California has almost 40M residents and Oregon has a bit over 4M, even a fraction of those 40M going north to Oregon is going to overload the housing market there.
I follow CA housing politics fairly closely because, as you point out, they are important in Oregon too. It has been really dismaying to see them consistently fail to pass the kinds of reform they need.
Oregon just needs to build more housing.
... democratically decide their own course of action with regard to housing, zoning, etc.
Democracy is another kind of oppression, when taken too far.
It depends. Most western european countries have fairly strict regulations on maintenance, road-worthiness, emissions and sound. Here in California we have relatively strict emissions regulations.
These regulations were, essentially, decided by a democratic process. Presumably if they attempted to regulate color it would fail at the polls.
If I lived in a suburban neighborhood I would not want a 7-11 nextdoor. Or a steel fab shop. That is exclusionary zoning and it has nothing to do with race or class discrimination.
It disappoints me to see democracy - and democratic outcomes - embraced only when it produces results we like.
You ought to have a look at this book, which makes the link between exclusionary zoning and flat out racism pretty clear:
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten...
Oh, and I would indeed love to live near a corner store. Lots of people did and would now, too.
As a literate person versed in current events, of course I am aware of this history.
That does not mean, however, that exclusionary zoning should not and should never have existed.
"People who run factories aren't going to tear down a house and try and wedge a factory there."[1]
When your starting point is well organized, well planned, well intentioned environments it's very easy to underestimate the effects of loosening these restrictions that never made any sense to you and why can't we have a cute little pub right here anyway ?
On the other hand, if you have actually grown up in a place where people had horse corrals next to light industrial with a smattering of houses in-between and oh, look, that's an auto-shop on the back of their residential lot ... you would know that the bullshit people pull in absence of these rules is incredible and fascinating.
When they started enforcing some rules there[2] it had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that one quarter of the town was running unpermitted septic systems because, by god, they were not going to pay for city sewer. Also, llamas.
[1] A family member of mine did exactly this.
[2] Canon City, Colorado
In September I called an agent the day a property hit Zillow and made an appt to look at 1pm the next day. At 10am the property had 7 offers.