City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary

Portland's Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) was designed to hold the bursting metropolitan area in check while protecting Willamette Valley orchards and fields from sprawling suburbia. David Oates traveled the 260-mile boundary that defines Portland to discover how the UGB has contributed to that success. City Limits is his record of the journey.
From conversations with the people he encounters on his walks, Oates comes to view the UGB as a long-running experiment in community control over development. But in recent years, the growth boundary has come under fire from developers, property rights advocates, and other critics. Just after Oates completed his walks, a statewide vote gutted Oregon's land use laws.
Oates explores issues of conformity and conflict on the UGB in the company of various individuals he sometimes invites along for the day's walk - artists, writers, urban planners, environmentalists, developers, a politician, a wine grape grower. Reflecting Oates's belief in the power of community and collaboration, many of their thoughts and writings about the experience are included in the book.