Urban Sprawl

I live in a state that absolutely despises "sprawl". Oregon loves its "Urban Growth Boundaries". So do speculative land developers. If you own the right 50 acre tract adjacent to the expanding boundary... gold mine. Before long, Centex will buy it from you and put up 500 homes, which they will sell for $200K - $300K each.

While this is great for real estate agents and mortgage brokers, it's not for families. My blossoming brood can't afford a much needed 4 bedroom house in our suburban hometown of Tualatin. The last one we looked at was $400K! Not likely when we're choosing to have the wife stay home and raise the kids. Home prices like this pretty much require a 2 income household. As for my brother and his wife, who live up in Beaverton, I know they'd really like to buy a house. But they've decided to have his wife stay home, too, and they're currently in an apartment, and the price for an "entry level" home in this metro area is approaching $200K. I'm pretty sure that wages for entry-level positions at Nike or Intel aren't adequate for that kind of a mortgage. Anyway, this just re-affirms Glenn' statement that:

"...most efforts on the part of urban planners to reduce sprawl seem to make things worse, and to enrich incumbent landowners at the expense of the poor and the middle class"