The urge toward sprawl is simply the market at work. Urban Growth Boundaries are government reeling in market forces when those forces would not result in the greatest good for the greatest number. A determination was made that the rich soil of the Willamette Valley was better suited for farming, and that too much of it had already been buried under concrete. So they took steps to keep it available for that higher use.
And that UGB approach does require and result in higher densities in each of the affected cities. And it also adds to the 'unaffordable housing' issue by creating an artificial scarcity. But not nearly as much as some would have you believe. And yes, the developers were the ones lobbying against those land-use laws. Because there is money to be made in large sprawling housing developments. Lotsa money. So effek the 'greater good'... or the future.
The real cause of unaffordable housing, though, is the decades-long squeeze of the middle class. Picture it this way... the graph of income/wealth distribution used to look like a football. Lots in the middle class, with a few very rich and very poor. These days, it's looking more like a dogbone, with that large, comfortable-not-rich middle - who could afford to buy a house - disappearing. And more squeezed into nouveax-riche territory, and more squeezed into income/food/housing insecurity territory.
The Acton Dictum plays out.
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