I have counted myself lucky to live and worked in the beautiful growing communities of Happy Valley, Clackamas and Damascus, all three are exciting budding communities of new homes, quiet residential streets, fabulous schools and parks, as well as many new grocery stores, restaurants and services. The communicities to the north and east of Damascus are Gresham and Sandy and they too are rapidly growing and expanding and this may be part of the reason Damascus residents may have wanted to protect their borders from encroachment. This growth is taking place in and around land that used to be, and still is surrounded by farms and ranches.  Growth like this does bring drama, controversy and makes for heated arguments by both sides of the discussion of the values, and not surprisingly, many longtime locals have objected to the actual and projected possible negatives of the growth.  This is a complicated situation no doubt. Because it may impact public services, property taxes and future growth it is good to get informed before buying property in Damascus. The history, reasoning and back and forth are well described in many local publications, but I feel it is well described  in this article and I encourage you to read it if you are interested in the current status of Damascus.