Sonnetoptics.net

Portland Oregon is a great city, so great in fact that we manage to attract people here from all over the country and we don’t even have jobs for them.

Now that is great!

Most cities without jobs become ghost towns faster then you can say Detroit.

Portland on the other hand keeps growing along as wave after wave of newcomers show up and join the line at the coffee shops as either, customers counting change for one more Mocha or Barista with colleges degrees or as I call them Degreestas. 

Portland has natural beauty as long as you like green trees and hills/mountains. If you like blue oceans or the brown of the desert you may not like Portland. Portland has friendly people and crappy drivers who are very friendly as well.

When people ask me what is the difference between Seattle and Portland I will often say Seattle is the world smallest “Big City” and Portland is the worlds largest “Small Town” Both are fine places to live, again only if you like green and mountains/hills.. oh and beer, Northwesterners love their beer. 

Portlanders are not uptight about what we got. Go to New York or Boston or Baltimore and you will hear about how this drink is the best, or that restaurant is the best or this local food is the best… 

Here is my trip back east in a nut shell

Mr. Baltimore: Hey Dan you wanna try some Crab?

Dan: No, No thank you.

Mr. Baltimore: hey this is not like your crab, this is from the Chesapeake!

Dan: Hmm, tempting but I think I will pass if I may.

Mr. Baltimore: Oh come on, all you have out west is red crab.

Dan: I don’t really like crab, thank you though…

MR. Baltimore: (Waving steaming hot crab under my nose) see our crabs are blue.

Dan: I don’t like shellfish at all from shrimp to muscles to crab, don’t like it. No thank you.

Mr. Baltimore: Have you ever tried blue crab?

Dan: No, I don’t like crab, at all.

Mr. Baltimore: how do you know unless you try our crab.... 

and on and on and on.

No wonder there are so many drive by's on the east coast they are all fighting over food!

Now you can exchange Baltimore for New York and insert Pizza for Crab, In Maine you can insert Lobster for Crab. Whatever it is, people east of the Rockies seem to be on some sort of social food Jihad. When you announce that you don’t like their food you get the look that says “Maybe you would like it better back in communist Russia Comrade”

Here is a direct quote from Mr. Baltimore’s visit to Portland a few years after.

Dan: You like beer? Let's check out the Brew festival many Breweries with many types of beer.

Baltimore: No I don’t like beer.

Dan: Oh ok, lets go get some Pizza then.

This is what I call “The NW laissez faire” We really don’t care if you like it or not. We will respect what you say, were not going to shove it down your throat because we can’t be bothered with crusades.

That is Portland, Portlanders and the Northwest in a nutshell.  

Now there is something Portlanders get all fired up about. Now when I say Portlanders I mean not only the people born here but all of those who claim to be born here even if they are recent transplants. You see Portlanders love to preserve things. There is something about historical preservation that makes Portland go nuts. I don’t think it’s all Portlanders, it’s just enough of them to sway political opinion as the rest of us show the typical “NW Laissez faire” attitude and just turn the other cheek. 

Look at our sports teams

Timbers

Trailblazers

Beavers

Ducks

You would think form these names that we all pack siz-guns, while pulling our mules along with a few leg traps hung over our shoulder when in reality we all pack cell phones, have an I pod on and a satchel with a lap top strapped to our shoulder. 

This historic ideal preservation seeks to virtually freeze community development into a static low change concept. Low change is not a historic Portland value but a modern ideal. Back in the day if something wasn’t useful they tore that sucker down and made something new. Now though it is as if every fragment of Portland’s past has a value that exceeds ever opportunity that Portland Future has to offer.

It's as if the building in Portland today were the first builders made and have some sort of special status when many of them are second and third generation. Here are three broadway pics roughly thirty years apart. Notice how the buildings change.

So we have no development idea (82nd), Preservationist development ideals and yes we have the Monstrous Orwellian Nightmare developments. Armed with concrete and glass they obliterate entire areas of town, add in some huge tax incentives for builders, spend a load of government money and pray jobs show up so people can occupy their butt ugly buildings. 

This has led to what I call the “Portland Three Way” 

 1 endless strip malls (as in 82^nd Ave.)

 2 “Welcome back to the old days” (Hawthorne.)

 3 Monstrous Orwellian Nightmare

 It is hard to find a section of town not touched by one of these three horsemen of the civic apocalypse. 

I’m not against preservation. I love that fact that I can go drink beer in my third grade class room that was taught by the horrible Mrs. Skaggs who was convinced I was the second coming of Satan. I loved when I traveled abroad I slept in a hostel in Monmouth Great Britain that was older then the United States by a few hundred years. Preservation can be good. Do we need it all the time? 

Strip malls have their places as well I guess, I mean where are all the new 7-11's and tattoo parlors supposed to go? Strip Mall have a place as a first stage of commercial development. Could this not be followed up with incentives for redevelopment. 

Monstrous Orwellian Nightmares have their place and by this I can't see a way to stop these temples to concrete and glass from happening so I'm just moving on and pretending they are not there. 

I believe that Portlanders are stuck in guilt cycle. We allow the type three Orwellian development then to make up for such sin we go on a crusade to preserve as penitence for our sins. 

Here are the three elements I believe we are missing on a citywide scale.

Unique local Identity, Impact, Incentive

Or to put it bluntly building codes and investment and payoffs.

Unique Local Identity: taking existing unique identity and expanding it. Or development of a new Unique Local Identity as expressed though changes in building codes. Changing codes on building styles and structures to allow unique signs and structures.

Impact: development to create an area of aesthetic or commercial impact by city investment. This can be scaled to meet the compliance with the unique local identity. Meaning if 20% of the buildings meet the ULI then you qualify for maybe a unique lamp, or a fountain or a streetcar or something. Scaled civic response to private development investment over time means the city doesn’t need to front a big wad of cash.

Incentive: Tax breaks and the like. My least favorite but a useful tool to get things started. It doesn’t take much to interest developers.

This is not a fast way to change things. It will promote development evolution in an organic way over time. It will not be reconstructive anarchy. Every new building will grow a neighborhoods distinction and impact. Making our city not unique for one look or neighborhood but unique for all the neighborhoods and their many looks and styles. 

Missed Opportunity: East Burnside Between MLK and 12^th Ave.

This little gem in the rough was once a blight of bars and prostitutes but now shows every sign of coming gentrification. Three building stand out here. They are older but they show a unique design feature of overhanging the curbs. This was not common to the rest of Portland but in this area it thrived.

Examples of ULI

The above right pic shows two building with over hangs structures. So that's 4 buildings between in 6 blocks. This would be perfect for Unique Local Identity, or ULI,

If getting a building approved for overhang a curb was not the equivalent to drop kicking an M1 tank across the Willamette River it would be awesome. If the city had incentive for a land owner to maybe take out his strip of crappy underused buildings and develop something better how perfect would that be. If the city say made a metal arch or roses across Burnside at MLK when the half the buildings reflected this new/old look.

 This Building almost got it right

This Developer Opted For Glass Ugly Owellian Bellow 

I believe this approach used years ago may have preserved Chinatown before everyone moved to 82^nd. 

It could make inner SE, between grand and the river something people would come to Portland to see. 

 I'm not against preserving individual special buildings. However over all I think spending development money on preserving is silly. Let buildings stand or fall based on how useful they are. Development down the road should create something special that has impact. Not preserving that past build forward not backwards.