Did Smart Growth Policies Save Oregon's Housing Market?

"Here at the western edge of the Portland metro area, green fields flow into fir trees and foothills and eventually the Coast Range. They are a developer's dream: flat, picturesque and a quick freeway spin from the region's high-tech center.

If this were Phoenix or the San Francisco Bay area, real estate experts say, master-planned subdivisions would carpet these fields all the way to the mountains. Instead, their foot-high grass faces out on just one new, 15-lot cul-de-sac, buffered by strict growth controls that help North Plains maintain its rural feel and help shield Oregon from the housing crisis stunting the national economy.

While home prices fell by about 20 percent in the Sun Belt and the Midwest over the last year, values here in the northwest corner of Washington County rose 4.5 percent, according to local real estate statistics and a federal housing index. Prices overall in the Portland metro area dipped slightly; only Charlotte fared better among major cities.

When presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton tried to highlight housing woes in Oregon last week, the experts she assembled acknowledged the market here has been holding up better than most. Analysts say Clinton and other politicians could learn from this state, where the Democratic presidential campaign has turned in advance of its Tuesday primary, and where experts credit land-use restrictions and a late-blooming economy with keeping housing prices afloat.

While other cities confront half-built or half-empty housing developments, Portland's longtime fight against sprawl ensured that the supply never got too far ahead of demand."