Thirty-six years ago, Oregon began an unprecedented land-use planning program that attempts to control how all property owners use their land. Today, the results are in: the program has imposed huge costs on rural landowners, urban homebuyers, commuters, and businesses while producing minimal environmental gains compared with states that do not have such planning. Yet too few people have learned this lesson. Federal, state, and local governments in the U.S. employ more than 20,000 planners who attempt to write comprehensive, long-range plans that would control other people’s land, money, and resources. These plans almost always end in disaster.
In his new book, The Best-Laid Plans, Randal O’Toole demonstrates that comprehensive, long-range planning of other people’s resources is always doomed to fail, and that Congress and state and local governments should repeal existing planning laws and shut down planning departments. O’Toole shows that the problems that planning claims to address can be better dealt with through user fees, markets, and other incentives rather than through regulatory planning.
Cost to attend is $20. Lunch is included.
To register, please contact Nancy Wheaton at the Cascade Policy Institute by calling 503-242-0900 or emailing nancy [at] cascadepolicy.org.
