Land use issues are almost inherently contentious and often very emotional because you’re dealing with people’s property and competing visions for the future.
What would a true regional housing strategy look like—[one] that promotes fair share, equal access to opportunity?
Coastal “hot” cities across the United States are grappling with the pressures of their own popularity. With more and more luxury developments and skyrocketing rents, cities like Portland struggle to preserve affordable housing and prevent displacement. But those most affected by rapid gentrification are getting support in the form of local and state tenant protections, innovative rezoning, and justice-oriented community development corporations.
Since 2000, over 10,000 people of color have been displaced from North and Northeast Portland to the outer edges of the city. The area has a long history of such segregation, from the state’s earliest Black Exclusion Laws in the 1840s to aggressive and targeted urban renewal. These divides have been compounded by racist real estate actors, banks that wouldn’t lend, and predatory lenders that eagerly did. Displaced residents and their descendants are demanding action.
In the few years since the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) movement splashed on the scene in cities across the United States, the YIMBY mantra has been persistent: clear away the regulatory barriers and let developers build more housing.
After decades of disinvestment, American cities are rebounding, but new development is driving up housing costs and displacing lower-income residents.
Cities around the world seem to be stretching out physically and consuming land at a rate that exceeds population growth. As populations double, land use triples.
We have the countryside, the forests
. . . but we also have Portland, the city itself. It gives you the best of both worlds.
See Portland’s urban growth boundary in action.
Of New Residential Units Built
Within 1979 Boundary
New Homes Planned
Portland is well known for its eccentric bike culture, and an explosion in cycling has helped the city make impressive progress toward its ambitious climate goals. Today the city is still pushing the envelope, but along the way it is learning important lessons about how these efforts impact its citizens.
A 2012 United States Forest Service Study of urban tree cover estimated that American cities were losing around four million trees per year.
With climate change posing imminent risks that range from rising seas to more extreme weather events, cities must work with ecology rather than against it to develop sustainably.
As the population grows, dense and efficient urban development keeps Portland’s downtown active and thriving. It also drives out families looking for a more suburban environment, which in turn affects the health of the city’s public schools.
Patterns of school enrollment can tell us a lot about Portland’s shifting demographics.
Students Change Schools
Family Housing Units Permitted
Three people can do anything in this city and three people can stop anything. Sometimes it’s a source of frustration, but . . . that’s the ultimate strength of this community.
The sharply rising cost of housing forces low-income Portlanders into a cycle of moving farther and farther from the city center. Will gentrification result in a city that is desirable, but habitable only by the wealthy or privileged?
Recent news stories routinely feature “hot market” U.S. cities with astronomical housing prices that end up displacing residents with moderate or low incomes.
As interest in urban living grows, the cost of residential real estate in many hot markets is skyrocketing.
With the arrival of 2020, Minneapolis becomes the first major U.S. city to implement a ban on single-family zoning in every neighborhood.
Imagery in the above videos are courtesy of the following:
Bike Town: J. Maus/BikePortland; Joe Biel/MusicVideoDistributors; M. Andersen/BikePortland; Street Films.
Creating Housing: Oregon State Government; The Oregonian/Barcroft Media; The Oregonian Op-Ed; Pond5; Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability; Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives; Shane Burley; Willamette Week.
Good Neighbors: Zach Putnam.
Growing Pains: Metro; Pond5; Shutterstock.
Urban Removal in Albina: Albany Democrat Herald; Corvallis-Gazette; KOIN; Mapping Inequality; Oregon Historical Society; Oregonian Publishing Co.; Portland City Archives (A2010-003.3600, A2010-003.6541, A2012-005); Prosper Portland; Pond5.
Click here to watch the entire 2009 film Portland: Quest for the Livable City, a documentary film produced by Northern Light Productions and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
