, land use stability, environmental justice concerns, transportation and

road access, and residential density.

Suburbanization

It is particularly important that the United States makes sustainability a priority in urban

development and policymaking, as U.S. cities are at particular risk to develop urban problems

that lead to negative social, economic, and environmental outcomes. U.S. cities tend to be

underbounded, meaning that “there are additional, immediately adjacent, densely built-up areas

outside the administrative boundary, such areas may be called suburbs”(United Nations

Population Division, 1974, p. 9). When population growth occurs in underbounded cities, it tends

to occur in urban “overspill” areas outside the political city. Thus, population growth in the

political city is not reflective of population in a geographical city. As a result, U.S. urban areas

are characterized by urban sprawl, or “low-density, noncontiguous, automobile dependent,


residential and nonresidential development that consumes relatively large amounts of farmland

and natural areas” (Bengston, Fletcher, & Nelson, 2004, p. 271).

Suburbanization can lead to various spatial patterns that have negative consequences for

sustainability. U.S. cities tend to exhibit high rates of single-family, detached homes. Although

these serve as a symbol of the “American dream,” they are highly unsustainable. These types of

homes tend to be energy inefficient, generating large amounts of energy on indoor heating and

cooling and outdoor lawn maintenance. They also have a history of being socially unjust. U.S.

suburbs have traditionally been created by affluent, white people to separate themselves from the

political city and gain more political power over their neighborhoods. This has led to

exclusionary zoning practices that have removed specific industries and ethnic groups from the

suburbs, reinforcing attitudes of NIMBYism (Not in My Backyard). The suburbs have a history

of zoning practices that have excluded low income and minority residents. They have also

historically been hubs for “white flight,” taking jobs away from the central political city and

moving them to the city periphery. This results in spatial mismatch, where jobs and economic

growth are spatially separated from low income and minority residents who need these jobs.

Lastly, U.S. cities are highly automobile dependent. This is especially the case for newer cities in

the South and West, which were created during the automobile age. This dependence leads to

higher fossil fuel emissions and greater rates of cancer and asthma. Highways and other vehicle

infrastructure can also disrupt habitats and biodiversity (Jackson, 1985).

Ethics and Sustainability

The need for sustainable development is not limited to the United States; it is shared by

all urbanized parts of the globe. Sustainability becomes increasingly complex when determining

how countries bear the moral responsibility of global problems. “A major expansion of


investment in modern, clean, and efficient infrastructure will be essential to attaining the growth

and sustainable development objectives that the world is setting for itself” (Bhattacharya, 2015).

Thus, “the seemingly global concerns of sustainable urban development must be addressed at

different scales” (Stoltman, 2012). However, one could argue that the United States, as a global

entity, has a particular ethical responsibility to develop sustainably. Fahlquist (2009) suggests

that despite the common perception that individuals bear the moral responsibility for

environmental problems, institutions have the greatest responsibility to act on environmental

crises. This is because institutions can either present or prevent reasonable alternatives to

environmentally unsustainable behavior. Thus, by reinforcing “green” behavior through city

planning, the United States can use sustainable patterns as a means to curb emissions at

institutional and individual scales.

One problem that hinders sustainable development in the United States is the question of

government scale. It is much easier for localities and states to enact sustainable urban policies

than it is for Congress to pass nationwide, top-down policies. As there is vast regional variation

within the United States, this makes sense: policies in the Northeast would not necessarily work

in the Pacific Northwest, because city patterns and urban problems are very different in these

regions. Yet, localities and states, especially poorer ones, are often reliant on federal funding for

sustainable development projects, such as public transit and green buildings, and many cities

lack the proper infrastructure on which to build a sustainable city. The issue of decaying

infrastructure has emerged onto the federal government agenda in recent years. However, it has

not made much progress in federal policy formation. Funding infrastructure development and

repair largely runs top to bottom, and,“the rise in federal interest payments, the increase in

entitlement spending, and the decline in traditional sources of government revenue, such as the


gasoline tax, mean that competition for limited resources is fierce”(Galston & Fuentes, 2015).

Thus, states are limited in their abilities to develop sustainably if federal funding does not enable

such behavior, resulting in uneven inter- and intra- city development.

Likeliness to Adopt Sustainability

The issues raised in the previous section raise an important question: what factors make a

city more likely to adopt sustainability? Quite a bit of research on the subject suggests that

community participation is a large factor in determining a city’s capacity to become sustainable.

According to Portney & Berry (2010), if a city implements sustainable policies, then it must do

so with a lot of support from its residents. In fact, “based on the experiences of Seattle and

Cambridge, MA, it is evident that community involvement can be a key factor in developing

tools for moving toward a more sustainable community” (Zachary,1995, p. 30). Participation

contributes to diminishing negative environmental, social, and economic externalities by

coercing regulatory policies and deliberative democracy to achieve consensus on the idea of

reducing those externalities. Portney & Berry (2010a) suggest that when cities adopt citizen

participation programs, widespread community interests can trump business interests, which are

often antagonistic to sustainability. They also determined that income was a weak factor in

determining the level of sustainability efforts. Furthermore, cities with the most advanced

sustainability policies were different than those with fewer sustainability efforts because levels of

participation are much higher in more sustainable cities (p. 120).

A final factor regarding a city’s capacity for sustainability is social capital. Portney et al.

(2010b) focused on urban advocacy groups within U.S. cities and their interaction with

government institutions. This study found that sustainability is most successful in cities where

there are low barriers to entry for government involvement; that is, neighborhood associations


and different group sectors have frequent and clear communication with the government. Thus,

more sustainable cities have more inclusive policy systems where both community and business

interests have social capital, and can contribute to policymaking. Using the Social Capital

Benchmark Survey, the authors identify 10 cities meet these criteria: Boulder, Chicago, Denver,

Grand Rapids, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Paul

(Portney et al., 2010b).

Urban Containment Policies

Concern about the environmental, social, and economic costs of sprawl has resulted in

public action toward preserving open spaces, primarily through smart growth public policy

implementation. Bengston et al. (2004) define growth management as “government actions to

guide the location, quality, and timing of development” (p. 273). In the United States, these

policies have traditionally been implemented at the local, regional, and state levels. Growth

management policies can take many forms, including public acquisition of land, regulation, and

incentivization (Bengston et al., 2004). One such regulatory approach for managing urban

growth is the urban containment policy.

There are three types of urban containment policies in the United States: greenbelts,

urban growth boundaries (UGBs), and urban service areas (USAs) (Bengston et al,, 2004). A

greenbelt is “an area of contiguous open land close to a city or village” (Daniels, 2010, p. 260)

that “is intended to be a permanent barrier to urban expansion” (Bengston et al,, 2004, p. 276).

The objective of greenbelts is to preserve open space and prevent the spread of urban

development within open, green areas. Greenbelts focus primarily on environmental

sustainability, but also facilitate the economic sustainability of agriculture and the social stability


of rural livelihoods. However, there are many obstacles in the United States that hinder greenbelt

development. Traditional U.S. land use and planning has promoted urban sprawl; as a result, it

often makes very little sense to place greenbelts within these already sprawled areas of

development. Thus, areas of farming and forestry are often no longer viable. Additionally, levels

of governance in major population areas are not conducive to greenbelt development. In the

Northeast and Midwest, zoning rights lie under the jurisdiction of village, city, and town entities,

rather than counties. As a result, local small governments often work against political

coordination between units, and seek to maintain individual autonomy (Daniels, 2010). This

makes the development of an entity such as a greenbelt difficult to implement within governance

in the Northeast and Midwest, thus impeding our ability to apply the greenbelt to many cities

within the United States.

Urban Service Areas are useful for preserving economic sustainability and continued

economic growth. The USA boundary limits the extension of utilities within city limits;

however, other types of development are still allowed outside of the line (Daniels, 2010). Thus,

the USA is more concerned with preserving the financial stability of the central city than

amending geographical problems associated with urban sprawl. Concentrating the economic base

within the central city also results in less “spatial mismatch.” The spatial mismatch theory is the

concept of job decentralization that results in different commute patterns for the central city and

suburban residents. Suburban residents, who tend to be middle and upper class, often commute

to the central city for good jobs, while low-income people living in the central city lack the

qualifications of those in the suburbs and cannot attain city jobs. Although there are more jobs

available in the suburbs, low-income, central city residents often lack the transportation and

monetary resources to commute (Kain, 1992). Although USAs implement economic


sustainability by centralizing job opportunities, they lack the concept of environmental

sustainability, as they do not necessarily hinder the development of urban sprawl. As we have

shown, urban sprawl has been historically unjust due to white flight to the suburbs, as well as

exclusionary policies limiting the poor and people of color from affluent, suburban

neighborhoods, thus inhibiting social sustainability. Furthermore, USAs are not well-rounded

sustainable growth policies, so we eliminated them from our research consideration.

The Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) is similar to the USA in principle, except with many

added features of government oversight and regulation. Woo & Guldmann (2011) define the

UGB as “a line drawn around a municipality, with areas not around the boundary not allowed or

discouraged to have new developments” (p. 3513). There are three elements of UGB

management: phased development inside the UGB, limited development outside the UGB, and

the flexible nature of the boundary (Jun, 2004). Daniels argues that, “to be effective, a growth

boundary must at least be combined with very-low-density zoning in the adjacent countryside to

discourage rural residential sprawl” (2010, p. 256). Like USAs, UGBs facilitate economic

development within the central city, but also promote social and environmental sustainability.

According to the American Planning Association, UGBs, “promote compact and contiguous

development patterns that can be officially served by public services and to preserve or protect

open space, agricultural land, and environmentally sensitive areas” (Jun, 2004, p. 1333). By

limiting the amount of open land that can be developed, UGBs limit environmentally destructive

practices and mitigate suburbanization. Of these three Urban Containment Policies, we decided

to choose the UGB because we felt that it best accommodated the needs of a diverse array of

cities within the United States. Rather than working against U.S. urban sprawl, the UGB works

within the given constraints of U.S. suburbanization and population growth to regulate land use.


Is the UGB Sustainable in the U.S. city?

We have chosen the urban growth boundary for our topic of analysis because we believe it

directly addresses many of the problems caused by U.S. suburbanization. UGBs reduce demand

for passenger travel, increase population densities, and decrease roadway kilometers, all of

which are cited as indicators for increased emissions (Mashayekh, 2012). However, what does

sustainability in the United States look like compared to other countries? According to Lorr, “in

the American City, greening, dominated by free market sustainability, means economic

development, creating green cities and brown suburbs, green gated urban communities, and

brown ghettoes. U.S. sustainability closely resembles a highly marketized ecological

modernization scheme” (2012, p. 21). In free market sustainability, we see the development of

branded green products, more profitable renewable resources, and decreased reliance on fuel that

is subject to volatile pricing. However, this type of sustainability tends to be shallow, and looks

more like a brand name than a plan to solve environmental problems. Thus, it is important for the

U.S. city to develop a deeper understanding of sustainability beyond just “green” branding and

advertising. We argue that the urban growth management policy goes beyond free market

sustainability greening, and, if expanded to more American states, could create an ethic of

sustainability in American cities.

However, not all scholars agree on the sustainability of UGBs. Some, such as O’Toole

(2000), suggest that UGBs worsen the problems they seek to amend. He criticizes the idea of

“smart growth,” which UGBs champion, by asserting that it increases congestion, concentrates

air pollution in the central city, increases housing costs, develops on open space, and diminishes

sense of community. Such concerns are rooted in a distrust in government and a preference for


private enterprise. If planners seek to amend past problems by implementing further planning

measures, how can we be certain that more planning is necessarily better? For example, the

origin of mass U.S. suburbanization was largely facilitated by the government after World War II

through “subsidized suburbanization” (Jackson, 1985). This has resulted in many unintended

problems and consequences, which we outlined earlier. Thus, it is plausible that government

action would continue to have unintended consequence, and the best option could be leaving

urban development to the free market, void of government intervention. We will explore these

critiques, as well as our hypothesis, in our next section.

Methodology

Land use

In our analysis of UGBs in Portland and Knoxville, we use land use as the primary

measure of sustainability. The choice of land use as our primary measurement is due to three

reasons: its relevance to UGBs, its applicability to sustainability, and the ease of use in GIS

applications. The relevance of land use to UGBs is uncomplicated; UGBs are a land use policy

meant to change the way cities use horizontal space. In addition, land use has many sustainability

applications. As we’ve mentioned earlier, urban sprawl and suburban expansion are large factors

in the sustainability of a city (Carlson & Dierwechter 2007), Therefore, not only is land use

relevant to UGB policy, but it is also integral to understanding the sustainability of a city.

Finally, land use stood out among measures of sustainability and UGBs in its ability to be

modeled in ArcMap with relative ease of use. In addition, the ease of display played an integral

role of conveying spatial patterns.

GIS Analysis


In using GIS to map the pattern of spatial data, methodology is not only integral to our

analysis, but also to the repeatability and comprehension of our results. One of the most

controversial methodologies in our paper is the heavy reliance on census tracts as a minimum

unit of analysis. Census tracts have advantages, such as ease of access, simplicity, and

availability of data. However, there are two main issues with using census tracts for GIS

analysis. The data set used in our analysis was from the American Community Survey (ACS),

which is only conducted every 5 years. Therefore, the data itself is not as accurate and up-to-date

as it could be. Second, census tracts are based on residency. Surveyors take all residence data

and aggregate it for the whole tract. This incorporates some inherent spatial error. In low-density

areas, the error is even higher because the tracts can be very large. This was an issue for both

case studies; however, it is an error that most affects the Knoxville case.

We focused on zoning measures in our GIS analysis of Portland. Using zoning data

instead of census data provided more accurate information; however, the meta data associated

with the zoning datasets was not very clear in describing the different land use codes.

Consequently, we had to omit several zone types based on ambiguity. Those zone codes omitted

were zones classified as mixed use, or in such a way that they were not easily to classify in

relation to one another as to their degree of sustainability (e.g. industrial campus and industrial

office). They were most common in residential, industry, and commercial zones. For Knoxville,

we were unable to obtain free of use access to greater GIS data. We obtained access to maps

from Knoxville’s government planning website (citation). Thus, there were severe limitations in

our GIS analysis for Knoxville, including map readability and available data. However, for the

purposes of this paper, they should still serve as a fairly reliable comparison with our Portland

data.


Policy Analysis

On the basis of U.S. city sustainability, we analyzed the effectiveness of U.S. urban

growth boundary policies in Portland and Knoxville. Our understanding of sustainability within

the urban context includes three elements. First, using the UN definition of sustainability, we test

whether or not our case study cities can accommodate for future generations, based on

population growth projections and land use patterns. Second, we apply Mallach’s definition of

sustainability, regarding “whether the city furthers democracy, diversity, and equity,” (2013, p.

141) by examining whether UGB decisionmaking has leaned toward top-down or bottom-up

policy formation. Finally, Lorr suggests that social cohesion, economic development, and a large

job market must be taken into consideration in concerns about sustainability. We argue that the

UGB mitigates We used the outcomes from our GIS work as indicators for policy success,

testing whether the outcomes of the UGBs aligned with these elements of sustainability.

Case Study 1: Portland

Portland UGB Policy

The Portland UGB policy was passed in 1973 by Republican Governor Tom McCall and

a coalition of urban, progressive, and agricultural interests. This bill created the Department of

Land Conservation and Development, under which cities are required to submit proposed UGBs

in accordance with 19 statewide planning goals, which aim at preserving agricultural lands and

open forests, promoting centralized economic activity, increasing density, and developing public

transit options. In 1979, a regional government, Metro, was enacted by voters to carry out the

UGB policy. Metro oversees Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties, which include

240 UGB districts that are required to adjust every five years to maintain a twenty year supply of

land set aside for future development (Senville, 2013). Metro has described its UGB as “a legal


boundary separating urbanizable land from urban land...the boundary controls urban land onto

farm, forest, and resource lands. At the same time, land, roads, utilities, and other urban services

are more efficiently distributed within the boundary” (Jun, 2004, p. 1334). Portland has also

championed other policy developments toward sustainability. The Greater Portland 2020 Plan is

a five year economic sustainability plan that aligns business, education, and civic leaders around

regional economic priorities. The program seeks to diversify Portland’s workforce, accommodate

transportation and infrastructure needs for a growing population, and create new markets for a

young population (Greater Portland Inc, 2015).

Some argue for the success of Portland’s sustainability through its UGB. It has facilitated

democratic decision making, resulted in more job security, and preserved green spaces.

However, others suggest that the use of the UGB has in fact made Portland less sustainable. Land

and home prices have increased substantially due to the high demand for the urban growth

boundary. For low-income and minority residents who are already at a financial disadvantage,

this could perpetuate further residential racial segregation, as well as home to work spatial

mismatch (Senville, 2013). We test both these accusations by conducting our own analysis of the

impacts of Portland’s UGB using the following indicators: 1) historical development of the

UGB, 2) racial segregation, 3) prevalence of single and multi-family homes, 4) commercial and

industrial zones, and 5) agricultural and rural zones.

Portland GIS Maps

Since the creation of Portland’s UGB policy in 1979, Metro has slowly expanded the

UGB in order to maintain boundary that encompasses a land area that can support 20 years worth

of growth. Each annexation over the past 36 years is difficult to map, as there have been dozens


of additions since the boundary has been established. Most annexations were fairly small,

totaling 20 acres or less.

Figure 1: History of Urban Growth, 1979-2014

Figure 1 shows UGB expansion from 1979 to 2014, illustrating general trends of

expansion. Two things to note from this map are the large expansions of the UGB and the almost

contiguous nature of the boundary. Although this map is limited in its ability to show small

parcel annexation, it is able to demonstrate eras with large annexations. The most notable of

those expansions were 1998 and 1999 (1993-1999 range), 2002 (2000-2006 range), and 2011

(Oregon Metro, 2015). With the exception of 2011, these additions have largely been


simultaneous but not contiguous parcels. However, these annexations have frequently been

attempts to achieve UGB contiguity, which the boundary has achieved with the exception of the

island-like parcel of land on the western part of Portland. Contiguity of both the UGB and the

non-urban areas surrounding the UGB is integral to the success of a UGB program. The

contiguity would normally dissuade or restrict property owners to sell land (Daniels, 2010).

However, due to Oregon’s statewide UGB policy that mandates these areas be either rural or

agricultural, this is less relevant to Portland.

In understanding where residents choose to live, it is important to identify industrial and

commercial land uses. Industry allows us to identify potential environmental hazards and

commercial areas as well as help determine the location of Portland’s central business district.

Figure 2 shows the zones that are designated for industrial and commercial zones. The map

demonstrates areas of concentrated heavy and light industrial in northeast Portland, north

Portland, and along the major water bodies of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. One

limitation of this map is that it doesn’t discern between specific types of industrial uses; for

example, distinguishing a recycling plant from a toxic waste facility. Such information would be

helpful when examining justice concerns about the location of environmental hazards.


Figure 2: Central Portland commercial and industrial zones

Although there no proven correlation between UGBs and the promotion of more racially

integrated cities, political fragmentation, which UGBs address, is considered to be highly

correlative to segregation. According to Morgan and Mareschel (1999), “for every increase in

one suburb per 1,000,000 people, black racial isolation increases by 2.01 units” (p. 589). Due to

Portland’s lack of political fragmentation from Metro and its UGB implementation, it is

reasonable to assume that racial segregation would be minimal. However, that does not appear to

be the case. Figure 3 shows areas of non-white racial concentration in west Portland, as well as

north and eastern Portland. Areas towards the fringe of east Portland, in central Portland, and

south Portland have very small minority populations. If we compare this map with Figure 2, then


we can see a loose correlation of heavy and light industrial zones within minority census tracts.

However, upon further analysis, the neighborhoods that appear to be significantly racialized also

appear to be highly desirable areas for all residents regardless of ethnicity. Without any further

research on neighborhood composition or access to amenities, our analysis is unable to determine

whether these racial distributions are due to congregation or segregation.

Figure 3: Racial Distribution

One of the primary goals of a UGB is the limit the effects of suburbanization, namely

urban sprawl (Woo and Guldmann 2011). However, a UGB that fails to contain sprawl either

through ineffective policy or a boundary that over-bounds the city too much, fails to achieve this


goal. One measure of observing whether a UGB is overbounding its city too much is through the

distribution of low-density, single-family, detached homes. Figure 4 displays the distribution of

single-family and multi-family homes as well as their densities based on city zoning codes.

Figure 4 shows a concentration of multi-family houses in central Portland interspersed with

single-family residential zoning, which creates an integrated housing pattern. However, a large

proportion of the rest of the city is dedicated to single-family, detached housing. Of those areas

zoned for single-family housing, the majority of those are high density with small lot sizes. The

areas of notable low-density housing are on the southern and southeast fringes of the city. This

pattern makes sense according to expected U.S. city patterns, as suburbia is typically located on

the city fringe. In addition, the Portland UGB has recently expanded into these areas, indicating

that a lower density is due to the lag of development. However, these areas consist of very low

minority populations as we identified earlier. In addition, they have a high concentration of light

industrial and office campus, as shown in Figure 2. According to these characteristics, it appears

that the over-boundedness of Portland’s UGB could be a very viable theory as identifiable

suburban patterns appear to have developed on portions of its fringe.

Figure 4: Single and Multi-Family Residential Distribution


In UGB policies, land use outside the boundary is as important as the land use within it.

In the case of Portland, statewide UGB policy has erased any concern over any rampant

development outside of city boundaries. Figure 5 displays the areas of the UGB zoned for

agricultural, rural residential, and undeveloped areas slated for expansion. Three things are

important to note here: the continuity of non-urban zoning, the areas where the political city

over-bounds the geographical, and the area where land isn’t zoned for urban development within

the UGB. The continuity of the non-urban areas is a result of a statewide UGB, confirming the

effectiveness of these types of policies. It is also interesting to note areas where Metro over-

bounds the UGB: they are governed and represented by Metro, but have yet to be extended the


services of areas within the UGB. The purpose of this over-bounding could be an indication of

future expansion of the UGB. The last point of interest is that there is an area within the UGB

that is zoned as rural residential or exclusive farm use. This is a result of the recent expansion of

the UGB to that area, as well as the latency of updating city zoning codes.

Figure 5: Rural residential, agricultural, and future urban zoning

.

Case Study 2: Knoxville

Knoxville UGB Policy


In 2001, Knoxville’s Metropolitan Planning Commission, (MPC) adopted the public

chapter 1101 which required city governments to prepare a 20-year growth plan and established

a statewide UGB policy. In this plan, the MPC established an annexation policy, which

“provides fair notice to anyone owning or contemplating purchase of property that annexation is

a real possibility, it is appropriate and desirable that the annexation be rational, predictable, and

reasonable” (Emmett, 2015). However, due to the southern tradition of small town governments,

there exist several traditional neighborhood zones that exist outside of the UGB. These zones

predated the UGB, and exist as anomalies, and because of this are not as relevant to our analysis

of the effectiveness of the UGB (Knoxville Farragut Knox County, 2000).

There is less literature citing either the success or failure of Knoxville’s UGB, so much of

this is a work in progress. As stated before, we could not obtain GIS data for Knoxville, so all

maps were retrieved from the KGIS maps linked from the Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan

Planning Commission website (2015). We use the following indicators to analyze the impacts of

the UGB on Knoxville’s city patterns: 1) UGB expansion 2) population density, 3) median

household income, 4) commute times, 5) racial segregation, and 6) current land uses.

Knoxville GIS Maps

Figure 6 demonstrates three explicit zones in Knoxville’s plan for UGB expansion:

urban, projected growth area (PGA), and rural. This map demonstrates that expansions to the

UGB are primarily planned for areas in between Farragut and in areas west and northwest of the

city. This map provides context for how the UGB is expanded upon in Knoxville, and the ways

that planners classify land use. To understand city and UGB expansion, however, we must

determine the“central city” of Knoxville. In order to understand a U.S. city pattern, it is

important to determine the central city. Unfortunately, the lack of free data to demonstrate the


central city forces our analysis to rely on population density to determine the central city. Using

Figure 7, we can determine that the most dense areas are in the western part of the geographical

area and the eastern part of the central city. Thus, we have determined this area to be the central

city. Using Figure 6, we can see that Knoxville also plans to expand and develop its central city

for the future.

Figure 6: UGB expansion plan


Figure 7: Population Density

Median household income is an important measure of a city’s economic well-being as it

takes into account households, not individuals, and takes median measures, which account for

any outliers. Figure 8 illustrates socioeconomic spatial patterns where the poor are concentrated

in the central city and the rich and middle class live on the city periphery. Most notable in Figure

8 is that fact that affluent tracts persist in rural tracts outside the UGB. According to the central

city established by Figure 7, the central city also closely correlates to areas of low median

household income.


Figure 8: Median Household Income

A key characteristic of the suburban U.S. city is an affluent, high-income periphery

population that commutes to the central city for work (Jackson, 1985). Figure 9 demonstrates

that in the case of Knoxville, this is partially true. We can see that people on the periphery have

longer home to work commutes. Unfortunately, the lack of data in Knox County does not allow

for a conclusive statement on whether the peripheries of the city and tracts outside the boundary

consist of suburban commuters. In addition, the lack of data makes it hard to determine any

relationship with the central city, except for that areas within the UGB tend to have commuting

times less than 30 minutes.

Figure 9: Percentage of Commuters Who Travel Less Than 30 Minutes


Another key aspect of the U.S. city model is the concentration of minorities in the inner

city (Jackson 1985). Furthering the evidence demonstrating suburban tendencies Knoxville’s

suburban tendency, Figure 10 demonstrates that there are significant concentration so minorities

in the central city of Knoxville. In addition to this high concentration, there are few minority

populations outside the UGB or in other areas within the UGB. Perhaps the most poignant

relationship between the central city and a city demographic is the correlation of the central city

and high minority populations. Minority populations in Knoxville almost exclusively reside in

central city.


Figure 10: Residential Racial Segregation

In order to understand any anomalies in the demographics displayed in figures 6-10,

Figure 11 shows all current forms of land use in Knoxville. Although Knoxville has a UGB,

there appear to be areas outside of that boundary that are used for development. These areas

include land uses such as landfills, public parks, rural residential, and single-family residential.

Of further note, land uses classified as “wholesale” tend to border arterial roads that lead outside

the city. This pattern of commercial development strings along highways is typically determined

as a form of urban sprawl, but in the case of Knoxville, sprawl lies within the UGB. This is due

to what looks like a purposeful extension of the UGB along those roadways. Finally, the

presence of single family housing and rural residential outside of the UGB indicates that


Tennessee’s regulations on development outside of the UGB are more lenient. Figure 12

provides the governmental classification of land uses seen in Figure 11. In addition, it clarifies

current and future intentions of zoning. This proves valuable in analysis of policy and

understanding the government’s role in shaping land use.


Figure 11: Current land use

Figure 12: Zoning


Discussion

According to our analysis, the Portland case study is consistent with our definition of city

sustainability. First, the history of UGB expansion proves that Portland’s boundary is flexible.

Second, Portland appears to have a less racially segregated city, where ethnic neighborhoods are

located near the central business district, mitigating spatial mismatch. Third, Portland supports a

dense mix of single family and multi-family residential neighborhoods. Finally, the city

demonstrates a strong and contiguous preservation of agricultural and rural land uses outside the

city boundary. However, our analysis also indicated that Portland has two noteworthy patterns

that indicate less sustainable land use. First, we noticed a correlation between minority census

tracts and industrial zones. This could indicate issues of environmental justice and environmental

racism. Secondly, despite housing diversity and high land use density, single-family residential

housing is the clear majority in the the mix of residential housing types, which we have

established as a socially and environmentally unsustainable land use. Both these issues indicate

that, although Portland is incredibly sustainable in land use policy, it still lacks certain elements

of social and environmental sustainability.

With the limited data available for Knoxville, its UGB policy does not seem to be

resisting many elements of the persistent suburban structure of the U.S. city. The concentration

of low-income residents and racial minorities in the most populated parts of the city, as well as a

periphery of commuting populations, directly parallel demographic suburban patterns observed

in Jackson’s characterization of the suburban United States (1985). In addition, the formation of

commercial areas on the highways leading outside the city is very reminiscent of urban sprawl.

Finally, the development of rural residential as well as single-family residential outside the UGB

indicates that suburbia can still exist, even with statewide UGB policies. However, Knoxville’s


UGB does seem to limit the growth of its cities by disallowing more environmentally destructive

urban land uses, such as industrial, to spill over the boundary. Overall, we find that Knoxville’s

UGB is not as successful as Portland at combating urban sprawl. Yet, its UGB is relatively new

compared to Portland’s, so it is possible that, with time, the Knoxville UGB will facilitate more

sustainable growth patterns.

Our comparison of these two case studies is limited by the disparity of data available for

each city. However, we can still draw connections between the cities’ UGB policies. Portland

and Knoxville share a few similarities, the biggest of which is that both of their states utilize

statewide UGB mandates. Woo & Guldmann (2011) suggest that statewide UGBs are more

conducive to sustainable development. Secondary to this is the use of explicit zoning codes to

determine what types of development occur outside the UGB. Portland used rural residential,

exclusive farm use, and future urban development outside the UGB, while Knoxville’s codes

implemented single family residential and rural residential land use patterns, as well as several

provisions for future use of different types of zones, such as commercial, residential, and

industrial.

Yet, Portland and Knoxville are vastly different cities. They are both extremely different

in terms of demographics, such as majority political party, minority composition, and median

household income. Portland is extremely progressive, while Knoxville is conservative, which

could account for the tighter government controls in Portland’s UGB policy. Demographic

distribution and development permeability of the UGB highlight the major differences between

both our case studies. Portland is a more diverse city with more evenly spatialy distributed

nonwhite and low-income populations than Knoxville. If there are any such concentrations in

Portland, those concentrations form in unique and not uniform ways. In addition, the policy of


development outside of Portland’s UGB seems to be a lot more restrictive. First, Portland has a

zone classification strictly for farm use, whereas Knoxville’s most similar zoning class is

agriculture and estate, which implies residential occupation. Second, Portland’s UGB maintains a

shape that seems to prioritize future population growth projections, whereas the pattern of

Knoxville’s UGB tends to reach out along highways that parallel the development of commercial

zoning. Finally, Portland’s UGB resists any sort of development outside of the UGB, while

Knoxville’s policy contains far more exceptions to land use outside the UGB.

In UGB policy, the success of a UGB relies on three techniques to be successful:

agricultural zoning of no more than one house per 10 hectares, the limiting of city services, and

government or city possession of development rights outside UGBs (Daniels 2010, p. 260). The

primary commonality of Portland and Knoxville is the fact that both cities with UGBs mandated

by state law. As we’ve outlined in the previous sections, this commonality has resulted in very

different cities in regards to land use. The implications of this comparison are dual. First, the

notion that state-mandated UGBs are a panacea to U.S. urban sprawl is naive: the framework

creating a UGB is integral to the success of the boundary. Second, in order to be sustainable,

UGBs require those three requirements outlined in Daniels (2010): agricultural zoning of no

more than one house per 10 hectares, the limiting of city services, and government or city

possession of development rights outside UGBs (p. 260). Even then, we will not necessarily

achieve the perfect sustainable city model. UGBs must align with inclusive policymaking that is

more strict on zoning developments outside the UGB. We see this in Portland more than

Knoxville.

Conclusion: Sustainable urban planning and climate change


City planning is not only important for individual cities with a microcosm of

environmental, social, and economic problems: the UGB is an example of how individual actions

contribute to long-term environmental processes. We understand that the definition of

sustainability is not static, and varies globally along with cultural and political norms. As a

result, we are not prescribing a one size fits all policy for U.S. cities, and certainly not global

cities; rather, we are suggesting that U.S. local and state governments with characteristics ideal

for UGB implementation could and should consider its usefulness for environmental, social, and

economic sustainability. The UGB is a broad sustainability tool that is adaptable to various

American cities and can serve as a tool for larger social and environmental issues. Overall, we

can see that Portland has been a successful case of the UGB policy, while Knoxville has a long

way to go in terms of implementation. However, like the physical processes such as climate

change that sustainable development seeks to address, this is a long term process, and we can’t

expect immediate results.

Arguably, the biggest issue of any kind in the 21st Century is climate change. With sea

level rise, environmental hazards, and the extensive burning of fossil fuels, it will soon become

impending that cities act on climate issues. Bulkeley & Betsill (2005) suggest three primary

reasons that cities have an important role to play in the pursuit of climate change mitigation and

protection. First, cities generate high amounts of energy consumption and waste, and must

determine how to best deal with the impacts of this. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, some

would argue that institutions have the moral obligation to enable individuals to engage in

sustainable behavior (Fahlquist, 2009). Local governments are the closest government agents to

communities, and thus have the power to enable sustainable practices and behavior. Second,

local authorities can help coordinate community action and involvement in ways that the federal


level cannot address. Local governments have firsthand experience with specific environmental

problems that impact cities, and understand the best practices for sustainability within a

particular locality. Finally, local governments have vast amounts of experience working with

environmental issues, and have developed mitigation strategies specific to their region. Even if

these efforts are small scale, such as waste cleanups and remediation efforts, such efforts are

needed locally to make a difference in global climate change mitigation.


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