On Sunday, August 22, 1999, the Birmingham News carried several articles about the problems along the highway 280 corridor.  For the most part these articles were discussing the heavy traffic on 280 and the problems it is causing and will continue to exacerbate in the future.
One article talked about the need for a new agency to take control and regulate growth along the corridor since there are several municipalities involved and very little coordination between them.

But the article that strikes one as coming right out of the UN's Agenda 21 planning book is the one talking about the solution the city of Boston found to a similar problem along Route 9 leading out of the city.

Here we are introduced to what is probably a new term for most of us -- "edge city development."  It is essentially another term for what many call "urban sprawl," or the uncontrolled development along major traffic arteries around older cities.

As the inner cities tend to lose their attractiveness to business and new residential development the surrounding areas become the nexus for growth.  Often there are a number of other municipalities that have sprung up over the years so there are competing forces at work and jealousies surface as each tries to seek advantages.

One of Boston's solutions was formation of the Metro West Growth Management Committee, a municipal coalition to oversee development issues.  Essentially an "area governmental body" with authority to make decisions normally reserved to elected governments.

While this committee contains elected officials from the involved municipalities it also contains a number of members who are not elected officials but members of various planning boards.  The committee itself is not accountable to the voters, even if some of its members may be.

One of the solutions has been to have companies provide incentives to employees who carpool and use mass transit. 

A spokesman said that greater population density could actually help the 280 situation by clustering development around certain nodes that would make light rail and mass transit development easier. "People could walk to shops or the office instead of drive."

This article also talked about establishing urban growth boundaries that would confine growth to certain areas.  Development rights could be bought up from landowners by the state or municipalities or even private conservation groups to preserve green areas or buffer zones where no development would be allowed.

All of these concepts were postulated in the UN's Agenda 21. 

Well, this has all been tried and tested in Portland, Oregon.  Read what one Oregonian has to say about it:

From all over the world, city officials visit my hometown of Portland, Ore., to learn the wonders of ``smart-growth'' planning. Urban mayors ``ooh'' and ``ah'' over Portland's light rail, while planners thrill to the region's urban-growth boundary and transit-oriented development.

The plans are less thrilling to local residents. Light rail, transit-oriented developments and urban-growth boundaries are rapidly increasing congestion, housing prices and development of urban open spaces.

Supposedly an inexpensive way to reduce congestion, light rail is neither inexpensive nor does it reduce congestion.

	Portland's first light-rail line cost 55 percent more than anticipated.
	More recent light-rail proposals are projected to cost $100 million per mile - enough to build several miles of four-lane freeway - yet existing lines carry fewer people than a single freeway lane.
	At speeds around 30 kilometers per hour, light rail is too slow to attract drivers out of their cars. It is even slower than many of the buses it replaces.
	Before building light rail, Portland mass transit was gaining market share from the auto. Since building it, Portland transit has steadily lost market share and now carries only about 2 percent of Portland-area trips.

Transit-oriented development is another colossal failure. High-density mixtures of residential and commercial uses located along transit routes are supposed to encourage walking or transit riding rather than driving.  A wonderful theory, but in practice few Americans will live without autos.  This means developers won't build transit-oriented developments without subsidies.

Ten years after Portland's first light-rail line was built, the city was so disappointed about lack of development along the route that it offered 10 years of property tax waivers to anyone building near rail stations.

One major development along the light rail, Beaverton Round, received $9 million in infrastructure subsidies and tax waivers. But no one wanted to move in, so the developer faced foreclosure. The city was recently forced to put up another $3.4 million to keep the project alive.

Portland's other planning legend is its urban-growth boundary, outside which development is restricted. Drawn in 1979 to include enough vacant land for an estimated 20 years' worth of growth, planners promised to expand the boundary when more land was needed.

By 1990, most vacant land was developed and land prices were rising. But by then the boundary was sacred, and some people loudly opposed any expansion. Although planners added a small amount of land, they decided to accommodate most growth by rezoning existing neighborhoods and urban open spaces to higher densities.

To meet population targets, Portland and 23 suburbs are rezoning neighborhoods of single-family homes for apartments. In these areas, if a house burns down, the owner must replace it with an apartment. Cities are also rezoning golf courses, 10,000 acres of prime farm lands and other open spaces to high-density development. Low densities are forbidden in these zones.

Such zoning is producing high apartment vacancy rates, while single-family home prices have skyrocketed. In 1989, Portland was one of the most affordable U.S. housing markets; since 1996, it has been one of the five least affordable.

Residents say they want less, not more congestion, but planners claim ``congestion signals positive urban development'' and predict their plan will triple congestion. With congestion comes pollution: Planners admit their plan will increase smog by 10 percent.

Planners gained the power to do these things by promising to save Portland from becoming like Los Angeles, the U.S.'s most congested city. Los Angeles is also the nation's densest metropolitan area and the one with the fewest miles of freeways per capita.

After reviewing statistics for 50 major U.S. urban areas, Portland planners concluded Los Angeles ``displays an investment pattern we desire to replicate'' in Portland.

Of course, they didn't say so very loudly.

If your idea of a livable city is Los Angeles - unbearable congestion, air pollution, unaffordable housing and shortages of open space - then by all means use Portland as your model.

If instead you prefer a city with less congestion and pollution and more affordable housing and urban open space, you had better look elsewhere.

Randal O'Toole is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News, based in Paonia, Colo. He is the senior economist with the Thoreau Institute and a lifelong resident of Oregon.