Competing or compatible capitalisms? Exurban sprawl and high-value agriculture in Southwestern Oregon

Abstract

Growth in rural residential housing is broadly considered detrimental to nearby commercial agriculture. This chapter examines the historical relationship between agriculture and rural residential development in Southwestern Oregon, uncovering the contingent nature of this assumed conflict. Rather than conflicting with farming, rural population growth and the marketing of the countryside for an idealized rural lifestyle in the nineteenth and early twentieth century actually provided the needed capital and labor. Thus the passage of statewide land-use regulation in 1973 disrupted the existing land-use management regime by attempting to separate agricultural and residential uses. Local resistance to state land-use regulation reflects this historical mix of land uses. This case has implications for broader debates on the compatibility of different types of rural land uses, namely, consumptive versus extractive industries. The history of land use in Southwestern Oregon suggests that conflicts between extractive and consumptive industries are contingent on the particular uses in question.