Portland is a pioneer in the smart growth movement, as the city 20 years ago visualized an integrated approach to urban development. In the 1970s, all Oregon cities established urban growth boundaries, cordoning off acres that will remain rural. New development within the urban boundaries is strictly apportioned. To put that in context, the population of metropolitan Los Angeles grew 45 percent in the same period and gobbled up 200 percent more land. Chicago's population grew by only 4 percent, but developed land increased 46 percent.
Technology is entrenched in Portland officials' effort to manage the city's urban growth policies.
For example, Portland uses an array of GIS tools. The GIS data allows us to be better managers because we have a lot more information available to us. GIS use in Portland replaced a laborious manual mapping effort that dates to 1980, when Portland Metro went to put the previous decade's land-use laws into action. The city had settled on urban growth boundaries by doing a vacant land inventory so that it could tell how much extra land it had and where that land was. Technology allows planners to model situations and try development approaches before any construction begins.