The Oregonian‘s latest coverage of Portland’s densification disaster focuses on outer Southeast Portland, a neighborhood that lacks sidewalks on three out of four streets and has poor roads and transit service to boot. When the city proposed to densify the neighborhood in 1996, residents hotly protested, but the city promised to add sidewalks and improve other services.
Since then, the city has added not an inch of sidewalk, roads are in worse shape than ever, and transit service is even less frequent than it was in 1996. But the city has permitted the construction of more than 14,000 new dwelling units. One homeowner (presumably not the home’s occupant) built five three-story duplexes in his or her backyard.
This is the fate that was planned for Oak Grove, a neighborhood the Antiplanner lived in until 1998. Oak Grove was one of 36 neighborhoods targeted by Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency, for densification. Metro also gave Portland and 23 other cities and three counties population targets that they had to meet by densifying neighborhoods. Oak Grove residents protested loudly enough that they avoided densification, but that just meant that some other neighborhood had to be densified to meet the population targets.
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Like other Southeast Portland, Oak Grove doesn’t have a lot of sidewalks. It’s reasonable to assume that these neighborhoods were picked for densification for the same reasons they didn’t have sidewalks: they were occupied mainly by working-class families who don’t have a lot of political power. This is one more example of the planners’ bias that working-class people don’t deserve to live in neighborhoods of single-family homes.
Portland’s and Metro’s obsessions with density are destroying the quality of life for people throughout the urban area. All this is so Metro need only make minimal expansions to the region’s urban-growth boundary. Even when it does bring small parcels of land within the boundary, the decisions are challenged and delayed by various land-use activists. As a result, some are thinking of getting the state legislature to add land. But this will just make it a political matter, meaning the wealthy will get their land added (or prevent adjacent land from being added).
Portland’s boundary boundary encompasses less than 0.4 percent of the state, yet the land inside houses nearly 40 percent of the state’s residents. All the urban-growth boundaries in Oregon cover just 1.3 percent of the state, yet house more than 80 percent of the state’s residents. The state is hardly running out of open space; aside from the fact that so little of the state is urbanized, more than half is in national forests, national parks, or other government reservations. In short, this is a stupid plan that accomplishes nothing except spreading misery to the region’s less-wealthy and less-powerful residents.
The people of Portland elect these clowns, or at least the politicians who appoint them, so the people richly deserve the disaster enfolding them. They are giving us a useful lesson. I have no sympathy for them, and I enjoy their misery.
Worse is better!
Happy New Year!
“Overall, how do you rate the quality of land-use planning?”
39% positive!?
The majority of Portlanders are anti-planners.
Here is a recent quote from one of the chief architects of the SE PDX disaster. Please understand that this quote came after a discussion of the deaths of two girls and one young woman when they
were hit & killed on streets without sidewalks in the same small area:
“But planners won’t be viewing east Portland’s future through the same rose-colored glasses of the past.
“There are some big challenges in east Portland, regardless of our intent,” Engstrom said.“I think you could say that we are aiming to try and address some of those issues that have been raised,” he said. “But I don’t want to make a promise that life is going to get better.”
The city council s too busy lying on grant applications for bike share to fix the sidewalks.
Frank,
Before you read my comment, take a deep breath. I acknowledge in advance
that my position is terribly conflicted, and that skepticism is understandable.
Here is my take on planning in PDX:
1. Very few of my friends are against the UGB- many of love it as an article of faith. I
can’t totally defend my affection for the UGB on rational grounds.
2. Portland planning did not have to be the corrupt cluster-F that drained the city’s resources
towards a fancy downtown.
3. Portland planning must be totally changed to be more democratic and not 100% to pleasure the whims of developers.
4. Hey- Metro is so jerky that they allowed pioneer graves to be disturbed. No respect for
the citizens, alive or dead.
5. So- that is my take on the 61% dis-satisfaction rate.
I just did some cursory calculations, and for a 400-feet long stretch of Bush St in the middle of the Powelhurst -Gilbert neighborhood, it would cost upwards of $400k for a four-feet-wide sidewalk on ONE side of the road. That assumes no existing sidewalks, but as Google Street View shows, there are sections of sidewalk, with new sidewalk in front of new development and sidewalk absent in front of some SFHs.
Side streets show no sidewalks at all, and some “streets” are ripe for urban 4x4ing.
I worked at a school a few miles from this area, and when driving though these areas, I noticed the lack of sidewalks; due to this, and other undesirable qualities of the area, I chose to live close-in Portland—where I could walk on sidewalks to Fred Meyer and movie theaters and restaurants—and commute out.
Yes, city gov made promises they didn’t keep, but is anyone surprised? Governments and electeds, to use Danisms, are mendacious.
To conclude, my questions are:
One problem with building sidewalks for the areas without them is, it is the responsibility of the property owner to build them.
Portland City Code 17.28.020.A states the rule: “The owner(s) of land abutting any street in the City shall be responsible for constructing, reconstructing, maintaining and repairing the sidewalks, curbs, driveways and parking strips abutting or immediately adjacent to said land
they were occupied mainly by working-class families who don’t have a lot of political power. This is one more example of the planners’ bias that working-class people don’t deserve to live in neighborhoods of single-family homes.
Oh, wow! Planners get elected and make/block laws now?!?!?!?!?!?!
Who knew?
Best,
D
English Major before the UGB and central controlled planning, zoning changes were started at the property owner level and had to be OK’d by the neighbors. Before it went to the county or city.
Do you want Metro or City planners telling you what your zoning must be or changed after you buy a property, without your permission?
Good point, sprawl.
Why, then, is there this implied promise to provide them by the city and its planners: “…the May 2013 report said, but it could also ‘provide the opportunity to invest in much-needed infrastructure, such as schools and sidewalks.'”
And why is the state and city providing them in some areas if it’s the property owners’ responsibility:
After child’s death, east Portland’s 136th Avenue to receive $4.8 million for sidewalks, crossings: “Combined with $1.2 million earmarked by Portland, the project will ensure a 7-foot-wide sidewalk runs along 136th Avenue, said Dylan Rivera, a spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation.”
The people of Portland elect these clowns, or at least the politicians who appoint them, so the people richly deserve the disaster enfolding them. They are giving us a useful lesson. I have no sympathy for them, and I enjoy their misery.
It’s true! Time and time again we will read comments from liberal idiots who mouth off about “sprawl” when D.R. Horton wants to build (unsubsidized) houses on some otherwise worthless piece of land out by Hillsboro or wherever, but the same loser is strangely silent when corrupt pigs like Homer Williams or Tom Walsh wants to stick their snout in the public trough and build millions in subsidized projects in Portland. The same loser screams that suburbia is subsidized while ignoring the half billion dollars in direct, obvious subsidies to Homer, and the billions in subsidies to the choo choo trains.
I agree, I want the situation to become so desperately bad in Portland that even the most liberal, “smart” growth embracing idiot can no longer vote for the thugs who run the show. When liberals realize that one more vote for a Neil Goldshit mafia member or buddy means they might not eat that month because money is needed for the choo choo’s or some new Homer Williams mixed use paradise, then they will change their voting patterns. Politics is based on the avoidance of pain, so the only way to change politics is to inflict that pain good & hard.
Make those BMW driving, $90.000 a year limo liberals feel the pain of a ambulance not reaching their loved one in time to save their life, because it had to stop at a dozen traffic lights and fight through some mixed use, 4-lane converted to 2 lane road diet boulevard with pedestrian crossings every 20 feet. Make them spend 2 hours in traffic hell to get to their LEED certified condo’s that are falling over due to shoddy construction. In fact, I want Portland to pay the full price of its congestion embracing liberal policies. I want gridlock on all streets 24/7, continuously, just like the ideal of Manhattan that planners constantly masturbate over. Then maybe the loser liberals will stop supporting the choo choo and the UGB and the “smart growth” policies that caused all this.
Good questions, Frank.
I guess the answer to why people in SW should pay for sidewalks in SE is this: the area was victimized by developers and neglected by the city to the point where there are pedestrian deaths clustered in one area.
The city caused the problem and must pay. Agreed that not all areas deserve free sidewalks. But Brentwood deserves some money back- I feel like my tax dollars all drain to the Pearl. I bet you and I could find some stupid transport projects to cancel so that the money could repair the sidewalks in that one poor area plagued by deaths.
Why did people cluster there? Partly because they were bamboozled. Not everyone has a great financial background. SE PDX was fleeced. Sad.
What hypocrisy by the city- the outer SE development ignores all smart growth principals. I guess you can make any neighborhood” vibrant” by screwing every other neighborhood. Alberta/Hathorne/Richmond are Ptomekin Villages.
Can we agree that PDX should pay for some sidewalks, by, say, tossing bike share and ugly public art downtown.
The Antiplanner wrote:
It’s reasonable to assume that these neighborhoods were picked for densification for the same reasons they didn’t have sidewalks: they were occupied mainly by working-class families who don’t have a lot of political power. This is one more example of the planners’ bias that working-class people don’t deserve to live in neighborhoods of single-family homes.
Stated slightly differently, people of modest means and modest political power should have to move much further away from the core of the region and much further away from employment, and they should be forced onto mass transit.
I agree with you, English Major.
My number one complaint about city government, both here in Seattle and there in Portland, is the misuse of property tax dollars.
While the majority of property taxes goes to failing schools, a percentage goes to the city’s general fund (31% of the property taxes on the condo I rent go to that fund). It would seem that if neighborhoods were given greater input or control over the use of those funds, more might stay in the neighborhood; instead, tens of millions to go street car plans and hundreds of millions go to street cars that go to and from nowhere or to light rail to transport tourists through the ghetto to the airport. Meanwhile, a city that claims to be one of the most walkable (as does Portland, right?) rips off some neighborhoods for the benefit of others.
And your tax dollars do drain to the Pearl. And it’s too bad that you have to pay to subsidize childless yuppie and hipster urbanites who consistently vote to raise your taxes.
I will go one step further beyond your proposed agreement: Tax dollars collected from a neighborhood should be spent ONLY in that neighborhood, whether it’s on sidewalks or schools or bike lines or parks or wherever the neighborhood wants the tax dollars to go, even ugly art.
And RE: Elections: The mayor and city commissioners are elected by only a small minority (around one-fourth) of the city’s population. Most know the dice are loaded or that there are no real choices and abstain instead of participating in a sham.
What you are purposing is a gazillion small cities replacing Portland. There is a certain economy of scale for police, fire, water, sewers, etc. that goes by the way side driving up costs and taxes.
You know, Metrosucks, your rants and namecalling does nothing to convince those who might be swayed to your point of view. If your side REALLY wants to regain influence and some control over the way things are headed in Portland and elsewhere, I suggest first, UNDERSTANDING WHY the “…liberal, “smart” growth embracing idiot[s]” (sic) believe in Smart Growth and New Urbanism as they do.
You also need to figure out who you can most easily shift in Portland’s political coalition that supports these things to your point of view, e.g., the tiny fraction of “swing” voters that can be swayed (see the book The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics.* But ranting, raving and name-calling cannot and will never do that.
* http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845.
Publisher’s blurb:
For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to.
This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.
I’m going to skip the trashy comment above and respond to the age-old “but if government doesn’t provide it, no one will!” cliche:
“What you are purposing is a gazillion small cities replacing Portland. There is a certain economy of scale for police, fire, water, sewers, etc. that goes by the way side driving up costs and taxes.”
What is that economy of scale?
And how do you explain Sandy Springs, Georgia? By privatizing services, they cut costs and didn’t “drive up costs and taxes” as you suggest. (Sandy Springs is has about 100,000 residents, so Portland might need to broken into six parts—not a “gazillion”—according to this model. What’s so bad about that?)
How is it that private for-profit fire companies* are able to respond to fires more efficiently than government fire companies?
As for the Portland Po-Po, they sure are protecting and serving the shit out of people. And certainly there is no waste in the police forces or fire fighters; I mean, if you Google that, you won’t find countless articles on police departments, including the PDX Po-Po, and fire departments billing fraudulent overtime hours. I mean, PDX has 300 officers who make over $100k a year to deal with trifling things:
I’m tired now and won’t venture in water and sewer, but I find it funny that so many are pissed off at Walmart’s ~3% profit margin but are oblivious to public water utilities’ double-digit margins. Ok, one more thing. Portland’s handling of sewage is the shit.
Thanks for playing
*Yes, OMG, I linked a think-tank! Feel free to criticize the argument and accuracy of the article, and by all means, start with attacking the source, but then, if you can, move on to refuting the argument.)
Simple, Frank. The “private” fire department in Scottsdale is just a contracted out operation, e.g., the City of Scottsdale still collects the money and then pays the private contractor to provide the fire services. If the current contractor decided to leave after the current contract period expires, some other fire contracting firm would come along.
The examples you give don’t make your point.
Local governments are still collecting money through taxes to pay for fire services, and any number of other services, even if 100% contracted out in the case of Sandy Springs. Contracting out of local government services is nothing unusual nor is it innovative. Contracting out for at least some services is the norm for many smaller cities, and at every transit system I’ve ever worked with over the past 30 years, e.g., generally in suburban or rural areas in California and Arizona (as opposed to bigger cities, where the local police, fire and transit unions are usually members of the ruling local and other political coalitions discussed in The Dictator’s Handbook.
If you can provide documented examples of a city or region where the private sector is providing ANY of the municipal-type services–NOT paid for through mandatory taxes–through “free markets” rather than taxes or other mandatory government exactions, I’d like to hear them.
Five bucks says you can’t, at least for the “First World” RE such as North America, Europe, or the higher income countries of Asia. “Private” homeowner associations also don’t count because they enforce their dues and assessments through covenants enforced by legal brute force which is usually enabled by loosely, poorly-written State laws.
Oh, yes, Frank, I mean COMPETITIVE FREE MARKETS, e.g., not private utilities which are heavily regulated by local or state government, such as PGE in Portland or PG&E in Northern California, let alone numerous quasi-private, MONOPOLY water companies.
msetty, as I said: I’m going to skip the trashy “comments” (sic) [that misrepresent my position] above.
As a resident of East Portland, I find that Metrosucks’ remarks are the most accurate as to how I feel about the forced densification we face here in Portland. We were promised sidewalks, and street improvements if we voted to be annexed by the city 20+ years ago, and be connected to the new sewer system. Instead we were forced to embrace the new density requirements, and forgo any street improvements including sidewalks, because there just wasn’t any money to make those improvements. In short we were lied to, and they are still lying and making excuses, while people are dying because these promises were never kept. The Portland City Council, and the people that support them are awful people, and the planners should be hung out on a yard arm, at the entrance to these unfinished, overpopulated areas.
Frank, I knew you couldn’t come up with any examples.
I don’t reply to red herring comments.
Now the lunatics who run the asylum are plotting for light rail to forest grove. For those of you in seattle (Frank), that’s like running light rail to enumclaw. Anyone who has been to the current terminus in Hillsboro will already note the average of 2 passengers who get on or off in downtown at the line’s end. Maybe a Forest Grove station can add another 1/4 passenger? Or a few drunk mexicans.
Not that rail in central Seattle has been any sort of a success. And just wait for the new & improved traffic jams when “link” light rail forges across the 1-90 express lanes, stealing two lanes of traffic from an already overburdened freeway. However, I guess it will move Somalians and criminals speedily from MLK to Bellevue because this is a worthy goal according to our betters in government.
that’s like running light rail to enumclaw
Just like it, save there’s no Microsoft Millionaires, no abrupt plateau to climb, no unbuildable land due to soils, and FG is in the area projected to increase in population.
Other than that, it is just like it.
DS
It will come as a great surprise to Enumclaw residents to learn that their humble town is a secret enclave for Microsoft millionaires. A Very Great Surprise. It is, however, no surprise to people who actually know what they are talking about that Enumclaw is the Seattle area’s snaggle-toothed hillbilly enclave, however.
For example, until law enforcement shut it down, Enumclaw was the proud home of a bestiality farm, where government planners who favored high density development (among others), could satisfy their desire to copulate with a well-endowed stallion or other, um, farm implements of their choice.
Trespassing charged in horse-sex case
Just the sort of services a Microsoft Millionaire looks for when picking a place to build his mansion!
Perhaps if Danny Boy had spent more time in the Seattle area, such as perhaps enough time to finish his curiously incomplete master’s degree, he might know these sort of things.
As for the meager hills in the way, a gigantic one called the West Hills didn’t stop Portland planners, nor did spending hundreds of millions boring a 300ft elevator so that a dozen people a week could use MAX to go to the Portland zoo. Compared to that, what’s a molehill?
HTH
Keep flailing, Frank. It’s just like FG!
DS
“Keep flailing, Frank. It’s just like FG!”
Might want to get checked for vision issues. Or perhaps reading problems? Or maybe paranoid schizophrenia*? Or maybe you’ve had one too many glasses of Merlot, which caused you to mistake who was responding to you.
*Common symptoms for paranoid schizophrenia include paranoid delusions (believing everyone is out to cause you harm), argumentativeness, and self-important or condescending manner.
metrosucks wrote:
Anyone who has been to the current terminus in Hillsboro will already note the average of 2 passengers who get on or off in downtown at the line’s end.
When the P-A-D conference was held in Portland, I stayed around for a few days after it ended to ride all of the MAX light rail system that existed then, including the line to Hillsboro.
It did seem that the line was, well, lightly used – and more than a few of the patrons were discussing major problems in their personal lives, like upcoming court trials after arrests for heroin possession and meetings with their probation officers.
Tombdragon wrote:
As a resident of East Portland, I find that Metrosucks’ remarks are the most accurate as to how I feel about the forced densification we face here in Portland. We were promised sidewalks, and street improvements if we voted to be annexed by the city 20+ years ago, and be connected to the new sewer system. Instead we were forced to embrace the new density requirements, and forgo any street improvements including sidewalks, because there just wasn’t any money to make those improvements. In short we were lied to, and they are still lying and making excuses, while people are dying because these promises were never kept. The Portland City Council, and the people that support them are awful people, and the planners should be hung out on a yard arm, at the entrance to these unfinished, overpopulated areas.
The story of Southeast Portland is remarkably similar to the damage that was inflicted to neighborhoods on the other coast by elected officials. I have mentioned the sad story of Eastern Montgomery County, Maryland more than once here before. In 1981, the County Council designated the area along U.S. 29 (Columbia Pike) as a major receiving area for transferable development rights (TDRs) to “preserve” the county’s so-called Agricultural Preserve. The construction of garden apartment buildings (far from any rail transit and even further away from large employment centers) was all justified by something called “a concept of transit servicability,” which happily presumed that new residents were going to take the (slow) bus to far-away Metrorail stations and not drive their cars.
It also didn’t work, yet for some reason the Smart Growth industry and its friends in the environmental movement never want to talk about the planning disaster (as Randal puts it) that resulted.
Oh, the garden apartments at the center of the concept of transit serviceability have long since become crime-ridden and stuffed with Section 8 tenants.
MSettty, I believe that these matters are too important for hyperbole. It is easy to call politicians liars. But in this case, you are right. The City Council has engaged in a years-long deception re: Outer SE PDX. If you aren’t from Portland and don’t understand how our particular planning regime lies, just look at Portland’s official grant application for state transportation funds to be used for bike share.
This November, he council member in charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation- Steve Novick- made a material and knowingly false statement on page 6 of the grant application where he represented to the state that Portland Bike Share has secured a sponsor and has cash available. That is a big fat lie, and even Alta Bike Share admits it. Why a Harvard-trained lawyer would risk a bar complaint by lying on a grant application for millions of dollars speaks volumes about PDX. We want a downtown utopia, and the ends justify the means.
BTW- I can’t make the bar complaint without hurting my career. But anyone can call the Oregon State Bar and report that a lawyer may have violated the ethics rules by lying to get money. I know that a false mortgage application could theoretically get you sanctioned.
Have you seen the latest “Hunger Games” movie (Catch a Fire) ? Outer SE is District12. The Pearl Residents could be a stand-in/understudies for the garish libertines in “The Capital.” “Hunger Games” is a movie all planning skeptics should see.
Thanks metrosucks. Or Frank. Hard to tell!
DS
If you’re having a hard time keeping all the voices straight, seek help.
I think it is hilarious that those who don’t have to live in the High Density/Smart Growth disaster, still think it is a great way to live, though they deliberately choose not to live near it. The failures abound because the planned outcomes will never be achieved, no matter how many adjustments are made. Those who refuse to live in the High Density housing don’t have the resources, or opportunity to make their lives better, unless they are a member of the government class. Smart Growth is nothing more than a scheme meant to expand government control over the people, and the bureaucracy. The ONLY thing Smart Growth has accomplish is that it has effectively limited the pursuit of opportunity, and the the middle class consumer from the market.
Tombdragon:
bear in mind that all the planners and their buddies, spewing snarky comments on this blog, are in fact, NOT living in anything like smart growth housing.
Dan the asshole? Lives in a large detached home in a Denver suburb.
Michael “rail uber alles” Setty? Nice family ranch in the Bay Area.
The METRO councilors who “plan” the Portland disasters? Except for maybe one, ALL live in large homes or country estates.
Talk about hypocrisy! Do as I say not as I do, indeed!
Metrosucks, so little do you know. I have lived in urban apartments in my time, and lived the first 20 years of my life in Pacific Grove, CA. PG was and still is a traditional, walkable town that unfortunately has been overrun with affluent techies from Silicon Valley who appreciate what a nice place it is. Compared to Paradise, CA (sic) PG is well, a paradise….Paradise shucks big time because walking or bicycling anywhere is almost impossible and very unsafe in its strict auto dependency.
In short, you are an ignorant blowhard.
that is, SUCKS compared to PG. Damn Android keyboard!!
msetty, it doesn’t matter where you used to live, it matters where you do live! Instead of choosing the new urbanism you preach all day, you chose a nice quiet town outside of the hustle & bustle you agitate for.
Why would anyone want to live in downtown cesspools like Seattle? Despite unsupported claims to the contrary, the quality of life is wretched downtown, with Pioneer Square an outdoor toilet and Westlake Park a garbage heap. And through it all, lots of crime:
Many don’t go downtown unless they have to, and when they do, many don’t go without a CCW. Oh, the quality. And as density intensifies in adjacent areas so does the smell of quality:
Come on, planners. Live in the crime-ridden, squalid and fetid density you so vehemently advocate.
I see facts have no impact on people like Frank and Metrosucks.
Of course I already knew that years ago on this blog.
Hmmnnn…in cities like Oakland, Stockton or Vallejo, which have much higher crime rates than Seattle or Portland, the most dangerous neighborhoods are all dominated by single family housing…
But I digress. Based on Frank’s link to an article that doesn’t actually prove any real connection between density and crime, I’d say Seattle needs to emulate what THIS article describes: http://gawker.com/5980549/how-to-solve-homelessness-the-mundane-miracles-of-the-doe-fund.
Of course, I don’t expect facts to sway those who have the preconceived notion that “density = crime” but this link is mainly for the benefit of the reasonable people who lurk at The Antiplanner’s blog, which doesn’t include Frank or Metrosucks and several others.
Says the guy with a family grape ranch on 40 acres. Come on, Setty. Move to density. Live your dream!
And it’s good to know that others have your number.
Quoting technophilic PRT assholes is hardly credible, Frank. I’m hardly going to waste my valuable time arguing with those dogmatic idiots after having done so for nearly a decade. And I’m PROUD of helping create and promote the term “gadgetbahn” which has undermined the PRTistas almost as much as the phrase “Smart Growth” has hobbled opponents of walkable urbanism. No question finding the correct terms can make a big difference in fighting dubious ideas and political movements.
I don’t have to explain why I live where I do because why is none of your business. The best rebuttal to the general line of anti-urban b.s. being spewed here is that walkable urbanism is in such demand that most people, including me, cannot afford it. So there is a need for a lot more of it regardless of what you may believe.
And Frank, Metrosucks et al, if you don’t believe me that there is a quickly growing struggle over access to walkable urbanism, the far left Berkeley/San Francisco “Rent-A-Mobs” are out in force hassling Google workers who live in San Francisco: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Google-riders-under-siege-or-alien-5065290.php.
This sort of thing apparently hasn’t hit Seattle or Portland, yet, blocking Microserf or Nike commuter buses–but just wait until the Eugene anarchists also show up…could be Seattle WTO 1999 all over again but just over a different issue.
“I don’t have to explain why I live where I do because why is none of your business. The best rebuttal to the general line of anti-urban b.s. being spewed here is that walkable urbanism is in such demand that most people, including me, cannot afford it.”
Yet you make it your business where others SHOULD live and berate those who choose to live in low density.
And stop with the “I can’t afford it” line; your family’s million-dollar-plus ranch could buy you each a nice 550 square foot studio downtown where you can dodge human excrement and savor the wafting scent of fresh urine.
You keep promising to stop wasting your time responding. Please do. Please just stop. Your snarky tone and your excessive use of scare quotes undermine valid points you might have. Five years of you belittling others and calling names has worn thin. Your distractions and red herrings are old. You call me a troll, but I’m here to learn and generally try to use neutral language, although sometimes become exasperated and engage snark with snark. You, sir, seem to be only here to pick fights and troll.
From now on I simply will not respond to you until you can show yourself to be civil. I suggest others do the same. DNFTT.
Typical right wing projection
“You, sir, seem to be only here to pick fights and troll.”
Yes, you certainly do, Frank. You, civil? Ha! Can’t take your own medicine. Well tough shit.
And if putting out facts that contradict your preconceived notions, Frank, rather than accepting false right wing premises, is “trolling” then you’ve redefined the word in your own mind and are seriously deluded and are being deceptive about what I say.
I will continue to point out errors of fact at this blog if warranted, regardless of your infantile accusations. Seems that many hanging out here can’t take it when someone points out their misconceptions and distortions.
I will continue to reject the BIG LIE from the right wing that people who advocate walkable urbanism are somehow telling people “how to live” is just a hoary right wing, “raw meat” meme designed to be thrown out to the Tea Party and other manifestations of the right-wing peanut gallery. Smart people like Wendell Cox know this is nothing but a big lie, but it certainly serves the purposes of his funders and helps him make a living.
msetty – I thought we were talking about the FAILURE of Portland High Density/Smart Growth in East Portland? Walkable – difficult, because their are no sidewalks – they were never installed as promised, in East Portland if we voted to be annexed by the City of Portland. Why? Because the density was forced upon a lower middle income neighborhood, with no political voice, who’s residents are regularly road kill – literally – on the city streets, because of congestion and lack of road capacity. The money that was suppose to be spent on sidewalks, and expanded road capacity was spent developing the central core, where the upper income live, so their lives can be an example of the “planned outcomes” people like you force on us. I’ve been to the community meetings, put on by the planners – “trust us it will be great” they say – my question is “Great for whom?”, they don’t live in the neighborhood. So far much the “Transit Oriented Development” in the region stands empty, because the planned development and those who live in it don’t have the means to support the “planned outcome”. More and more as the Smart Growth/High Density has been implemented our per-capita income and purchasing power has gone down, because residents cant afford to live and work in this “wonderful”, “planned”, high cost of living mecca. Children have left the central core because families can’t afford to live in it. In fact although Portland is roughly 3 times the population it was before WWII, the youth population is less than it was in 1930. Why is any of that good or healthy msetty? You brag that you live in the high density central core of your community – great, but you don’t have a clue as to how it has manifested itself in East Portland, it is killing people – literally in the street – and their is no good in it.
For the record, again, density per se DOES NOT equal crime. Anyone who insists that is does is either delusional or a liar with a political ax to grind, and deserves to be challenged.
Poverty, homelessness and other social pathology equals crime. If you want to fight homelessness and the related crime in places like Seattle, focus on the real problem. Be more like that fellow in New York I mentioned in an earlier post, and less of a density-hating NIMBY who just can’t get through their thick skulls that there is a huge, and rapidly growing market, for walkability and urban living.
After a certain point, the deluded and liars don’t deserve civility. If “liberals” and “progressives” had more of a backbone, were less polite, and fought back more often, the Republican House and other obscenities like what the Koch Brothers and Wall Street have gotten away with would have been swept away by now. Instead, the liberals/progressive instead typically sit around holding conferences, conducting studies, etc. while lamenting the sad estate of U.S. politics. Thomas Frank has an excellent, succint article on the issue in the January 2014 issue of Harpers.
Instead, the liberals/progressive instead typically sit around holding conferences, conducting studies, etc. while lamenting the sad estate of U.S. politics.
Yeah, that must be how they passed Obamacare, by sitting around and holding conferences.