Join Metro, See the World


Last year I had the chance to join a group of regional leaders on a Metro-organized tour of the suburban communities of Vancouver, BC.

It was a great experience, and now a follow-up is being organized. So if you’d like to see what’s working (and what’s not) in BC, here’s the scoop. I highly recommend it.

Metro invites you to experience Vancouver, BC: a recognized world leader in successful mixed-use development and planning. Building on the well-regarded 2006 Get Centered! study tour, Metro is planning another trip to Vancouver BC June 7-9, 2007.

Last September over 30 elected officials, business professionals and other decision-makers from the Portland metropolitan area traveled to Vancouver on the first Get Centered! Vancouver study tour. The group met with and learned from their counterparts in Vancouver who have shaped the dynamic metropolitan region. The tour included mixed-use development in downtown Vancouver and also focused on centers development in surrounding suburbs like Port Moody and Coquitlam.

To find out more about the 2007 study tour, visit the Metro website at:
www.metro-region.org/getcentered


45 responses to “Join Metro, See the World”

  1. As I stated in a previous post (04/21/07), I had a candid conversation with some Canadians from the Vancouver area the prior weekend. In the post I mentioned how median home prices are more than double the prices in Portland.

    Most of the conversation however focused on transportation. Some of the random comments made by these people that live there are as follows.

    The cost of living there is too high.

    The streets and roads in Vancouver are very congested and it is difficult to get anywhere.

    It is also difficult to drive from the suburbs to the central city.

    They try and stay out of the downtown area.

    Transit does not work well unless you are going to and from downtown.

    Sky Train (their version of light rail) has had to hire armed guards to protect passengers, particularly at the outlying stations such as New Westminster and Surrey. The individuals I spoke with, all men, said along with advising others not to use the Surrey Station, they would not use it either.

    Therefore it appears that Vancouver has some of the same problems Portland is experiencing. The tours may show the rosy side of things there, but fail to disclose the dark side.

    This puts forward the obvious reality check questions: If Portland wants to pattern its self Portland after Vancouver, are we ready to significantly increase the cost of living here? Are we willing to put the price of housing further out of reach to more of the working class? Are we willing to accept armed guards on Max for passenger safety?

    From my prospective, we do not want Portland to reflect these Vancouver values. Therefore, instead of using Vancouver as a model, Metro needs to redirect its planning efforts.

  2. If Portland wants to pattern its self Portland after Vancouver, are we ready to significantly increase the cost of living here?

    Unless you want to make it crappier to live in PDX, people are gonna keep coming and the market is gonna keep increasing the cost of living. Nothing planners or Portlanders can do about it.

    …unless of course one declares martial law and forces people to stop moving. But that would kinda suck.

    Are we willing to put the price of housing further out of reach to more of the working class?

    It will continue as long as we continue to lose purchasing power anyway. The dollar is getting weak, it’s gonna keep getting more expensive to buy a “house” or attain “housing” of the same standard we’re used to in the US. Might as well get used to it. Wanna fix it… make people stop having so many kids and growing the population. Especially get rid of our entitlement mentality we’re all costs are born by society instead of the responsible parties. It ends up increasing the costs of EVERYTHING.

    Are we willing to accept armed guards on Max for passenger safety?

    Why not? We have armed guards on the streets to prevent road rage. It’s a WAY bigger problem than it is on the MAX. I can also safely bet that more people are killed in road rage incidents (incidents not accidents) than on “transit” assaults on a 1 to 1 basis.

    …but I digress…

    I wanted to ask…
    …what mode of transportation is the trip being taken on?

  3. I had the honor of spending an entire day walking the streets of Vancouver with former City Councilman Gordon Price. Although he is a firm supporter of both increased urban density and public transportation, he was brutally honest about both the successes and failures of urban planning in Vancouver.

    He is the first to admit that Portland and Vancouver have much to learn from each other, and that we should both be looking to other cities as well for inspiration. Many of these points can be found on his very well done web page. The url is http://www.pricetags.ca.
    I highly reccommend checking it out.

    I have spent many additional days walking, riding, and yes, even driving around Vancouver, BC in recent years. I have been to neighborhoods great, mediocre, and downright impovrished. The bottom line is that daily life there is pretty darn rosey for most people. Yes there are exceptions, but the average resident seems to be happier and healthier than the average Portlander.

    The high housing prices are due to two different reasons. The first is that people from all over the world are anxious to live there and this is driving the price upwards. The second reason is that flat, buildable land is at a premium even without an urban growth boundary.

  4. Terry,

    Not sure how a random conversation of impressions amounts to much of, well, anything. Can you name a major urban center where you couldn’t run into people who would say:

    “The cost of living in x is too high.

    The streets and roads in x are very congested and it is difficult to get anywhere.

    It is also difficult to drive from the suburbs to the central city.

    They try and stay out of the downtown area.

    Transit does not work well unless you are going to and from downtown.”

    After saying this, you say “therefore” and make some grand conclusions.” I’d say the only conclusions we can draw are:

    -some people like to whine no matter how good they have it
    -anecdotal evidence that fits our own world view is a dangerous attraction
    -urban living has its challenges
    -the cost of living keeps going up

    So your point was, what, exactly?

  5. Most cities are going to have their poor and rich neighborhoods with a lot in between, but how those are dealt with is an issue that needs to be looked at. Portland has, unfortunately in my book, been more interested in “livability” whatever that means, than solving problems related to poverty. Livability seems to be a code word used to soothe the urban soul and campaign contributors, or course. It has little to do with actual livability given what I have seen practiced in Portland. Transportation is a development tool and not looked at as a tool to put a dent in poverty and the social problems that go with it. Recent statistics that I read in a local paper put the poverty rate in Portland higher than the state and higher than Washington’s and even the neighbor to the north, Vancouver. Were officials to look at solving, or at least denting the poverty problem they might find that they could attain a level of livabilty and solve a number of social problems as well. Part of that might just happen by opening the market to other forms of transportation services and private transportation operators.

    A study by the National Academies that was once on the web, but is now down (however it is still available by and is titled the TCRP 49 if you wish to order it) notes;
    ” lack of personal mobility has economic, social, and human costs, such as higher unemployment, reduced tax revenue, greater welfare and medical costs, and limited social potential. There is a need to define and measure the economic, social, and human costs of personal immobility and to identify public transportation services that will help reduce such costs.”

    “In 1990, 9.2% of American households did not have an automobile. Almost half of those without an automobile are persons 65 years or older and of these, 81% are women.”…

    “ 23% of full-time working mothers and almost 60% of part-time working mothers have non-traditional work hours. This reduces women’s ability to join carpools or find appropriately-scheduled transit options.”…

    “Nearly 40% of central city African-American households were without access to an automobile, compared to fewer than one out of five white central city households.”…

    Politicians have changed and individuals come and go but not much has changed for these groups.

    MHW

  6. Let me make one thing clear, the Canadians I was speaking with where average working middle class people here in Portland for a weekend event. They were speaking from that context and not about poverty in Vancouver. When one of them told me they were from the Vancouver, BC area, I asked some very basic and non-targeted questions about how they felt about the transportation infrastructure and systems in Vancouver. My point is that we should not be pattering Portland after another city that has some of the same transport problems already found here. I don’t think all the praise of Vancouver is that well deserved.

    As for using terms “quality of life” and “livability”, both of these terms are totally subjective and mean different things to different people. As an example, from my prospective, not having enough roadway capacity to meet demand has a negative impact on both quality of life and the livability in any city or locale, Portland included.

  7. “My point is that we should not be pattering Portland after another city that has some of the same transport problems already found here.”

    Terry, that may be your point, but what point are your trying to make and what is your evidence?

    1. Name a city in North America that does not have some of the same transport problems already found here. What can anyone really conclude from your statement other than in your personal opinion you don’t like things in Portland?

    2. How is taking a trip to LEARN suddenly a plot to pattern Portland after Vancouver? I think it’s kind of cool that we actually have elected leaders and public employees who think we might be able to learn something (good and bad) from first hand experience rather than conferences and opinion polls.

  8. Bottom line is this:

    We’re going to need employees who don’t have doctorate or masters college degrees.

    They are going to have to earn a living and be able to maintain a job.

    They are going to need a place to live.

    We can either choose to accept that not everyone can afford $300K+ homes and plan for it, or we can plan that they are going to have to commute from outside the area, and plan for the required transportation network.

    Since Portland has zero interest in building anything but MAX, we know that MAX cannot solve the problem and that MAX is not going to connect the outlying communities such as Clark and Cowlitz Counties in Washington, Columbia County to the north, outer Washington and Clackamas Counties in the metro area, and Yamhill, Polk and Marion Counties to the south.

    It’s up to Metro and the “smart growth” people to figure this out. Either plan for affordable housing, or plan for transportation from the employment centers to affordable housing.

    Or wonder why you can’t find anyone to pump your gas, cook your food, serve you at the grocery store, deliver your mail, help you at DMV, answer your customer service phone call, fix appliances in your home, or the other 70% of jobs that exist but aren’t held by someone with a college degree.

    And that’s not even getting to the chronic homeless and poor community, that’s just the lower-to-middle middle class.

  9. “It’s up to Metro and the “smart growth” people to figure this out. Either plan for affordable housing, or plan for transportation from the employment centers to affordable housing.”

    No it’s not. Let’s not confuse issues here. How is smart growth responsible for the systematic dismantling of living wage jobs, the failure for minimum wage to keep pace with inflation and the historic disparity between top and bottom earners? Housing is expensive in ALL coastal cities. How is smart growth responsible for that?

    There are other ways to be- Japan has even higher housing prices and somehow seems to make it work…maybe you’re focusing on the wrong issues and root causes?

  10. What I’m saying is that “Smart Growth” needs to address the lack of affordable housing, or we’re going to have to beef up transportation infrastructure.

    “Smart Growth” has done nothing but further increase housing prices.

    If it’s felt that Metro has no obligation to plan for affordable housing, than why doesn’t Metro just pass a resolution that only high-wage earner households may live in the tri-county area? That comes back to – don’t expect to shop, need anything fixed, need customer service, need to eat, etc…

  11. “Smart Growth” has done nothing but further increase housing prices.

    I’m sorry, but there is no truth to that. In my neighborhood, developers are buying up old houses, tearing them down, subdividing the land and building huge houses on tiny lots that sell before they even get them finished. For every single family house that goes away, 2 or 3 show up that are usually bigger, and therefore worth more. The reason that the developers are doing that is because they can make money by doing it. Yes, the city pays lip service to “encouraging it,” but the developer pays about $50k to the city for the zoning, SDCs, and etc, so I wouldn’t exactly call that “encouraging”…

    The real reason housing pricing are going up is because more people are buying houses/bigger houses. It is supply and demand. If more people lived with each other, (instead of by themselves,) or wanted smaller houses, the bottom of the housing market would drop out and you’d see an abandoned house on every corner. But people want big houses for themselves, and they have the money to buy it, so… 100 years ago, most of the big houses that you see in Portland had multiple “families” living in them, (okay a family and a few tenants/servants/something.) Now all those people live in separate houses, and guess what, that drives the price up.

  12. OK, that’s what’s going on in central Portland.

    What about Washington County, where there are few “big homes” that are located in the central cities of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, etc.? What about the housing prices there, the extremely dense neighborhoods that Metro is promoting, the conversion of apartments to condos…?

  13. Actually Metro (and local governments generally) worry a lot about affordable housing. The tools to address it are somewhat limited: you can subsidize it, or you can use a combination of incentives and regulations to try to get the private sector to deliver it.

    Metro actually adopted an inclusionary zoning policy (i.e., you had to build housing for a range of incomes as part of large projects), and the Oregon Legislature removed their authority to do it.

    So we now have a mixture of subsidies and incentives, but it’s an ongoing problem. The source of the problem is not a lack of land supply (plenty of land inside the UGB that hasn’t been developed), it’s demand. And Portland is still more affordable than any other major west coast city.

  14. I’ve been meaning to make a trip up to Vancouver BC for several years; to ride the new Millenium Line mostly. Last time there, I remember one district of inner-city Vancouver that was filled with newer high-rises. Portland’s SoWaterfront may end up with the look and feel of this district.

    I still say the real key to managing the Portland area growth is to follow the 2040 Regional Plan’s directive for the development of regional centers.

    The building materials that will rise in SoWaterfront could very well be more productive if directed to outlying cities and districts; creating jobs, services and mid-rise housing complexes that plainly reduce the need to commute to Portland, and build ridership on MAX in the reverse-commute direction. After all the SoWaterfront highrises are completed, the importance of following this directive of the 2040 Regional Plan will be even more clear.

    Super-densifying downtowns only further exacerbates the economic imbalance between city centers and their outlying suburbs. The main objective of New Urbanism is (economic)Diversity, not Density. Density limits diversity.

  15. And Portland is still more affordable than any other major west coast city.

    That’s besides the point.

    Many people in the Portland area still can’t afford housing. Who cares if Portland is “more affordable” than Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc., either we can make housing affordable, or we will deal with the transportation issue of moving these people from cheaper areas like Columbia and Marion Counties into Portland to work – because there is still a demand for these people who don’t have doctoral degrees and the rich snobs don’t want to pay decent wages.

    Bottom line – cheap housing, or more freeways. You choose. Since this forum seems to be anti-freeway, let’s start planning for affordable housing within reach of local jobs and local transit – or let’s get behind widening I-5 to ten lanes from Kelso to Salem. The clock is ticking.

    How wide is the Bay Bridge between San Francisco (where the rich live) and Oakland (where the poor live)??

  16. First off how much does it cost in permit fees to build a house in Portland? Let’s start by reducing those costs.
    MHW

  17. “Bottom line – cheap housing, or more freeways. You choose. Since this forum seems to be anti-freeway, let’s start planning for affordable housing within reach of local jobs and local transit – or let’s get behind widening I-5 to ten lanes from Kelso to Salem. The clock is ticking.”

    Erik,

    I love all your ideas! I really think they should put YOU on the JPAC or TPAC! I would only add one twist to your I-605 idea, though. Make Portland into its own state and let it rip out all its freeways, hang itself and then completely BYPASS it! Yesterday my brother came down from Seattle. He is a law enforcement officer up there. Anyway, we went out to my parents in Dayton and it took 2 1/2 hours to get from Lloyd Center to Dayton. He made the comment that the traffic here is even WORSE than Seattle’s and couldn’t believe how dilapidated Oregon’s highways are compared to Washington’s. Oregon used to have acclaimed freeways now I think they are shameful. But we have Streetcars and a MAX system that do very little to alleviate the actual problem. What is wrong with this picture? We’re worse than Seattle by someone’s estimation who is FROM Seattle? Just ridiculous and embarassing! There ought to be a revolt against this idiocy.

  18. Bottom line – cheap housing, or more freeways. You choose. Since this forum seems to be anti-freeway, let’s start planning for affordable housing within reach of local jobs and local transit

    http://www.clfuture.org – This is not a new idea, the Coalition for a Livable Future has been preaching the need to integrate compact development, affordable housing, urban greenspace and transportation options for a long time. Along with support for local agricultural and better urban design.

  19. “Along with support for local agricultural and better urban design.”

    How is agriculture supposed to thrive when you’ve got everyone living in the concrete prison? I don’t think rooftop gardens are going to feed the urban dwellers. What are you going to do when you’ve eliminated all the freeways? Have people from Portland ride their bikes out to Sauvie Island and pick their fruit and take it back to the Pearl?

  20. I know that successful planning for mixed income residences in high density urban areas is hardly new.

    It’s just that Portland has gotten into bed with all of the developers under the premise of “raising property tax values” that, well, screw the poor people.

    I’m sure that when the Supreme Court ruled on Kelo v. City of New London (Connecticut) that the collective Portland City Commissioners and the Metro Council had a simultaneous euphroic rush of happiness.

  21. How is agriculture supposed to thrive when you’ve got everyone living in the concrete prison? I don’t think rooftop gardens are going to feed the urban dwellers. What are you going to do when you’ve eliminated all the freeways? Have people from Portland ride their bikes out to Sauvie Island and pick their fruit and take it back to the Pearl?

    Well, preventing Sauvie Island’s farms from being replaced by subdivisions is a good first step :-)

  22. Sauvie Island seems to be doing pretty good, given that a large part of the island is outside Metro’s jurisdiction (in Columbia County).

    So that can’t be chalked up to Metro’s doing.

  23. “Well, preventing Sauvie Island’s farms from being replaced by subdivisions is a good first step :-)”

    If the property owners want to subdivide THEIR property, it should be THEIR choice, not METRO’s. What is METRO, a communist regime or something? If they had their way about it they would probably condemn all the farmland and have the commissioners run agriculture in a corporate farming type operation.

  24. If the property owners want to subdivide THEIR property, it should be THEIR choice, not METRO’s.

    Actually its state law that prevents sub-dividing prime farm land. If Metro approved moving Sauvie Island inside the UGB they would be sued and lose.

    And that applies to Columbia County as well. They are under the same constraints. Although I think Chris is correct that the farmland on Sauvie Island is largely in Multnomah County.

  25. … or the state for that matter. It seems that Oregon has utter contempt and disregard for private property owners. That is, unless, they are big developers.

  26. I see a lot of lakefront property that is prime for building (in Columbia County).

    Obiviously it hasn’t been, so something is stopping it and it isn’t Metro.

  27. Thanks to the AntiPlanner’s Anti-Town Planning Week (ti.org/antiplanner/?cat=13), I found a link to Canadian housing affordability. IT seems that Vancouver is among the least affordable places in Canada:
    ———————————————————
    At the other end of the house-affordability spectrum is a cluster of British Columbia communities:
    …………………………….Median Price1 ………Median Household Income2……Years to Buy3
    Vancouver, BC……….$699,000………………………….$57,926………………………12.1
    Parksville, BC…………..499,000…………………………..48,668………………………10.2
    Victoria, BC……………..519,900…………………………..59,015………………………..8.8
    Squamish, BC……………499,000…………………………..63,275……………………….7.9
    Abbotsford, BC…………405,600…………………………..51,788………………………..7.8
    Notes:
    1. Single-family detached house
    2. Median Household Income, 2001 Census
    3. Years to buy a house.

    The numbers here are sobering. In Vancouver, it would take more than 12 years of saving every penny of the median household income to buy a midrange house. If that doesn’t impress you, consider this: three out of every 10 homes in Vancouver are now listed for more than a million dollars. Even in Toronto, another notably expensive city, the median price for a single-family detached house was only 5.3 times the median household income.

    In contrast, Leamington, our No. 1 city, is a beacon of affordability. It would take only 2.9 years of a typical Leamingtonian’s income to buy a median-priced house in the community.

    From: canadianbusiness.com/rankings/bestplacestolive/list.jsp?pageID=article&year=2006&content=homeprices&type=homeprices
    ———————————————————

    So why is Metro studying this planning fiasco? Is it because Metro wants to drive up the cost of our housing even more?

    Thanks
    JK

  28. JK,

    First, you should go to the original source.

    http://www.canadianbusiness.com/rankings/bestplacestolive/

    You will see that the numbers are different than the ones you offer. An average home in Vancouver is C$519,421. Squamish is C$$428,517.

    You are trying to suggest that the reason for high prices in Vancouver is due to planning. Have you ever been to Squamish? It’s the fifth most expensive and has different planning rules- it’s sort of like Vancouver’s Canby, but prettier. How do you explain this?

    Anyway, I’m not sure what you point is other than that housing prices are high in Vancouver. Your contention seems to be that their planning policies are the reason for this. I don’t see any evidence for this conclusion- and a great many reasons that other factors such as immigration, livibility, etc. are driving price. It’s called the market and in Vancouver it appears to be working.

  29. It is unfathomable to me that we’re trying to emulate a socialist city. Unbelievable. Are we America any more?

  30. JK,

    One more thing. To test your “hypothesis” that planning rules in Vancouver are causing high home prices I thought that it would be interesting to check out the planning rules in Leamington, your “beacon of affordability.”

    Check their land use plan out here: http://www.leamington.ca/municipal/documents/OfficialPlan-Section3-LandUsePlan.pdf

    I’m not sure which part I find more admirable- the fact that they have designated the majority of the municipality as prime agricultural land and dedicated their land use plan to protect it or the fact that another major goal is to get greater diversity and density in their housing stock.

    Using your logic I think that we can therefore conclude that the low home prices in Leamington are due to their anti sprawl protections for farmland and increased density.

    Or maybe it’s just not as simple as the “anti planner” would have us believe?

  31. I currently live in Toronto, which is a couple hours drive from Leamington, and–planning or no planning–have yet to meet anyone who wants to live there. People are moving to Vancouver in droves, however.

    Further, if you take this sort of survey seriously, look at one of the many worldwide quality of life rankings that are out there. Look at where Vancouver ranks; then, look at where a place such as , say Houston or Phoenix ranks. Try to find one where one of the latter two rank ahead of the former. You’ll be looking awhile, to be sure. Good luck!

  32. Another thought: if prices in a planned area go up, wouldn’t that imply success on the part of the planners? If I remember basic economic theory correctly, higher prices are a result of higher demand versus supply. So, Vancouver is apparently so amazing that people flock there in spit of its huge housing prices. Yes, I’d say the planners have done a fantastic job, indeed!

  33. Scott Hoornaert If I remember basic economic theory correctly, higher prices are a result of higher demand versus supply.
    JK: Indeed. But it is the supply part that the planners don’t like to talk about. They simply refuse to acknowledge that their supply restrictions are raising prices.

    Thanks
    JK

  34. “JK: Indeed. But it is the supply part that the planners don’t like to talk about. They simply refuse to acknowledge that their supply restrictions are raising prices.”

    JK, so what are people supposed to do that can no longer afford to live here? “Too rich” for subsidized housing “too poor” to live here without. Are they expected to move out? No wonder why Portland has become so lilly white as of late!

  35. Hawthorne Says: First, you should go to the original source.
    http://www.canadianbusiness.com/rankings/bestplacestolive/
    You will see that the numbers are different than the ones you offer. An average home in Vancouver is C$519,421. Squamish is C$$428,517.
    JK Let me be clear: EVERYTHING between the two dashed lines, in my earlier posting, was cut & pasted form the listed source – the only change I made was the addition of the ……. to preserve formatting. If you have a complaint about the numbers or the commentary, take it up with the source, not me.

    Your source didn’t even list average home prices. I don’t see your numbers on that page. But if I did, how does that change the fact that Vancouver is vastly over priced? Lets take that Vancouver line:
    Vancouver, BC……….$699,000………………………….$57,926………………………12.1
    Changing the house price to your $519,421 gives only NINE years of applying 100% of the average income to the house price. WOW a miracle of sudden affordability! (The USA average is around THREE.)

    Hawthorne Says: You are trying to suggest that the reason for high prices in Vancouver is due to planning.
    JK: I didn’t say that. (But that is probably the reason)

    Hawthorne Says: Anyway, I’m not sure what you point is other than that housing prices are high in Vancouver. Your contention seems to be that their planning policies are the reason for this. I don’t see any evidence for this conclusion- and a great many reasons that other factors such as immigration, livibility, etc. are driving price. It’s called the market and in Vancouver it appears to be working.
    JK: I’m just wondering why Portland’s planning class keeps studying failed societies as a model to replicate instead of something to avoid. Of course Metro wants to replicate Los Angeles.

    Thanks
    JK

  36. Greg Tompkins JK, so what are people supposed to do that can no longer afford to live here? “Too rich” for subsidized housing “too poor” to live here without. Are they expected to move out? No wonder why Portland has become so lilly white as of late!
    JK; The only thing that will really solve the affordability problem is to free up a lot of land for housing (the supply side of supply and demand). That means changing Metro’s policy of keeping land supply tight – all that does is screw low income people. Well, now it is also screwing middle income people.

    Thanks
    JK

  37. If we are to accept that planning decisions dictate where people want to live and play, then why are some of the most expensive areas to live in are in Los Angeles and Orange County, California – two of the most unplanned areas of the nation?

    I can only surmise that Metro is seeking ways to increase housing prices here, by manipulating the market. Mt. Hood, the Columbia Gorge, and the Oregon Coast have been here for a long time; but only recently has the population ballooned. This is being done at the expense of those who cannot afford $300K+ homes, and Metro has zero concern over the growing numbers of homeless people; the number of manufactured parks closing up and displacing more residents, or the number of apartments turning into condos – further displacing residents.

    And yet Metro seems to think that transportation problems will solve themselves by adding more MAX lines – yet what will MAX do when there is nobody to ride it – because everyone that would ride MAX is priced out of the market? They’ll move to Columbia, Clark and Marion Counties, and drive to work – and Metro will be left to wonder why the highways are so congested – because of the housing problems they created themselves.

  38. The only thing that will really solve the affordability problem is to free up a lot of land for housing (the supply side of supply and demand).

    Metro is required by state law to maintain a 20 year land supply. There’s lots of developable land in Damascus and Bethany. Are you suggesting that Pearl District condos would be cheaper if there were even more land available in Damascus?

  39. Why do we even HAVE Metro or these stupid communist style land use gestapos in the first place? If people want to live in ultradense housing and ride transit, it should be by choice, not mandate. Thank You.

  40. JK,

    You said, “JK Let me be clear: EVERYTHING between the two dashed lines, in my earlier posting, was cut & pasted form the listed source – the only change I made was the addition of the ……. to preserve formatting. If you have a complaint about the numbers or the commentary, take it up with the source, not me.”

    This is a major problem with your approach to citations. You often use secondary sources that have been “interpreted” to your ideological preference. Come on, at least own up. Avoiding responsibility for a poor use of data is less than honest.

    JK: I’m just wondering why Portland’s planning class keeps studying failed societies as a model to replicate instead of something to avoid.

    Of course if you pay attention to your own data you’ll see that this is an absurd claim. But then, I think you know that. Which is a form of dishonesty.

  41. Hawthorne,

    I think we’re all being hoodwinked. This area isn’t really that great, and is, in fact, just like any other big city in America. Not very livable, cramped, and panhandlers at every turn. The giant cookie cutter McbigCity we have become thanks to all the out of staters flocking here for the supposed “livability”.

  42. Greg,

    If you really think that (and your previous statements make this doubtful) then you need to get out more.

    While it has its share of problems Portland is not just like any other city in America. This is why we are drawing people who want to live here from all over the world- indeed, post timber industry it is one of our few competitive advantages.

    On the other hand, you just seem to not like big cities, which I can respect. They do have their issues- all of them. That’s why there are small towns all over the world that people can live in.

    I’d suggest that you seek your peace and find one.

  43. What do you mean by get out more? I’ve been more places than you probably have. I’ve been to Manhattan – I’ve seen the rats running around. I’ve heard the cars, the sirens, etc. I’ve been to Vancouver, B.C. – the supposed “mecca”. It was filthy dirty and bums everywhere. San Francisco – PLEASE. Disgusting and vile in more ways than you can possibly mention. L.A. – forget it, too. Portland, the little city that’s trying to be BIG. I do like some aspects of the Big Cities, I like visiting I just hate being penned up in them all the time. People should be given the choice without being told to “Move to Idaho” or “get out” even though they may have very deep roots here, often deeper than the people mocking them.

  44. So, as I said, you don’t really like cities. Portland has become a city. You seem to not like them. I’m not mocking you, I am pointing out a fact that is not likely to change. What’s your point, or is this just therapy for you?

    You already said that you were moving because of this and said that you would not make more of these posts until you did. Are you not a man of your word?

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