The South Could Learn From The South

When one thinks of innovative, sustainable urban planning, the American South doesn’t come to mind. As the story goes, the South’s most significant boom took place after World War II, spurred by the advent of air conditioning and the growth of defense-related industries. We know what forms of development the mid 20th century brought: sprawling, looping subdivisions with homes on oversized lots; seven-lane arterial roads with big box stores and garrish signage; downtown urban renewal schemes with brutalist concrete architecture and dead streets. Really, it was the same stuff being built everywhere else in mid-century America, just more of it, and worse. And with Piggly Wigglys.

Attack of the house clones!

In the spirit of Halloween, I’ll tell you what spooks me. It’s not ghosts, ghouls, goblins, the Frankenstorm, or the prospect of a Romney presidency. No, it’s the outsized neo-traditional house clones that are popping up en masse in many a Portland neighborhood. Like zombies, they rise from the graves of once-affordable properties. What are these strange, deformed creatures of the night, with names like Meriwether, Ainsworth and Montgomery? They are the Renaissance Homes Vintage Collection – new homes with “all the updated charm, built-ins and period details of the Portland homes you’ve come to love.”

Okay, in the scheme of things, a recovering housing market is nothing to be scared of, and I applaud the effort to design homes that attempt to blend into the milieu of older neighborhoods. But I take issue with these offerings from Renaissance for several reasons:

Planner visits Vegas, isn't horrified

Bellagio fountains. Image: author

It’s Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada - 11:30pm in front of the Bellagio fountains, to be exact. It’s still a toasty 90 degrees after a daytime high in the mid-100s. My wife and I are standing near the intersection of two ten-lane roads packed with cars – Las Vegas and Flamingo boulevards, arguably the “100% intersection” of the entire region. We’re not alone. In fact, I can think of only one other place in America where I’ve seen this many people on a sidewalk without a special event taking place. That would be Times Square. Clearly my preconceptions about Vegas are a bit off.

Where should affordable housing go?

A family member of mine who works at a non-profit affordable housing consultancy in Portland was understandably irritated at The Oregonian’s Sunday feature story, “Subsidizing Segregation: Taxpayer money meant to create affordable and desirable housing for the poor and people of color instead pushes them into the metro area’s worst neighborhoods.”

Patton Park Apartments. Photo: Reach CDC

I agree that the article has a pejorative tone, and deemphasizes any success stories or positive sides of the issue. Hundreds of housing professionals work tirelessly to provide decent places to live for our region’s less well-off. Far beyond tilting up four walls and a roof, our region’s housing agencies have created remarkable communities with state-of-the-art design and amenities. I’ve seen the quality first-hand during tours of North/Northeast Portland’s Patton Park and Shaver Green Apartments.

Asking urban planners to be job counselors

All across America, urban planners are being reassigned (if they still have jobs at all.) Nowhere is this truer than at urban renewal and redevelopment agencies. Experts trained and experienced in things like land assembly, mixed-use development and streetscapes are now being asked to work on more nebulous pursuits like capacity building, workforce development and corporate recruiting. It’s a sign of the times – times of anemic job growth, timid real estate markets, cash-strapped city budgets and anti-government movements. There is public pressure to stop messing with property and start creating jobs. In an extreme example, California has disbanded and outlawed all redevelopment agencies – an unusual move for a blue state.

This great reassignment is not going entirely smoothly. At the very least, it has reduced job satisfaction and self-worth among many planning professionals. At the worst, it has cost people their jobs and eliminated an entire sector of urban planning. The tragic irony is that now would be an ideal time to think big and put people to work on major redevelopment and infrastructure projects. But that’s not where we find ourselves.

What Portland could learn from L.A.

The image of Portland in urban planning and transportation circles is of a compact, walkable downtown, surrounded by leafy neighborhoods with vibrant commercial districts, all connected by light rail and innovative bikeways.

These things do, in fact, exist, and they are mostly wonderful. But Portland also has a dirty, not-so-little secret. There’s an entire district – representing about a quarter of the city’s land area and population – that is the exact opposite of that picture-perfect planning ideal. Think strip malls; cheap, poorly-designed multi-family housing; dangerous five-lane arterial roads with nowhere safe to walk; sparse transit service.

Seattle vs. Portland: Debate Club Edition

Seattle. Photo: Author

Seattle and Portland are in many ways two organic peas in a pod. Kindred spirits. We dwell in the upper left corner of the map, in mossy green landscapes surrounded by snowy mountains and tidal estuaries. We deal with nine months of rain and gray skies by drinking bottomless mugs of coffee and beer, then rejoice with hiking and biking when the sun comes out. We value freedom and individuality, but you can count on both of us to vote in the blue column and compost in the green bin.

But that’s where the similarities end. In addition to the most obvious difference – Seattle is bigger – there are nearly endless comparisons to be made. I think about them every time I make the 170-mile journey up I-5 (or on Amtrak Cascades) to the Emerald City. There are moments of jealousy, but also moments of “whew, glad I didn’t move here.” Each city excels at different things.

On that note, the following are my observations from 17 years visiting and 6 years living in the great Pacific Northwest. Let's do this debate club style, with 15 topics. (Deal with it - we like to read here in the Northwest). Representing my dual opinions will be Chief Seattle and the Portlandia statue. We'll be "Portland polite" and let Chief Seattle state his arguments first (respect your elders), followed by a nice passive-aggressive rebuttal from our lady in copper, Portlandia. We used to settle our scores with NBA games, but now the only sport we have in common is Major League Soccer. And that can end in a 0-0 draw.