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I always thought Portland also had pretty deep libertarian edge to it. Much of the homeless issue basically amounts to the fact the city deep down just doesn't want to spend money on shelters and most Portlanders find that situation more or less acceptable. You can see it in the city's road system as well, it was very clearly under-built and they cut corners whenever possible. The PPS is more or less the result of the same mindset. The city has a decent(ish) rail system for its size but it more or less only existed because the federal government paid for almost all of it since Trimet tailored the system for a maximized payout. Also, as far as social liberalism goes there is a big difference between the inner SE/NE bubble and rural Oregon to the point they act like two different political cultures.
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Jan 4, 2017 05:56
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The Puppy Bowl posted:Just arrived in Portland from the south earlier this year and it's certainly been eventful. A very small thing but I work for the city and during the recent inclement weather all city employees received an email about volunteering for shifts at the Portland Building since it was being opened up as a temporary homeless shelter. I thought this was really cool up until I saw how incredibly few shelters actually exist in this town. No loving duh there is a homeless problem, they have no where to go but the street. Yeah, it is the city's greatest embarrassment and the lack of concern by the city hall has always been on the more bizarre side of inhumane. There is no choice to build more shelters (and more than a few) and every attempt has seemingly failed in any serious capacity (compared to short term fixes like housing people in basements for a while then kicking them out). I live abroad at the moment, and when I told some of my friends that yeah people fairly regularly freeze to death in Portland during the winter because there is no where to go they thought I was joking.
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Jan 23, 2017 11:23
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SyHopeful posted:It's really dumb, she told an anecdote about how her father died in a car accident on his way back from a rental property he owned that had been damaged by tenants. The part she omitted was that he was apparently intoxicated and caused the accident himself. Yeah, it seems like a non-issue even if it is embarrassing. Also Willy Week has always been pretty much a libertarian storm-drain clogger. I really don't see a reason to replace Eudaly considering the rest of the council is far worse and most it runs unopposed.
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Apr 21, 2017 17:44
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HEY NONG MAN posted:Portland is crazy pants on the weekends these days. I'm a huge fan. I don't feel bad for Wheeler: he was pretty much just granted the position, doesn't really seem to have new ideas, and will leave after one term without even trying to run for a second term (just like the last 3 mayors before him). I guess being State Treasury wasn't good enough for his career path. That said, I would honestly like to see an actual grassroots campaign for the next mayor.
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Apr 30, 2017 00:23
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xrunner posted:Yeah. He wants to be governor, but in a mind-boggling miscalculation he somehow didn't notice that Portland mayor is political suicide. Yeah, it is a notoriously weak position in a city that has a ton of issues and limited financing. I don't know why politicians see it as a stepping stone or a sinecure. Granted, Fish and Saltzman do seem to get away with fading into the background.
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May 2, 2017 07:38
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Yeah, shooting a man with a box cutter is an excuse for homicide. Honestly, I think Portland needs to do what Georgia (the country) did, fire all the police in waves and then rehire then with much stricter requirements especially regarding discharging their weapon. Also, we probably need a Mayor/City Council that isn't a PBA sock puppet and can actually push for real funding to address homelessness and mental health issues.
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May 12, 2017 08:03
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anthonypants posted:Capitalism makes vultures of us all https://twitter.com/Oregonian/status/873903211555557377 Yeah, if anything, it isn't that surprising when you actually see how desperate things are for people on the bottom in Portland (this includes both homeless people and people living in very marginal conditions), addiction (especially opioid addiction) is rampant in part because social services are so minimal in the first place. When you "fall" in Portland there honestly isn't really a bottom. It is the endless irony that for all the activism in Portland (much of it well meaning), the reality is it has become even more of a twisted libertarian nightmare for thousands of people (tens of thousands?) on the bottom. It does that long when you walk around the Eastside (outside the bubble) it is very very easy see what the result of Afgani imports and small government has been. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 09:20
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Doorknob Slobber posted:this is true for almost everywhere in the US Portland is certainly of the more grim side of the fence, especially considering its considerable wealth and supposedly "liberal" politics otherwise. I think Oregon overall has some of the most classical libertarian politics in the country.
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Jun 15, 2017 20:05
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anthonypants posted:Also this guy's out https://twitter.com/dirquez/status/907708901449097216 Yeah, if anything Saltzman has always been one of the most pro-development council members (to the point he pretty much was always laissez faire). I assume there is going to be a ready replacement.
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Sep 13, 2017 00:15
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Hey it works for Portland schools, why fix what isn't broken.
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Sep 13, 2017 00:40
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Thaddius the Large posted:To be fair, the bumper stickers say Keep Portland Weird, so we've got a commitment to uphold. Maybe they could dismantle the rest of the schools for brew bars/music venues? That would be very PDX zeitgeist (leaded water is an extra $1.50 including during happy hour).
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Sep 13, 2017 02:34
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Otherwise, you invariability run up into a supply issue with rent control and an affordability issue with by simply building market-rate housing. Yeah, the ultimate answer is probably affordable public housing connected to the rest of the city through high-capacity mass transit. It works in a lot of cities. (One of the biggest problems in the US is simply cars themselves. Highways are relatively inefficient ways of moving people around growing cities and even if you make the cities more high density, you still have the issue of everyone needing to be on the road. The answer as discussed at length is to simply better transit and while Seattle is trying obviously it is an uphill battle that will probably take decades. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 19:53
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Cicero posted:Good transit is both very important and very expensive, you can also get low-hanging fruit by having mixed-use zoning + better support for walking/biking (which is a LOT cheaper than good transit) so that people can do many daily errands just in their own neighborhood without having to drive. That only goes so far though, it can improve some local traffic issues and increase density but at the end of the day, you are going to have a lot of commuters needing to go somewhere. There have been attempts at "decentralizing" CBDs but you still get plenty of cross-traffic that bogs down roadways. At the end of the day, you are going to have tons of people going across town. Also, the US especially doesn't seem to do small markets well, either it is some type of convenience store/liquor store or a full-scale supermarket. I live outside of the states and I have to say I appreciate being able to go to a local store and being able to get 80-90% of what I need. Portland has been on the forefront of mixed-use and bike use, but it hasn't helped with the amount of growth the city has seen (and that's even considering that Portland has one of the best mass-transit cities for a city of its size). Ideally, in other countries, you should have some type of high capacity transit with its own right of way within about .5-.75 miles of most of the population (this is obviously not the case in the states but it gives you an idea.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 20:57
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Soarer posted:No, you're right. As a Russian that's actually from the former Soviet Union it is pretty funny to see young American kids fly the hammer and sickle while creating vegan and gluten free versions of Russian food. (not even being facetious, it really does make me chuckle) You are even finding the same thing happening in parts of Russia, times changed.
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Oct 10, 2017 22:52
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Cicero posted:For sure, and I'm not suggesting walking and biking can replace good transit, but they are complementary (way better to get people to transit station by foot/bike than by car). It is a start, but I do think we really need to think about how to open up access to transit (with their own ROWs). Much of it comes down to simply money and politics, but that is precisely the reason I am more than a little downbeat on the subject. quote:You're not wrong and I agree completely (I'm actually in Munich now), but I think the reason it hasn't been done well that often is precisely because mixed use is so rare and low density residential (that's also hostile to walking) is so common. You definitely see plenty of smaller, effective grocery stores in NYC, so it's not like something Americans just can't do. In NYC you do have bodegas (although I would say they still relatively skimp on fresh food), but I have been surprised how few new developments in Portland have small markets. Most of the time the commercial space is taken by a coffee places/bars/restaurants. That isn't bad but it would help to have something a bit more functional. quote:Portland still has most of its residential land zoned strictly for just SFHs, doesn't it? And the new mixed-use additions seems to have mostly been like larger buildings on arterials. Better than most of the states but still kind of a half effort. There is infill that is coming (against plenty of local opposition), but I can see why there is resistance, for residents infill largely means a decrease in the quality of life (even though I believe density is necessary). Also, most neighborhoods still only have access to infrequent bus routes. One big issue with the Max (light rail) is it generally took the lowest cost option which is to generally follow freeways and freight rail ROWs, which means stops are almost always in the middle of nowhere. The Streetcar is generally too limited to really touch many residential neighborhoods and is mostly a tourist/commercial circulator. Basically, how do you fix the chicken and egg situation when you need more density for rail but you need rail to service those neighborhoods. quote:It's funny, in the US people have been pooh poohing streetcars as effective transit, but I just visited Prague which relies on them very heavily and it seemed to work great, even without dedicated lanes. It seemed like they were able to get way more people within easy walking distance of frequent, decent transit that way since streetcars are vastly cheaper than separated grade rail. But it probably wouldn't work at the population densities most US cities are at for most of their neighborhoods, you'd really need some upzones. Granted, streetcars in Prague work so well because they are generally going through residential neighborhoods in close proximity to each other. Also, you can generally get to the center in 30-45 minutes by a streetcar, sometimes faster than traffic (depending on the time of day). Prague also has a metro system on top of that. I think a big difference is simply direct post-war trajectories. Czechoslovakia (and Czechia) went with the rest of Europe (and especially the Warsaw pact) of large-scale public housing in the place of American-style suburbs, and most people live in relatively close proximity to the old historic core. In many ways, it was more efficient but obviously came at the cost of personal space and privacy. That said, I live in Moscow, a city more or less designed the same way...just on a macro-scale. It is hard not to appreciate it especially when you get your app(s) working and realize how many options you have for transit, and how much it is designed so somehow can get across a town of its size in an hour without a car. It is almost always quicker to transit any time around rush hour. In some ways I think the US was a bit of a victim of our success, we had the oil, we had the money and we had the space so there was nothing stopping us from developing a nearly entirely car-centric culture, but unfortunately we are now starting to really pay for it as the efficiency of that system is starting to seriously erode. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Oct 11, 2017 |
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Oct 11, 2017 08:13
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Vancouver is kind of a weird mix right now where you have: 1. rich suburbanites using it as a tax shelter, 2. the working class population that skews right-wing/Trump, and 3. more recently transplants from Portland forced out by rental prices. Basically, it is all of the above and it depends on what neighborhoods you are talking about. That said, even with the gentrifying going on in Portland it is going to be a long time when "the couv" flips. Also, the commute on the i-5 is a nightmare and they really should have at least build the light rail line. A lot of it is also that fundamentally I don't think Portland was ever prepared to be a "big city" the infrastructure in it honestly just it too half assed to make it work without a massive headache. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Nov 30, 2017 |
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Nov 30, 2017 22:24
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Thanatosian posted:I don't think Portland wants to pay for infrastructure going into Washington, and I know I don't want to pay for poo poo for Vancouver. Yeah, Vancouverites did screw themselves. Granted, even in Oregon, no one really wants to pay for infrastructure either and it kind of shows.
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Nov 30, 2017 22:58
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xrunner posted:The fee is limited to single family zoned lots so that doesn't seem like quite as much of an option as you might think (pretty sure multi-family lots don't get a choice about whether to improve the frontage). That said, it's not hard to find the lot in question with google and it's not at all upscale or in a particularly desirable part of town. I guess my point is that if you don't want a sympathetic face in the media for developers/rich assholes to use to villainize your tax, maybe build some relief into it - waivers or partial discounts for owner-occupied lots under a specific value with needs based screening. The kind of thing lawyers hate because the rules get really fuzzy but that help make sure you're actually taxing the people you want to tax (developers/speculators/rich assholes)... It's more of an administrative burden, but as mentioned above, you maybe don't get the bad press caused by this kind of ridiculous situation where the city apparently really wanted to help her out but felt their hands were tied so tightly they had to be absurdly creative. I think this is a frequent issue with Portland, in particular, you have initiatives that at least sound decent (the Arts Tax) in the beginning, but the end result is actually a relatively abusive flat tax. In this case, it sounds like the fee is also relatively flat and involuntary, which is going to actually hurt people in parts of the cities with little infrastructure more. There are plenty of areas of Portland that still have gravel roads, and they aren't on some type of mountaintop primed for a mega-development, but simply parts of the east side that the city couldn't be motivated to improve because they simply didn't give a poo poo about the people that lived there. So on one hand, I can see forcing developments to help pay for infrastructure is quite necessary, but the way the law is written is way-way too broad.
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Dec 21, 2017 19:38
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xrunner posted:Right? This nugget from the article is a bit eyerolly (and go Fritz - even if I'm not normally a fan)... Every mayor makes a promise "this time" East Portland isn't going to be totally forgotten and guess what happens. Also, there is the entire issue of BID/TIFFs, how much more infrastructure does the Pearl and a much of centrally located BIDs need? They have been using affordable housing as a defense for keeping them around, but there is a clear reason why Portland has a deficit, a ton of property tax revenue is still being sequestered in those districts. Sure, some of them need to pay off their bonds, but leaving them untouched while basic services continue fall apart is just a bit nuts. JohnnySavs posted:I can't tell I'd I'm just more aware of Portland leadership's bad ideas or if things really have gone downhill since I moved here back in '05. On almost every issue (housing and homelessness, almost any kind of funding, lead, PPS leadership and lack of union contract, last year's snowstorm (mis)handling, police oversight, etc.), the city leadership can't seem to keep from loving things up and/or failing to account for reasonable side-effects. I haven't been here since 05 but I have noticed as well how ineffectual the city government has gotten. Part of is I think Portland still has the political and physical infrastructure of a small city when it really isn't one anymore. Also, sometimes you just need to spend money on poo poo like "snow plows" or "not leaded pipes" and I guess that is simply too much to ask for them. Part of it is that groups like the PBA has way too much influence on city politics, and their ideas are actually counter-productive to themselves. Yeah, I know they don't want to pay a cent in taxes, but you need snow plows so customers can actually get to your store or maybe build shelter space so people have somewhere to be beside on the street? It just seems the city politics have become so ridiculously short-sighted and cost-phobic that almost nothing actually gets fixed or really done. I wonder how long property prices are going to continue going up when in reality the city is deeply dysfunctional (including if not especially PPS/PPD). Portland has great craft brews and weed and everything, but I don't know if I would like to dump a third of a million on a mortgage in a town like this.
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Dec 23, 2017 14:34
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therobit posted:If you replace Portland with Oregon and city with state it pretty much still holds up. Yeah, more or less, in some ways the state level, Oregon is even worse. porkface posted:I don't understand how they can spend more when voters so consistently reject tax measures. Yeah you can reprioritize, but that would almost certainly come at the expense of poor people and so left leaning politicians won't do it. A big part of it is that City Hall honestly has stuffed away a huge part of its tax base in TIF (Tax Increment Financing), basically, BIDs (business improvement districts) can squirrel away property tax increases to pay for local improvements. However, so many BIDs were created that a huge degree of the construction that has taken shape is essentially hidden in these BIDs. I think it is fair to shape them need to be widdled away and a city-ordinated plan put into place. Also, Portland voters usually approve most tax measures, they just won't approve anything. It doesn't help some measures like the Arts Tax sounded okay at first place, but were, in fact, a complete mess and totally unfair. PPS, for example, has multiple construction bonds but somehow the issue of the pipes still wasn't addressed. Ultimately, most taxpayers would still fund one that literally was called the "get rid of lead pipes levy." At the state level, it really doesn't help when the state basically lets Intel and Nike get off scot-free from paying taxes. Also Oregon could almost certainly use more progressive income tax brackets but that probably isn't going to happen either.
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Dec 23, 2017 20:11
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Granted, most of them are already economically depressed and basically living off social security, pensions, and services. There really isn't a future for them, and that accounts for a significant chunk of the political division of the state. That said, I actually don't think they are even really the problem on their own, but rather Oregon democrats constantly talk a great "game" but generally never deliver. Most change in Oregon comes from direct propositions (for better or worse). In the end, there is a general libertarian core that is at the heart of Oregon which makes it a fun place to be a 20 something for a while, but honestly kind of a terrible place to raise a family.
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Dec 25, 2017 10:25
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FRINGE posted:Thats not just an Oregon problem. Yeah, it is just that Oregon is sometimes held up as a "liberal paradise"...it isn't.
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Dec 25, 2017 11:02
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Peachfart posted:Oh, definitely. I am a big proponent of mincome. But while it will help everyone, it won't necessarily keep people in these small towns that don't have a reason to really exist anymore. To be honest, I could see a lot of them becoming like some small towns in Eastern Europe (if they aren't already), just populated by people that have nowhere left to go. Some of them might survive on tourism depending on their location (if there are near any sort of highway), some of them are really pretty screwed. Many of them going to continue to be a breeding grounds for the far-right. I don't think there was any other future for the timber industry either, most of Oregon was logged out and the industry was rapidly mechanizing. Oregon's timber industry really didn't even stop but still only employ around 3,000 people or so (according to state data).
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Dec 26, 2017 03:44
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cheetah7071 posted:Well it's complicated and there's multiple causes but putting out every fire leads to fuel accumulation which means that the next time lightning strikes during mega fire conditions, the spark has the fuel it needs to actually form that mega fire. There's multiple ways to attempt to combat this and thinning is one and has the nice side effect of allowing you to sell the lumber. The issue isn't thinning but clear-cutting, ultimately thinning probably isn't profitable for most companies to be interested. Also, as far as the gorge fire goes, most of the land up there was parkland and clear-cutting wouldn't have gone over well. Also, another the big issue with thinning isn't losing the trees but the type of roads and the erosion they would cause in order to access those trees which probably means completely devastating the area anyway. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Dec 26, 2017 |
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Dec 26, 2017 05:37
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therobit posted:I don't buy the number for education. We are nearly the worst in the country for high school graduation rates. We also have some of the largest class sizes in the country (almost certainly the two are linked). Maybe it is simply from test scores where Oregon is usually fairly middling, but there are plenty of ways to game those statistics. Also, parts of the 26 and the 205 are pretty much gravel at this point, and congestion is very clearly out of control (26/217/405/5/84 etc are jammed on weekdays).
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Dec 28, 2017 20:14
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I do get a sense that the Portland housing market has both cooled off to some extent but virtue no one can afford the rent since here just isn't enough decently paying jobs in the region to support historically high prices. To be honest, the Portland of 2018 does seem a bit of a pastiche of its earlier self, and most of its central neighborhoods have been hollowed out by condos and expensive themed bars (ie 1890s styled mixology places with 12 dollar cocktails). The city somehow even feels even whiter by trending upper middle class rather than down and out working class. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 15:17
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therobit posted:When you force all of the black people east of city limits that tends to make the city whiter. Granted, it is both a racial change AND a class change, not only is the skin of the residents whiter but that it has increasingly been marked by wealthy (white) people who honestly don't give a poo poo about the city's culture or history. You can see it in the city's music culture, housing and much of its nightlife. Anyone remember Blue Monk? Portland was always (too?) white, but I think the Portland of arguably now nearly completely whitebread culturally.
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Mar 19, 2018 16:17
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punk rebel ecks posted:The city is technically less white. Especially with the youth. But yeah it could be significantly less white if the blacks weren't pushed East and the Latinos weren't pushed West. Admittedly, I am talking more about the SE/NE bubble which increasingly lacks the more racially AND economically diverse neighborhoods in the rest of the city. (Also NW/SW Portland pretty continued to be upper middle class and white. If anything Beaverton is more diverse.) But yeah the 82nd street corridor does exist, and also exists a pretty large Ukrainian/Russian population around Lents that is pretty much unknown unless you really work to find them (they are white...but very much live in a separate world). If anything central Portland, for the most part, has become more bland and uniform, while the rest of the metro has become comparatively more diverse.
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Mar 19, 2018 16:33
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punk rebel ecks posted:Yeah. I used to canvass for the city and the minorities tended to appear close to the city limits. Especially in the Northeast. But yeah I am at the the limit of Portland that borders Beaverton and it's surprising how many Latinos are around here relative to the other parts of the city. Granted, I suspect that rapid increases in COL may be from a statistical overhang from very high rent increases from previous years, for example, stores keep on having to raise prices from leases they signed in 2016/2017. Also, we will have to see at the end of 2018 what the numbers actually look like. Basically, I do get a sense the housing market has cooled, but I wouldn't be surprised it the cost of living keeps on going up for a while. Also, the hoard of new (and honestly pretty ugly) apartment buildings in the SE might be a factor (although I don't know who is suppose to be renting them considering how many people are in service industry jobs.)
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Mar 20, 2018 16:02
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punk rebel ecks posted:I see. So these types of things are noticed a year or two after the fact. More or less, there is a lag between the rent increases and their ultimate full impact on the rest of the local economy. That said, while I think the housing market is cooling because of imbalance between prices and demand, it is going to be a while before the cost of living becomes more stable. Also, I have to say that wages might be a factor, in a relative sense they are going up even if Portland remains effectively unaffordable. Of course, the issue is that I think Portland is still getting more unaffordable and the only thing that would actually slow or halt the increasing cost of living is a recession. That said, I think a future recession is going to be tough on Portland because so much of the economy is dependent on consumer spending, hospitality, and construction...all of which is going to be hit hard by a cyclical downturn. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 16:39
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Rent control is more of a side-step than a solution, more precisely it helps people who already have places but also constricts the housing supply which makes it difficult for people without a current rent-controlled place to find new places. I guess you could argue at this point, it is more important to protect people already in Portland than transplants but we may be "over the hump" as far as transplants go (admittedly debatable). The big issue is that can you actually fix the issue without spending major public money? One thing is that Oregon (and in all honesty Portland) really has a libertarian streak to it a mile wide and the real push is actually for local governments to start investing the money in infrastructure and housing they need to. A big issue is that the infrastructure that exists in Portland is often nowhere near capable compared to the burden placed on it, this includes pretty much everything from school buildings to roads to public transportation. It is as well and good to propose some giant project by the river (usually including some affordable units), but then you have the fundamental issue of local infrastructure not being able to handle the load. A good example is the Burnside bridgehead. That said, a lot of the infrastructure in Portland is already "baked in" and it would take billions to actually improve the infrastructure to the standards of a "real city." For example, the MAX is a good idea on paper, but its capacity is really limit and most of its ROWs are isolated from major population centers and are along freeways or railyards. There isn't really much do about it at this point but it is really a system designed for a small city without significant congestion. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 13:01
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Reene posted:How would capping rent at a percentage of the median monthly income for people in a given area make the rent situation worse for renters, exactly? I'm genuinely not seeing how that could possibly be the case. It would be great for people who already have an apartment, but it would be rough for people who ever want to leave their apartment, don't have one or are new to the area because the supply would even more limited. Also, new construction would probably slow down. It may eventually help older/wealthier people who can stay in a cheap apartment indefinitely while younger people who started looking after rent control now really have nowhere to live. Like I said, it is a side step, and there would be winners and losers.
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Mar 21, 2018 14:12
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The issue obviously is the private stock that is being built in Portland is usually not affordable or contains a handful of affordable units, and as I said, the is the broader issue of infrastructure. Personally, I think the issue is simply a matter of both forcing developers to add more affordable units and spending more on public infrastructure and construction. It may also help to promote the construction of "semi-affordable" units that don't necessarily count for existing quotas. Unfortunately, I think the Portland City Council is still very pro-developer, libertarian-leaning and honestly a bit incompetent. If a developer wants to build a luxury tower, there quite obviously needs to be more strings attached than there are now.
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Mar 21, 2018 15:43
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:Government housing projects have a middling history at best, unfortunately. They do in the US because in all honesty we deliberately sabotaged our public housing under Nixon, the Federal government stepped and left it up to the cities (which were being hit by white flight) and the result was pretty predictable. Up to that point, public housing in the US was relatively successful (and racism was a big reason why they wanted to kill it). Right now, I live in a country where almost everything is still effectively public housing of some form, and it works well enough. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 16:05
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Javid posted:The border between blue oregon and red oregon would be closer to Would Ashland be an independent city-state in such an arrangement?
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May 10, 2018 13:24
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inkblot posted:Every mayor Portland has had for like... what close to 2 decades now? has been a bumbling oaf at best. To be fair, I can think of few jobs I'd want less than mayor of Portland as this city has a lot of very pressing issues, none of which have easy solutions, but we are certainly not getting anyone remotely qualified to deal with the problems we have. The last two mayors have been particularly bad, I mean they are essentially middle of the Rockefeller Republicans that gaslit much of the public in thinking that they were progressives. their policy has pretty much been small government and no restriction to development and the results aren't surprising. Adams wasn't that great either and was pretty much a placeholder. Honestly, I just anything getting better at this point. One big issue Portland has compared to other cities, its infrastructure really isn't that of a major metropolis. This includes its schools, roads, and public transportation. The MAX is fine in concept but really isn't designed to move the people it needs to, the streetcar was mostly just to boost property values and bus service in all honestly sucks. The roads are likewise ridiculous and clearly not designed for the load it is taking (the road network south of downtown may literally be the worst designed mess I have seen period). I don't think anything needs said about PPS that hasn't been said, it is a trash fire. That isn't touching the issue of housing. Portland is a good place to spent your 20s into your early 30s as sort of a rest stop on the road of life, but yeah the city has serious and maybe unsolvable issues. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jul 14, 2018 |
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Jul 14, 2018 14:30
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porkface posted:Have you considered running for mayor with that attitude? Granted, they don't even pretend to make an attempt.
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Jul 14, 2018 19:04
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Are there other examples of cities that essentially choked themselves to death that we can look to for insight as to what lies ahead for Portland? Yeah, unsolvable in the sense that Oregonians literally don't want to spend money and if anything the state is pretty fundamentally libertarian. It might have semi-acceptable when Portland was a medium-sized city in a state reliant on agriculture and timbering but not for the direction it is going which if anything seems to be increasing density. It isn't that there haven't been improvements either, but that if anything pretty much all the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. Most of the MAX lines are on existing ROWs near freeways and railyards, but there is no the question of how to actually move people in the rest of the city considering the state of roads/highways. If anything the current toll plan shows how screwed the situation is since tolling is basically being introduced for relatively small-scale improvements on existing highways with little other investment. I don't think Portland is going to explode...but it is just going to be a more miserable place to live and Californians and immigrants will be largely blamed for it. It doesn't help the cost of living has risen with housing prices which honestly has added even more tension. One reason people drink (or whatever) in Portland is that it is actually pretty stressful to make any serious ground there...unless you want to rent out a room forever with zero savings and float through life until you can't afford your own medical bills. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jul 16, 2018 |
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Jul 15, 2018 23:05
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:It's a weird kind of libertarianism though, because normally under a libertarian mindset you wouldn't expect to see land-use I do think there is a bit more of a respect for nature (but lets not go too far...) in Oregon as well as a tendency towards nostalgia. So you have things policy like the urban growth boundary (which is reasonable on its basic premise), but not the serious type of spending that such a policy is going to require over decades. Admittedly, just adding some more suburbs may slow housing prices a bit but it is going not help the other issue the metro area is facing if not will exacerbate them. Portland freeways really can't take on another mass expansion of exburbs. Honestly, the only real fix would probably be the development of denser public housing on the scale approaching closer to Singapore (maybe not as extreme but that is the idea). The current system of handfuls of affordable units in new complexes obviously isn't cutting it. Portland was a in some ways a city that got pulled into the future despite itself and honestly I am skeptical there is the forethought of how to handle what is yet to come.
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Jul 16, 2018 20:54
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xrunner posted:Yeah I should clarify that I don't think getting rid of the UGB is a good or desirable or helpful thing. I just think that it's going to be a casualty of the way things are going. There's plenty of land developers and land owners that are probably salivating at how much they can make off of all that farmland and sooner or later they're going to start to beat on the "build build build" propaganda machine and housing costs are going to be a great talking point. I could see them simply just expanding the boundary rather than scraping it but as far as Washington County goes...those roads are already clogged. It maybe won't stop them, but it is pretty much just going to result in dropping cars into a traffic jam because there is simply no other easy route to get to the rest of the city. (84 and the 5 are at capacity, and the 217 is a joke) It really isn't any better in the rest of the region (maybe they will resurrect the Mt.Hood freeway from the grave...).
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Jul 16, 2018 21:56
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