Framing the Oregon Land Use Debate

Abstract

While there has been extensive examination of the property rights movement, there is little research into the way we talk (and fight) about property rights and community planning in the public sphere. Using a content analysis approach, this study analyzes language and argumentation about land use planning in the state of Oregon as contained in arguments over ballot measures published in the state's voters' pamphlets. The debate is bifurcated: initially a fight over the locus of control, recent contestation has been over the impacts of the system. A variety of themes were deployed in arguments over time;"fairness" appears only in 2000. Using insights from cognitive linguistics, the article argues that planners need to develop a nontechnocratic language that expresses the values central to planning. is an assistant professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. Her research interests revolve around land use and environmental planning with a particular interest in institutional theory, property rights, and informal settlements in the developing world.

Exploring and Testing Wildfire Risk Decision-Making in the Face of Deep Uncertainty

“…In our simulations, the MIROC model resulted in only modest departure from the wildfire of the recent past compared to a dramatic increase under the Hadley GCM [24]. The Dispersed Development scenario assumed that the study area population doubles over 40 years based on state projections [85] and that changes to Oregon's land use policies allowed for increased rural development, comparable to that of many other US states that lack state-level controls on urban growth [86]. Among the vegetation management scenarios, Hazard Reduction assumed that agents' primary strategy to reduce fire hazard was density thinning, and that prairie, oak savanna, and woodland restoration were principally applied for biodiversity conservation and only secondarily for fuels reduction.…”