Cato’s Randal O’Toole Speaks on Land Use Planning

The Cato Institute and Cascade Policy Institute invite you to a luncheon discussion featuring Randal O’Toole.

The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future

With comments by Cato President Ed Crane, Cascade President John Charles, and Oregonians in Action President David Hunnicutt.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Portland, Oregon
12:00-2:00 p.m. Lunch served.
For venue information, contact Cascade Policy Institute.

$20 admission includes lunch. To register, please contact Cascade Policy Institute at (503) 242-0900 or [email protected].

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 attempt to 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.

To register, please contact Cascade Policy Institute at (503) 242-0900 or [email protected].