Posts Tagged ‘urban growth boundary’

To Eat Local, We Must Help Save Local Farmland

March 30, 2010 This has been a hot topic in my community (Portland, OR) lately, and I see it is being discussed in Sacramento too. If you want to eat locally, it’s important to support local farmers and to plan (smartly) for the future: save farmland for farming and not necessarily to be developed. And [...]

Virginia Farm Bureau: Farmland Preservation Update

February 08, 2010 Virginia has recently spearheaded efforts to preserve working farmland. One key method to preserve farmland is to pass the farm to the next generation. In order to help current farmers through this transition, the State has created agriculture license plates to raise money for workshops – thus keeping the small farm active, [...]

Farmers, conservation groups join to preserve farmland near Portland’s suburbs

January 27, 2010 As the time for public comments draw to a close, a look at a local hazelnut orchard and tree farm in Clackamas County – one of the counties in the Portland metro area deciding where to place urban and rural Reserves for future populations and possible development. Peter McDonald is concerned farms [...]

Urban Growth Boundaries: The Reserves Process (Video)

January 18, 2010; Part 2: Over the next 30 years, the Portland Metro area is projected to increase in population size by 1 million people. Since the 1970’s, the state, and in particular the Portland metro area that occupies 3 counties (Multnomah; Clackamas; and Washington), have remarkably managed their urban growth efficiently (and wisely) through [...]

Coalition of Farming, Conservation Groups Provide Alternative Vision for Region’s Growth

January 12, 2010 At a press conference held yesterday in Portland, OR, several conservation and farming organizations came together and provided a map (PDF) reflecting what they thought would be a acceptable outcome for the urban and rural reserves, which is currently under review and being determined by Metro and Washington, Clackamas, and Multnomah counties. [...]

Urban Growth Boundary: Oregon Agriculture, Economy, and Managed Growth (video)

Part 1: In physics, the second law of thermodynamics, which deals with the natural flow of energy distribution (no, you won’t be tested on this part), stipulates that localized “systems,” (think of an ice cube melting), will disperse outward, unless a counter force is applied to contain it. In population centers of the country, urban [...]

A City Looks Toward Defining Its Future

Damascus, Oregon (population: 10,000) ponders how to integrate existing urban agriculture into its future urban fabric. Damascus, Oregon is located about 20 miles southeast of Portland, incorporating the surrounding communities of Damascus and Carver to become a city in 2004. It occupies roughly 10,000 acres (16 miles); now designated inside the Portland Metropolitan urban growth [...]