APA Gives VisionPDX an Award

In keeping with its tradition of judging programs based on their intentions rather than results, the American Planning Association has given its 2008 Award for Public Outreach to Portland’s Mayor, Tom Potter, for his VisionPDX program. This was a strange program to begin with, as Portland planners had already endlessly solicited residents for their opinions through hearings, open houses, and charrettes (not that any of the surveys were scientific).

Stranger still, since Potter was elected to a four-year term, was the timetable. It took more than two years just to collect and collate public opinions, and more time yet to make sense of it all (not that much of it made sense). This left Potter, who leaves office in January, little time to do anything about it.


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On top of that, as Bojack notes, “when the responses came back, many of them highly negative of the city’s penchant for worthless toys, they were handed over to the army of paid municipal planner types, who immediately threw most of them away and substituted a truckload of bureaucratic pap.”

In short, VisionPDX only confirmed what many skeptical Portlanders already knew: the city was only interested in their opinions if they agreed with the city’s preconceived notions. But since that is what urban planning is all about, it is completely appropriate that the APA recognize VisionPDX as a classic example of such planning.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

12 Responses to APA Gives VisionPDX an Award

  1. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    Though looking at the Vision PDX Web site does reward the reader with some interesting and amusing comments, a few of which I have pasted-in below (these are not representative or a random selection but then the source of the survey was not either):

    “No one is working to ensure that there is a balance of revenue creation (business and jobs) with all the ‘feel good’ wants. No real economic development is being encouraged. Lots of building is going on but there’s no plan to attract or retain business. Portland is anti-big business but it’s big business that creates the jobs, pays the taxes, has the ability to give back to the community via charitable support, etc.”

    “I am about to leave PDX even though I grew up here and it is my home town. I have a small business and I am being taxed out of my business and my home.”

    “Regulate the sex industry much more…since Portland has one of the largest sex industries in the country. These objections come from the near slave-conditions and violence that most sex industry-workers endure…”

    “Cost of living is not reasonable for families or middle to low income individuals.”

    “It is very hard for young educated people to find decent work–this town is crawling with underemployed overeducated young people who came here for the quality of life. I am seriously considering moving because the employment prospects are so horrible for educated people in my age bracket. While not reflected in the employment statistics, this stress is finding a job makes Portland less than ideal.”

    “Reorient PDC to true development of the whole city. Excessive focus on high rent districts downtown is a constant discouragement to me as a home owner in North Portland.”

    “Monitor behavior of riders on the MAX. Drug use, obscene language make for an uncomfortable, sometimes threatening, ride.”

    “The street people issue has become …pervasive, particularly with aimless young people. There is for the first time in 20 years a feeling of concern for safety in the Pioneer Courthouse space in particular. This is the number one negative comment I ever hear about Portland.”

    “I admit that Portland has great public transit (MAX, streetcars, Bus), but I think it still could be improved. For example, I have taken transit to a location in Beaverton and it takes one hour by bus and 15 minutes by car. I think if the transit was better and faster in the suburbs, than more people would want to take it.”

    “We spend too much $$$ on trolleys and light rail, while the 98% of the traveling population is stuck in traffic.”

    “The more Portland improves, the more congested it gets. Waiting in traffic, sometimes sitting through 3 red lights to get somewhere, is a major headache.”

    “Quit trying to get me on a choo-choo, and get me some freeway capacity.”

    “Downtown Portland is unsightly and irritating. Between the torn-up streets, panhandlers, street kids, indigents, graffiti, dirty sidewalks and unkept landscaping, it’s not enjoyable. My out-of-state residents were shocked when the recently visited, at how bad it looks, sounds, and smells.”

    “Encourage and support home ownership. Gentrification, in the form of property sold to investors, prices out the very people who give neighborhoods their vitality. What’s left are people who work so hard to be able to live there that they have little to give to their community.”

    “Regain our parks for families and hard-working individuals from the drifters, druggies, gang-type people inhabiting some of the them.”

  2. JimKarlock says:

    But Patrick, Portland is a Perfectly Planned Planner’s Paradise.

    No big business, crummy jobs, underemployed overeducated young people, high taxes, unaffordable housing, thugs over running “Portland’s Living Room” (Pioneer Sq.), parks overrun by drifters, druggies, gang-type people , smelly downtown, poor schools, intolerable congestion and slow transit is a small price to pay for a Perfectly Planned Portland, the most livable city in the world.

    Who needs stinkin businesses or jobs when we can have award winning planners run our city and the one hour transit rides they gave us to replace 15 min drives.

    Portland is turning into the poster child of how badly planners screw up a city when given a chance – hopefully Portlanders will wake up and drive our 200 or so planners out of town in the total disgrace that they deserve.

    Thanks
    JK

  3. the highwayman says:

    Though don’t worry Mr.Karlock has his own PLANS!

  4. JimKarlock says:

    the highwayman said: Though don’t worry Mr.Karlock has his own PLANS!
    JK: Oh, wise one, tell us what my plans are.

    Thanks
    JK

  5. msetty says:

    JK: Oh, wise one, tell us what my plans are.

    Rodz! Rodz! Rodz! Can you hip hop to that, Karlock?

  6. JimKarlock says:

    JK: I see msetty is up to his usual standard of quality.

  7. I see JK is up to his usual “quality” posts of ad hominen attacks and rants in which he generalizes all planners into the same pot and acts more “all knowing” then the planners he so derides. I bet half or more of those comments are written by Karlock and his friend(s?).

  8. JimKarlock says:

    sustainibertarian said:. . . rants in which he generalizes all planners into the same pot
    JK: Still looking for a planner in a city planning department (or those who contract to said city departments) who is not deluded.

    I recognize that there must be some somewhere – they just seem to be quite rare.

    Thanks
    JK

  9. the highwayman says:

    Well one of the most infamous urban planners in the US was Robert Moses.

    See, even Mr.Karlock can love planners too!

  10. JimKarlock says:

    JK: Infamous only among deluded planners that want people to live in the 1900s because they cannot cope with progress like Luddites. For the rest of us, he actually build roads to make people’s life better.

    Why do planners have a problem with making people’s lives better, instead they try to shove their religion down out throats?

    Thanks
    JK

  11. the highwayman says:

    Come on, as if you’re not trying to shove your ideology down other peoples throats.

    Mr.Karlock, you are just as bad as the planners that you hate!

  12. JimKarlock says:

    Hey Highwayman, your world view is showing when you accuse a freedom advocate of trying to force their ideology down other peoples throats..

    I guess that pretty much says that you despise letting people be free.

    Typical planner, hates other people being free.

    Thanks
    JK

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