As
self-congratulatory young creatives move in and families and jobs for the
working and middle class stream out, Stumptown is becoming an Ephemeral
City that mostly exists to celebrate itself
ew
cities in North America are as widely feted as Portland. For many,
Portland represents the epitome of "smart" urbanism, a paragon
that puts other, less-brainy places to shame.
Pilgrims travel once or twice a
month from as far as California and Canada to study Portland's transit
system, economic development and land-use strategies. Lots of educated
people, trees, clean air and good buzz help Portland get on all the right
lists -- from "most livable," "most fit,"
"healthiest," "most competitive," "most
literate" and "best for walking."
It's enough to make even a modest
city booster blush. But before you all turn red, is all this praise
deserved?
Much like its bigger soul mate,
San Francisco, Portland isn't an old-style "city of big
shoulders" but a lifestyle choice for the enlightened elite. They're
the people who read more than average, walk or bicycle regularly and drink
lots of good coffee.
Portland is becoming what I call
an Ephemeral City. What do ephemeral cities do? Not much by traditional
standards. They don't create a lot of jobs for working or middle-class
people. Instead they mostly exist to celebrate themselves and provide an
attractive setting for visitors and would-be migrants.
But can a city survive -- and
thrive -- primarily as a marketer of an urban experience?
An ephemeral city doesn't compete
with lesser places -- you know, those ugly cities with functional
warehouses and factories, Wal-Marts and strip malls -- for jobs, companies
or investors. An ephemeral city's economy relies largely on a high level
of self-esteem among its residents.
Four decades ago, author Neil
Morgan used the term "narcissus of the West" to describe an
already self-indulgent San Francisco. Now it's time for the City by the
Bay to move over -- the City of Roses wants to take its place in front of
the mirror.
To some extent, this high regard,
like that of any well-chiseled middle-age narcissist, reflects something
of a Portland reality. Portland, as its boosters are forever telling
everyone, is a physically attractive place. Parts of the city -- like the
much ballyhooed Pearl District -- look very much like famed urbanist Jane
Jacobs' idealized urban district.
Rhapsodizers often miss the
differences between Portland today and Jacobs' gritty Manhattan
neighborhoods of more than 40 years ago. Those New York areas were home to
large numbers of families and immigrants; they boasted both real bohemians
(those without money) as well people who worked with their hands. Most
residents were there for employment and family; many hoped they'd move up
into a nicer neighborhood someday.
Upward mobility was the common
theme of the time. Urbanites wanted to get ahead -- not "soak"
in the ambience -- and saw the city as a means to get there. "A
metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is constantly transforming
many poor people into middle class people . . . greenhorns into competent
citizens," Jacobs suggests. ". . . Cities don't lure the middle
class, they create it."
Contrast that with genteel
Portland, which increasingly places its bet largely on luring the hip,
cool, iPod-toting creative class -- "the young and the
restless," as one story recently put it. These hipsters are
supposedly the engine of the city's future.
But who isn't high on this
agenda? Certainly it can't be families. Portland already has one of the
lowest percentages of little tykes among American cities. The city schools
are emptying out, down 14 percent in 10 years.
Nor, despite the obligatory
liberal genuflection, it can't be ethnic minorities, either. Portland has
one of the lowest percentages of minorities and immigrants of any major
city on the Pacific Coast. Hardworking Latin laborers or opportunistic
Asian traders -- the canaries in the economic coal mine -- seem to be
opting instead for less-lovely but more commercially vital places such as
Los Angeles, Phoenix or Houston.
If they're the leading drivers of
Portland's future, what is the local "creative class" creating?
So far, nothing exceptional in the way of jobs or new companies. Now
clearly on the rebound, Oregon's economy started lagging the country's
five years ago.
But so far the data suggests that
the rebound is stronger in places like Medford and Eugene, as well as the
burgeoning suburbs which, compared to their high-priced counterparts in
California, are attractive not so much to hipsters but to families.
"People like the downtown,
but the growth is elsewhere," notes local economist John Mitchell.
But the economy isn't the only
place suburbia is doing better than the sophistos suggest. Like the
"creative class," the city's much ballyhooed "green"
planning policy has been less than wildly successful.
Even before Al Gore, looking out
from one of his estates, discovered sprawl, Portland's planners declared
war on single-family homes, backyards and insufficiently dense
development. To stomp out such deviant behavior, the city -- to the
hosannas of the planning profession -- proudly imposed tough restrictions,
notably the urban growth boundary, on new development.
Unfortunately, Portland's green
urbanism has produced some unexpected results. As regulation helped boost
the housing prices in the close-in areas, the middle class has moved
farther and farther out. It turns out that most families -- yes, they
still exist -- usually opt not to raise their kids inside sardine cans if
they can at all help it.
So Portland's sprawl has
continued to spiral about as much, or even more, than most American
regions, notes demographer Wendell Cox. Over the past few years Portland's
population growth has slowed considerably, with the overwhelming majority
of the Portland area's increases coming outside the city limits, and that
percentage appears to be growing.
Some of this may be traced to the
little-acknowledged fact about the creative class -- at some point many
grow up and move out. One prime destination appears to be fast-growing
Washington County, which beat the pants off Portland in a recent ranking
of most-tech-savvy places in USA Today.
Mass transit, the other linchpin
of the Portland legend, also may be less a triumph than reported.
According to the most recent Texas Transportation Study, drivers in
greater Portland are stuck in traffic 39 hours a year, not far behind
notoriously gridlocked Seattle, with 47 hours.
So if Portland's present
accomplishments are less than stellar, what does the future hold ?
Actually, it won't be too bad for those who like the way things are.
Given current trends, Portland's
inner city will continue to be attractive to its core demographic niches.
As an attractive Ephemeral City, it will remain a lifestyle pit stop for
wayward twentysomethings and a lure for the financially secure's quest for
quality of life.
It also might remain a blessed
place for aging hipsters who can "create" for each other without
enduring the hard competitive scene of Los Angeles, New York or even
Seattle.
Population pressures may help. As
the country grows to 400 million by 2050 -- due largely to the children of
immigrants and babies raised out in the burbs -- there'll be enough young
people, childless couples and nomadic rich to keep the Pearl District
hopping. Suburbanites may still wander into town on weekends to take in a
play, a game or some high-quality cuisine.
There even may still be a buzz
about the place. Burdened by the complexities of managing mid-21st century
super-sprawl, planners might still come to marvel at a preserved, archaic
urban environment, much like today's visitors to Florence or Venice.
It will likely be an aggressively
pleasant place, kind of a nice post-graduate college town -- a museum for
1960s values, a testament to good intentions and the enduring power of
self-regard.
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