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8. Southern Discomforts
- University of Arizona Press
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8 Southern Discomforts Jackson County—oh yes! Southern Oregon. I made lots of trips to southern Oregon. But I didn’t really convince anybody. —Hector Macpherson Jr. on his efforts in 1972–1973 to build support for SB 1001 I voted “no” on Senate Bill 100 not because I do not believe in the concept of land- use planning but because I believe this bill transfers unwarranted legislative powers to an appointive board, granting that board rule- making authority which thwarts the people’s right to referendum in matters of land- use planning. —L.W. Newbry, Jackson County state senator, 19732 It’s awkward and it hasn’t been done before. But we are perched—sometimes uncomfortably—on the cutting edge of urban growth planning. —John Eads, founder of Bear Creek Valley RPS, 20023 The current [Bear Creek Valley RPS] plan . . . fails to provide a path by which the Rogue Valley can both grow in population and preserve what is special about this unique place. —Don Moore, vintner, and Porter Lombard, vineyard consultant, 20084 I have to tell you, I’ve been tearing my hair out about the Bear Creek Valley RPS. —Richard Whitman, DLCD director, 20085 When Oregon’s statewide planning system was created in 1973, southern Oregon6 was immediately vocal in its discomfort with this system. In the ensuing decades the relationship between southern Oregon and plan- Southern Discomforts 205 ners in Salem did not improve greatly (locally, “Salem” is often a “four- letter” word for centralized state power). In the early 1990s, Jackson County—the most populous county in southern Oregon—was accused of systematic violations of state land use laws,7 and as a result county planning was monitored by the state for six years.8 In the mid- 2000s, Jackson County offered unique interpretations of Measure 37 (see chapter 4)—including ideas that Measure 37 claims were transferable and that approval of Measure 37 claims by the state land use authority was not required (both of these views were struck down by the state). It is probably fair to say that of all regions in the state, southern Oregon has had the most discomfort with the statewide land use planning system. Yet, seemingly paradoxically, today southern Oregon could justifiably lay claim to being at the “cutting edge” of urban growth planning. This is a distinction, however, that looks more complex and less certain upon close examination. Such an examination reveals much about the politics of promoting “flexibility” in the state’s land use planning system in Oregon. To begin any discussion of southern Oregon, it is important to note what the region is not: it is not the heavily populated, urbanized, and politically left- leaning Willamette Valley (see chapter 1, Figure 2). In this chapter, we focus our attention mainly on southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley , which follows the Rogue River and its tributaries through the most populous areas of Jackson and Josephine counties, including the cities of Medford and Grants Pass (Figure 13). The most important tributary to the Rogue River for the purposes of our study is the Bear Creek—site of the Greater Bear Creek Valley Regional Problem Solving (RPS) planning process that is the main focus in this chapter. In the Rogue Valley, the Bear Creek runs parallel to Interstate 5, through the cities of Ashland, Medford, and Central Point (Figure 14)—an area that has grown rapidly in recent decades, forming by far the most concentrated population center in southern Oregon. Yet the Rogue and Bear Creek valleys are tightly contained by the high Cascade Mountains to the east, the rugged Siskiyou and Klamath mountains to the south and west, and many lower but still substantial mountain passes through Douglas and Lane counties to the north. Visitors driving into Oregon from California (15 miles south of Ashland) are often surprised that in southern Oregon Interstate 5 (the main West Coast artery run- 206 Planning Paradise ning from Canada to Mexico) becomes a difficult high- elevation, windy, snowy, and (in winter months) sometimes impassable mountain road. As we discuss below, the rugged isolation of the region is matched by the area’s cultural and political sense of independence and difference. Euro- American settlement in the Rogue Valley began in earnest in the mid- nineteenth century with the discovery of gold near Jacksonville, the completion of roads to California and the Willamette Valley, and the building of the Oregon & California Railroad. After southern Oregon’s Gold Rush diminished, agriculture (especially pears and...