ECONOMICS AND TRADE | Achieving growth through open markets
28 November 2008
Portland, Oregon, Adjusts as Experiment with Smart Growth Goes On
Creating more jobs proves a major challenge
This is the second article in a series on Portland’s smart-growth policies.
Portland, Oregon — For almost three decades, Portland has pursued a “smart growth” strategy designed to arrest suburban sprawl and its consequences — air pollution from cars and the loss of farmland and open spaces. But the compact, walkable, transit-oriented and self-contained neighborhoods the strategy produced were more of a curiosity than a model other cities followed.
Recent concerns about climate change and oil-price shocks have changed that.
City and regional officials are happy to share their experience with others. Twice a week, the city organizes tours for U.S. and international visitors who want to learn about its experience with smart growth. But they caution that Portland’s growth is an experiment in progress with all this entails — opposition to change by some residents, unintended outcomes and necessary adjustments.
For example, housing prices in the central city surged as a result of zoning laws, demographics and an influx of educated, creative high-earners. Traffic congestion increased as the share of people using public transport fell in the 1990s. (Use of buses and light-rail has picked up this decade.) And despite all the efforts, Portland’s outskirts remain dominated by car-dependent communities of single-family houses and strip malls.
Portland’s policies have raised some skepticism. Economist and former resident Randal O’Toole has made exposing smart growth’s faults his lifetime mission. Ken Dueker, professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University, said smart growth may work better in older central cities than in new suburban developments and that setting strict population density limits does not necessarily promote a shift to alternative modes of transportation or a quality development pattern.
Officials are quick to say that a city’s development is an iterative process that involves much public input. For example, the proposal to add a south-north route to the city’s light-rail network was rejected by popular vote in one of the counties involved. Other ideas have been adjusted once their implementation produced unintended outcomes.
For example, when the conversion of Pearl District, an area of warehouses, workshops and rail yards, into a neighborhood of condominiums and lofts caused property prices in the area to surge, the city decided to encourage developers through tax and other financial incentives to build more affordable, family-oriented housing units in North Pearl. But nothing has created more tensions and controversies than attempts to “densify” the existing neighborhoods of single-family homes by adding apartment blocks. There even was an attempt by Oregonians in Action, a civic group, to strip Metro, the regional government, of its power to set density standards. A 2002 ballot initiative intended to achieve this lost, but gained enough support to give credence to the group’s claim that the region and city are overregulated and their planning system unnecessarily complex and heavy-handed.
Tom Miller, the chief of staff for Mayor-elect Sam Adams, does not believe it is true.
“If Portland [were] overregulated and people [found] it a difficult place to live in, they would leave,” he told America.gov. In reality, the opposite is happening, he said.
Nevertheless, Miller acknowledges that state land-use laws and city regulations could be more “nimble, agile and customer-friendly,” something that both the state and city are pursuing. A 2007 state law brings some predictability to the land-use planning process for all involved parties, and a bill expected to be introduced in 2009 would give localities more say over land-use issues and “nonregulatory tools” to achieve their goals.
Critics say that, by focusing single-mindedly on containing the sprawl, the city has neglected economic development. With a 5.6 percent unemployment rate in October, Portland was below the national average but ranked low on the employment scale among municipalities of similar sizes.
Portland has a thriving business community. Nike Inc., the sports apparel and footwear maker and the largest local employer, as well as manufacturers of high-quality bicycle frames and breweries grew organically from interests and activities that are consistent with lifestyle preferences of Portland’s residents — sports, recreation and fresh, local food. But this may not be enough, especially in tough economic times, critics say.
That is why the Portland Development Commission (PDC) is shifting its priorities. Traditionally focused on making Portland’s streets and buildings more appealing, it now looks for ways to create jobs. It is a tough challenge for the commission, which can tie subsidies to economic-development goals but does not have much control over where employers locate.
Erin Flynn was brought from Boston in 2007 to find creative solutions to this challenge as the economic development director at PDC. She told America.gov she believes that industries and firms built on indigenous values or interests, or those that share them, have stronger growth potential than “imported” businesses that do not connect to the local culture.
She sees particularly strong growth potential in an industry based on sustainability and green building experience. A recent study identified 11 potential green product and service industry areas as potentially producing jobs.
Whatever other possibilities emerge, Flynn said, “we need a robust economy.”
See also “A Model U.S. City Restricts Suburban Sprawl.”
