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Measure 37 Causes Billboard Blight In Oregon

Posted by: Nate Berg

17 August 2007 - 7:00am

An unintended effect of Measure 37 -- Oregon's controversial 2004 land use law -- is that homeowners are allowed to build giant billboards on their property. Some have, and local officials are hoping a new ballot measure will address the issue.

"Thanks to Oregon's new property-rights law, Measure 37, one property owner has already installed two giant billboards along U.S. 26 in what is supposed to be a green corridor separating Gresham and Sandy. The billboards hawk pizza and a grocery store and boost one property owner's bottom line. But they do not frame the area in a positive light -- which is why Mayor Linda Malone has fought vigorously, if thus far unsuccessfully, against the billboards."

"Champions of Measure 37 never emphasized the possibility that it could trigger giant billboards, for good reason. It wasn't exactly a selling point for the new law. Only now are more Oregonians coming face to face with the new reality."

Full Story: Reversing highway 'uglification'
Source: The Oregonian, August 16, 2007
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All of that only scratches the surface of what's wrong with this study. The idea that complex urban development patterns and human behavior can be meaningfully studied according to one primary criteria — density — is wrong from the start.
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