I recently spent a week in Santa Rosa, California, and Portland, Oregon. It reminds me once again of the cultural, political, and legal differences within our country. I returned with a renewed appreciation for the mores of Virginia and Montana, where I live and work.

Santa Rosa is the seat of Sonoma County, the heart of California’s wine country. Alas, I didn’t go for the purpose of touring the vineyards, or dining in the area’s renowned restaurants. Instead, I spent most of a day in the chambers of the county Board of Supervisors, which was the venue for the May meeting of the California Coastal Commission.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Coastal Commission has jurisdiction over land use along the coastline from Mexico to Oregon, up to five miles inland. Nothing can be built in this entire area without the Commission’s permission. The Commission is noted for being very reluctant to allow development, especially in “environmentally sensitive habitat areas (ESHAs), wetlands, riparian areas, and other natural resources in the coastal zone.” Of course, there is nothing stopping California from condemning private land and dedicating it for pristine park purposes—except the Federal and State constitutions’ inconvenient requirement that the former owner be paid just compensation.

Thus, the Commission has prohibited the construction of sea walls to prevent the erosion of house foundations and their collapse into the ocean, and rejected desalination plants, which would eliminate the water shortages that are the justification for building permit denials.

The Commission has resolved the need to balance protecting coastal areas and protecting landowners’ rights by purporting to give owners just enough use of their land to avoid a judicial finding that they must be compensated. In the expansively defined ESHA areas, the Commission interprets this to mean, for in-stance, that even extensive rural parcels can be used only for the construction of one home.

But what if the owners of several parcels arrive at about the same time, socialize as neighbors, or engage in business dealings elsewhere? Then, the Commission staff has suggested, their separate legal ownership should be disregarded, and all of the parcels treated as one. Consequently, each owner could not build even one house on his or her parcel. Rather, only one house would be permitted, in total.

This is where I came in. The Commissioners, who generally are not lawyers and who are appointed for limited periods, usually are dependent on the staff for guidance. Lawyers on the staff often previously worked for environmentalist organizations. In the case of what the staff dubbed the “Single Economic Parcel Theory,” Commission members wanted some outside opinions. I, together with a law professor closely associated with the environmentalist movement, and two experts on corporation and partnership law, were asked to speak at a special Workshop.

I discussed that there is simply no case law approving of the consolidation of legally separate parcels because their owners had incidental social or outside business relationships, that such a policy would play havoc with real estate markets generally, and that it would encourage premature development, as owners might speed up their plans to build before their neighbors do. We shall see how it goes.

My next stop was Portland, where I was participating in meetings of the American Bar Association Section of State and Local Government Law.

Like San Francisco, Portland has a good deal of charm based on the fact that severe restrictions are placed on property rights. Part of our program was a tour of the Lloyd District, a developing commercial area near the downtown. At the beginning of the tour our guide, an area planning official, proudly re-cited that in the past few years the number of people who commuted by bicycle increased tremendously, as did the number of workers who took public transportation. I was impressed.

A bit later in the program, though, the official pointed out that a very small number of large landowners owned the bulk of the commercial parcels, by value. They demanded that the city place short-term parking meters along the previously available streets. Also, they were instrumental in changing the zoning law so that new office and retail structures could include parking for only half of their anticipated employees and customers. In exchange for a guaranteed market, the city promised to extend mass transit to the area. Workers, shoppers, and owners of the smaller commercial sites apparently had no say in the matter.

When I asked if I correctly understood the trick in getting so many more people to bicycle and take buses and trolleys to work was the use of coercion, I sternly was informed, “we prefer to call it coordination.”

We also saw areas of very handsome new condominiums, integrated with parks, ground-floor retail shops, and public transit. When some of my colleagues engaged city planners in informal conversation, they were informed that developers had to pay the heavy expenses in providing these amenities. Would not the end result be that only people with high incomes could live in the area? No, we were told, there was an affordable housing component. This means that “market rate” housing was limited to only people with even higher incomes. Their purchase price would include expenses not only for neighborhood amenities, but for the “affordable housing” subsidies, as well.

In planning circles, Portland is best known for its “urban growth boundaries,” that forbid suburban development around the city. Thus, a dense inner ring (best for mass transit) is surrounded by land reserved for agricultural use. Aging farmers near the boundary lose their opportunity to sell to homebuilders and retire, and those living in the city spend more money for less housing.

However, about 20 percent of Portland workers live across the Columbia River, in Vancouver, Washington, and vicinity. Land is much cheaper, and families readily could afford traditional suburban housing. The Interstate Highway 5 Bridge from Washington to Oregon is greatly congested during rush hours, but Oregon has refused Washington’s request to enlarge it. Washington doesn’t want Oregon’s offer to extend mass transit to Vancouver, either. There is talk of a compromise to approve both at once.

It is clear, though, that Portland officials don’t like the permissive development patterns just over the state line. “A hole in the balloon,” one said. Another way of putting it might be “A breach in the Berlin wall.”