Gordon’s Back in Town


The not-to-be-missed annual appearance of Gordon Price at the PBOT/PSU Traffic and Transportation class. Open to the public:

On Thursday 11/19, Gordon Price will give a free presentation on the effective integration of transportation in high-density environments with an emphasis on land use. If you’ve seen Price speak before, fear not! He always has a new presentation and a trick or two up his sleeve…

Price is a former City of Vancouver, B.C. Councilor and current Simon Fraser University and University of British Columbia Professor who teaches, researches, and writes extensively on urban development and planning.

To learn more about Price check out his electronic magazine, Price Tags at http://www.pricetags.ca/pricetags.html or his daily blog on Vancouver and worldwide urban affairs, http://pricetags.wordpress.com/.

What: Gordon Price Presentation
When: Thursday 11/19, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Where: Portland Building, 1120 SW 5th Ave, 2nd Floor Auditorium
Cost: Free and Open to the Public

Questions?
Contact: Scott Cohen
City of Portland Office of Transportation
scott.cohen@pdxtrans.org
(503) 823-5345


30 responses to “Gordon’s Back in Town”

  1. JK, in the past you’ve provided links to photographic examples of the good qualities of “sprawl” which included large mansions (not “McMansions”) which genuinely only millionaires can afford.

    As uncharacteristic as that may be in representing sprawl, it would not be fair to accuse you of promoting “housing that only millionaires can afford”. Similarly, it’s way off base to be characterizing Prof. Price as having such an agenda.

  2. Bob R.: JK, in the past you’ve provided links to photographic examples of the good qualities of “sprawl” which included large mansions (not “McMansions”) which genuinely only millionaires can afford.
    JK: That was to show that living in “sprawl” is more desirable than in TODs. It pretty clearly showed the bankruptcy of the planner’s attack on sprawl as being tacky, undesirable and heatless. It is the TODs that are tacky and heartless. Judge for yourself at:
    http://www.portlandfacts.com/smart/sprawl/sprawl3.htm

    As to Gordon, he gave about an hour long talk on the wonders of the Vancouver BC towers and high density neighborhoods without a word about cost.

    Why did he come to Portland, except to show us what we should do in Portland?
    Why do Portland planners go to BC, except to learn what Portland can duplicate?
    Why do Portland planners bring him to Portland, except to show us what we should be doing?

    But as far as I know there was nothing that he talked about that the ordinary person could afford (except government subsidized housing – ie: welfare)

    Does’nt this suggest that the goal is to get rid of people like us and replace us with millionaires that will pay LOTS and LOTS of property taxes on their $1-2 million condos?

    Thanks
    JK

  3. That was to show that living in “sprawl” is more desirable than in TODs.

    Really? I’ve lived in suburban sprawl, and hated it. If I wanted to run to the store, a park, anything, the car was the only solution. The nearest bus was a 12-15 minute walk away because of the dead ends/etc, and ran on a half-hour frequency. That counts suburban San Diego (Mira Mesa) and Portland (Tualatin.) These are the middle-class type suburbs that I could afford. Roughly the same total cost of living in both that situation and an urban one.

    Urban areas I’ve lived in? Usually a ten minute walk away I can run out and grab dinner, groceries, use an ATM or four, go to the library, rent a movie, go to a hardware store, get a haircut, grab a beer, or even go to a park. Oh, and buses were frequent service, and I rarely drive when I live in an urban area other than if I have to go to work in suburbia or in the case of San Diego, wanted to get to the beach. Go figure.) That counts the urbanized parts of Buffalo (10 mins walking from the subway), San Diego (15-20 minutes from the trolley, or a 5 minute bus to it), and Portland (10 mins to streetcar, 20 to MAX) that I’ve lived in.

    Judge for yourself at:
    http://www.portlandfacts.com/smart/sprawl/sprawl3.htm

    I’d love you to list the estimated cost of each of the houses you listed. That would be a bit more honest to sway an opinion. Or can I get a place with a three car garage and big iron driveway gate in Lake Oswego for $200,000 now?

    Does’nt this suggest that the goal is to get rid of people like us and replace us with millionaires that will pay LOTS and LOTS of property taxes on their $1-2 million condos?

    Like us? You mean people who live in the houses you show as standard suburbia in the link above?

    No, it suggests that when demand gets high enough for them high end condos will be built. Developers in most cities overestimated the market near the end of the boom, but there have been tons of condos on the market for $200k-$450k around Portland as well. Since the crash I’ve been finding 2br condos that compare in cost to a 3 br house in suburban Buffalo NY for about the same prices. Even the peak prices compared to many houses in the suburbs for this region also, given the amenities that come with high end condos.

    There’s also been a number of fairly affordable condos on the market lately. Several friends have gotten amazing deals in condos that you seem to feel nobody wants, yet they were excited to buy in the neighborhoods they were able to.

  4. Dave H Says: Really? I’ve lived in suburban sprawl, and hated it.
    JK: Of course most population growth is in the burbs, so most people have chosen the burbs for whatever reason.

    Dave H Says: Oh, and buses were frequent service, and I rarely drive when I live in an urban area other than ….
    JK: Interesting, average driving in the burbs is about the same as urban areas until you get to the very few ultra high density areas over triple Portland’s density.
    See: http://www.portlandfacts.com/smart/densitycongestion.htm

    Dave H Says: That counts the urbanized parts of Buffalo (10 mins walking from the subway), San Diego (15-20 minutes from the trolley, or a 5 minute bus to it), and Portland (10 mins to streetcar, 20 to MAX) that I’ve lived in.
    JK: Ten minutes in a car gets you almost half way to work in the average car commute, while you’re still walking to the transit station.

    Dave H Says: I’d love you to list the estimated cost of each of the houses you listed.
    JK: Feel free to look them up. My point was that the burbs are more desirable than the planner’s vision of a sea of TODs.

    Dave H Says: That would be a bit more honest to sway an opinion. Or can I get a place with a three car garage and big iron driveway gate in Lake Oswego for $200,000 now?
    JK: You can got one of those, well UNDER $200k, brand new, on a 1/3 acre lot, including the cost of construction schools, roads, lakes, waterways libraries and churches in a Houston burb. That pretty much says how much the planners have hurt this region.

    Dave H Says: No, it suggests that when demand gets high enough for them high end condos will be built.
    JK: Wrong, Portland shoveled tax money at those builder to get them to build things that didn’t “pencil out” (or else the wasted the tax money.)

    Dave H Says: Developers in most cities overestimated the market near the end of the boom, but there have been tons of condos on the market for $200k-$450k around Portland as well.
    JK: Or get a real home, not a condo, for under $200k in an area where the planners don’t screw up the market per above. See: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2004181704&zsection_id=2003910421&slug=eicher14&date=20080214
    and portlandfacts.com/housing/housingcost.htm

    Dave H Says: There’s also been a number of fairly affordable condos on the market lately. Several friends have gotten amazing deals in condos that you seem to feel nobody wants, yet they were excited to buy in the neighborhoods they were able to.

    JK: Do any of those happen to be under $180k , 2000+ sqft on a 1/3 acre lot?

    Thanks
    JK

  5. Re: Condos…$200-$450k is a nice price…for a house with a real yard. Not so much for a condo ($100k, tops, in the burbs; Wood Village condos are an exellent example of a middle-class neighborhood in this price range). And definitely not for a poorly constructed McMansion on a lot small enough you’d have a hard time fitting a large Schmizza on (Orenco’s single-family lots; I consider these severely overvalued at $200k+, even though many have never been occupied since they were built a decade ago).

  6. JK wrote: Judge for yourself at:
    http://www.portlandfacts.com/smart/sprawl/sprawl3.htm

    The link contains pictures of houses costing many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and compares them to mid-range condos.

    Care to give us some current values for some of those properties, JK? (Use Zillow if you like.)

    I wouldn’t want to think that you were promoting homes that only millionaires could afford.

  7. News tip for JK: Not everyone wants to maintain a 1/3 acre lot. Not everyone wants to live in a condo, either, of course. I’m very glad we have an increasing range of options in our community, and that we’re moving away from decades worth of policies which artificially favored and subsidized suburban “sprawl”-type development.

  8. Paul wrote: Orenco’s single-family lots; I consider these severely overvalued at $200k+, even though many have never been occupied since they were built a decade ago

    I don’t follow. Are you saying that there are $200K+ vacant lots which have not seen construction in Orenco? (There are some vacant tracts out there, but I don’t know the current asking price for individual parcels).

    Or are you saying that there are “many” actual completed structures in Orenco which somehow have been sitting vacant for 10 years, including throughout the last real estate boom?

  9. Yes, Orenco is underoccupied. There’s few vacant lots, but the occupancy has not been appreciably better than what The Round in Beaverton has been seeing (last I heard The Round has serious mold problems, is only around 40% occupied after 10 years, having difficulty seeking tenants, the developers were being sued, and the whole thing could be torn down in the nearish future: This is good, it’s an eyesore that sticks out like a sore thumb on the Beaverton skyline from any of the hilltop vistas around the northeastern Tualatin Valley).

    A great deal of greenfield was destroyed, and replaced with sub-par tract-housing. They’re rather cheaply built with little soundproofing between rooms, exterior windows have sweeping vistas of the neighbor’s siding so close you can reach out the window and touch it, the neighborhood is designed with few access points to arterials, and has a lot of unnecessary turns and undersized streets that make it difficult to impossible for a rural fire engine to fit down or make a corner (this is a problem: Hillsboro F&R is a rural fire department, Orenco’s design has a real impact on response times). Nobody wants to live in a neighborhood where a kitchen greasefire can go out of control and readily spread to neighboring structures before the fire trucks can arrive. Few want to live in a cheaply built house with soundproofing on par with a double-wide. Only a sucker would pay $200k+ for both.

  10. it’s an eyesore that sticks out like a sore thumb on the Beaverton skyline from any of the hilltop vistas around the northeastern Tualatin Valley).
    JK:
    Isn’t that the multi-story parking structure for the TOD? Isn’t it taller than the nearby mixed use building?

    Why do they have all that parking for a TOD anyway – nobody is supposed to need a car?

    Thanks
    JK

  11. Bob R. Says: The link contains pictures of houses costing many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and compares them to mid-range condos.
    JK: You completely miss my point: these are examples of sprawl that is a nice place to live. That’s all. Its purpose is to dispel the claim that sprawl is tacky, un-livable and should be eliminated. Would you like me to go out and take picture of low cost sprawl too?

    As is said earlier in this thread:
    That was to show that living in “sprawl” is more desirable than in TODs. It pretty clearly showed the bankruptcy of the planner’s attack on sprawl as being tacky, undesirable and heatless. It is the TODs that are tacky and heartless. Judge for yourself at:

    Price is not relevant in this argument. Price is a separate argument. (If you really want to have that argument, we can.)

    Bob R. Says: Care to give us some current values for some of those properties, JK? (Use Zillow if you like.)
    JK: NO. That is a different argument. Please try to keep on topic.

    Bob R. Says: News tip for JK: Not everyone wants to maintain a 1/3 acre lot. Not everyone wants to live in a condo, either, of course.
    JK: Great. Let them all pay their own cost. Starting with cutting off subsidies to developers of crap like The Round (what a cute, pseudo-upscale name) and Orinco, then stop the multi billion waste on toy trains for a very few people. Let the users continue to pay for the roads they use. Please note that everyone uses roads, so a little general tax money is not a road subsidy. The real subsidy is the 80% of transit cost that is paid by NON USERS.

    Bob R. Says: … we’re moving away from decades worth of policies which artificially favored and subsidized suburban “sprawl”-type development.
    JK: Care to name those subsidies and compare the amounts to the subsidies for transit and high density development.

    Bob R. Says: I don’t follow. Are you saying that there are $200K+ vacant lots which have not seen construction in Orenco? (There are some vacant tracts out there, but I don’t know the current asking price for individual parcels).
    JK: I sure don’t see them with Google Earth, only houses crammed next to each other with no useful front yards (7 ft) or back yards (approx zero, not counting crime attracting ally) or side yards (11 ft) on 45 x 85 ft lots (approx).

    Oh, for shame, it looks like the sidewalks are only 5 ½ ft around the “park”. Not only that, the parking in the business area appears to be about double the land area of the buildings. I thought people didn’t need cars in TODs!!

    Thanks
    JK

  12. Re: The Round: No, that’s not a parking structure: That hideous corrugated metal and stucco attrocity is The Round.

  13. Paul replies, regarding Orenco: There’s few vacant lots, but the occupancy has not been appreciably better than what The Round in Beaverton has been seeing

    Your original assertion was that there were “many” properties sitting vacant for a decade. Please provide evidence.

  14. JK protests: You completely miss my point

    No JK, it is precisely the point. You came in here, first comment, and immediately made a bogus (and characteristically hyperbolic) accusation against someone. I used your own (years-old, still-posted) material to show that you, by your own standards, are doing the same thing.

    So Prof. Price, according to you, uses examples of condos which you say are unaffordable except by millionaires. And yet, you have been doing the same thing: Using examples of stand-alone homes which are only affordable by millionaires.

    Why don’t you go to the presentation and ask him a few polite, pointed questions about affordability, subsidies, and markets, and see what he actually has to say about it? You can bring your video camera, put the whole thing on YouTube. That would be far more useful than what you’ve presented so far here.

  15. Visit Orenco sometime. Look how many molding, mossy for-sale signs you find plastered with discount stickers over the decade. As of last week, there’s still quite a few.

  16. Why don’t you go to the presentation and ask him a few polite, pointed questions about affordability, subsidies, and markets, and see what he actually has to say about it? You can bring your video camera, put the whole thing on YouTube. That would be far more useful than what you’ve presented so far here.
    Already did that::
    http://blip.tv/file/2622938/

    Thanks
    JK

  17. Of course most population growth is in the burbs, so most people have chosen the burbs for whatever reason.

    Thanks to decades of subsidies for those projects and disinvestment in urban areas, yes, they’ve become common. I’ve rented in the suburbs before because I couldn’t find anything available in an urban neighborhood that was reasonably safe, which I’d say implies the demand is there for urban areas that are treated equally to their suburban counterparts. I don’t want to live in a neighborhood full of squats and burned out buildings, for example. That would defeat the point.

    Many people don’t want to deal with maintaining a yard. A yard is another hidden cost of owning a house you describe as so ideal. You have to either maintain it, or pay someone to do so for you. (That or you’re just destroying your property value and risking fines.)

    Utility costs are another one. I don’t want to pay to heat rooms I don’t need, or 20 foot ceilings.

    Some people want the biggest house they can afford, and some have kids (about 24.5% from the census data I could find quickly), but there are plenty of married couples and single people (34.6% of Portland) who don’t want to have roommates to fill a house or just don’t want to deal with having a house and a yard.

    Ten minutes in a car gets you almost half way to work in the average car commute, while you’re still walking to the transit station.

    Not if your job is in most of the neighborhoods that transit serves in any major city I’ve spent much time in. Well, Buffalo is the exception, the only traffic jams you’ll see there are at a tollbooth or car accident. Losing half a city’s population can do that.

    You’re not getting into downtown San Diego at rush hour in 20 minutes unless you live in an urban area near it, like the one I lived in. If you’re in the suburbs that look like the desirable ones as you imagine them, you’re looking at a 40-60 minute commute to downtown. Of course, if you can afford those houses, you probably can afford to hire a private driver as well.

    Part of why I use transit is that I can get door to door service with one bus route, there’s more two blocks away, or the streetcar 10 minutes away, or several ZipCars to choose from if I need a car.

    Compared to living in Tualatin, I can get to a vast number more stores, restaurants, bars, banks, a library, parks, etc. All that in about the time it took to get to a much smaller cluster in Tualatin. Simple tasks like going to the liquor store, grocery store, and grabbing a quick lunch take less time walking or taking TriMet here than driving in Tualatin.

    You can got one of those, well UNDER $200k, brand new, on a 1/3 acre lot, including the cost of construction schools, roads, lakes, waterways libraries and churches in a Houston burb. That pretty much says how much the planners have hurt this region.

    Houston vs Portland seems like an apples and tacos comparison. Land is much cheaper in Texas than anywhere on the west coast, for example.

    Already did that::http://blip.tv/file/2622938/

    Are you arguing that valuable land shouldn’t be built into condos? Not all condos are built with more subsidies than suburban areas.

    Are Houston’s housing prices really relevant to Portland’s either? They have a lot less terrain limitations (which quickly add to housing costs), and are aggressively building LRT instead of BRT.

    They’re also working on Smart Growth type planning for their five new LRT corridors (29 miles in total by 2012), encouraging additional density near the station stops. Or do you just want us to wait to build any LRT until we’ve sprawled out like Houston and have some of the worst air pollution in the nation like Houston?

    I guess I’m not sure what your complaint is. There are lots of suburban areas of Portland where (according to you) there are beautiful, cheap houses available. There are also great urban areas in Portland that are about equally affordable (especially if you rent).

    Is it just the tax breaks given to TOD’s that you don’t like, or that we’re trying to plan ahead rather than wait until traffic and air quality is a complete disaster to build things like MAX and use Smart Growth policies?

  18. Dave H Says: (JK: Of course most population growth is in the burbs, so most people have chosen the burbs for whatever reason.)
    Thanks to decades of subsidies for those projects and disinvestment in urban areas,
    JK: Are you trying to convince us that the subsidies started hundred years ago? Because people have been destroying farms and building homes over them for longer than that. Shorter term examples right here in Portland include Ladds, Albina, Sunnyside, and 100 other neighborhoods without subsidies.

    People have been choosing to move to the burbs since roman times where the word suburban originated.

    Thanks
    JK

  19. People have been choosing to move to the burbs since roman times where the word suburban originated.

    So that proves everyone wants to live there? That’s the best evidence you can give?

  20. So that proves everyone wants to live there? That’s the best evidence you can give?
    JK: Why else would they live in the burbs?

    Are you trying to convince us that planners know what people really want. Better then the people who freely make their own choice?

    Thanks
    JK

  21. JK:“Are you trying to convince us that the subsidies started hundred years ago? Because people have been destroying farms and building homes over them for longer than that. Shorter term examples right here in Portland include Ladds, Albina, Sunnyside, and 100 other neighborhoods without subsidies.

    People have been choosing to move to the burbs since roman times where the word suburban originated.”

    ws:Suburb and suburbia are two different things. Farmland into a nice neighborhood is not bad. Farmland into a wasted space of disconnected streets, cul-de-sacs, zero pedestrian connectivity, super-low density, and single-use zoning is bad.

    I know they are bad due to their consumptive qualities, squandering on public tax dollars and dilution of public services, negative impact on the environment and detriment to individual health.

    Can I get a source that suburban is a Roman word? You might want to brush up on your history of Roman suburbs. I think the ones in the “suburbs” were not exactly there by choice, and probably there do to particular circumstances.

  22. Me: So that proves everyone wants to live there? That’s the best evidence you can give?
    JK: Why else would they live in the burbs?

    Are you trying to convince us that planners know what people really want. Better then the people who freely make their own choice?

    That’s honestly a hilarious answer that completely ignores my question. I don’t deny some people want suburban living. Some want country living.

    What you’re ignoring over and over is some actually want urban living. Many of us like the idea of a useful city, like many Houston residents apparently do to based on their current support of LRT and smart growth. Why would a paradise like Houston, as you portray it, want to be anything like Portland, the hellhole you keep describing?

    Nobody says suburbs are not allowed. There’s been plenty of new developments in the Portland area, just look at the Bull Mountain area for an example.

    Nobody is saying we can’t have suburbs, but let’s also not make that the only option. Cities all over America are realizing that just because some Romans or people 100 years ago even wanted to escape cities, not everyone does. Recent inventions (on the time line you’re using) like indoor plumbing and electric lighting make city living a lot more tempting for many people.

  23. …except nobody in Salem uses Comcast, since Comcast doesn’t carry the city’s only local TV station, and DirecTV is cheaper for a comparable lineup and allows for stupid-easy over-the-air antenna reception. Salem only pipes their programming to Comcast. Therefore, nobody in Salem can see it anyway.

  24. Therefore, nobody in Salem can see it anyway

    First of all, is KWVT really that popular? And my parents in Salem have Comcast cable, so it’s not true that “nobody in Salem uses Comcast”. But the real thing isn’t that Salem’s community access covers many events, it’s that they also do a good job putting the videos of those meetings on the Web (note the Streaming Video menu on their Web site).

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