Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Making The Connection: Municipal Broadband Meets A Need In The Portland Metropolitan Area, Eavan Moore

Metroscape

Internet access has become critical to participating in modern American society, yet the private market is no closer to serving low-income and rural Americans.

In May 2018, the City of Hillsboro announced it would go ahead with a publicly owned and operated, affordable, gigabit-speed Internet service for the entire city. Multnomah County Commissioners voted for a feasibility study of their own in June. The Port of Ridgefield, Washington, has big hopes for its own fiber optic project. Meanwhile, the city of Sandy, Oregon, has been running its own municipal broadband service for the last six years.

What’s driving this wave? …

Riverside Parks, Institute Of Portland Metropolitan Studies

Metroscape

A brief overview of the development of riverfront parks in the Portland Metropolitan Area, including the new Waterfront Park in Vancouver, WA that opened in September 2018.

Equity In Emergency Management, Sabina Roan, Jaye Cromwell

Metroscape

In the decade following Hurricane Katrina, advocates fighting for the rights of people with disabilities changed the field of emergency management. Their pressure on FEMA led to the establishment of legal and planning precedents to include the needs of the whole community in emergency management.(4) There is now a national, legal requirement to plan for people with disabilities and access and functional needs. Despite this important victory for people with disabilities, there have been no direct legal or policy actions that address the disproportionate response along racial and socio-economic lines.

The theory of social equity has its roots in social …

Finding The Middle: Overcoming Challenges To Building Missing Middle Housing, Ryan Winterberg-Lipp

Metroscape

In the Portland metro area and across the state, the demographics of cities are changing. Urban populations and housing prices are rising, while household sizes are declining with an aging baby boomer generation and younger households both delaying marriage and children and having fewer children. With these changing dynamics, many Portland metro communities are looking to missing middle housing types to “provide for the housing needs of citizens of the state” as called for in the Oregon Statewide Planning Goals and Guidelines. With increasing interest in missing middle housing as a way to provide more housing choices for area households …

The Landscape: Happy Valley, Eavan Moore

Metroscape

This article examines Happy Valley, Oregon, with special emphasis on how to manage growth amid continued development.

Whither Skamania?, Eavan Moore

Metroscape

An in-depth look at Skamania County, Washington, examining its financial challenges, obstacles faced by employers, the impact of declining timber revenues, long-term impacts of the 2017 forest fires, and a look at future growth and possible local government strategies.

The Nuts And Bolts Of Broadband, Institute Of Portland Metropolitan Studies

Metroscape

This Sidebar looks at defining broadband internet access and gives a basic introduction to how it works as well as its implementation at the local level.

The Landscape: Cully Neighborhood, Eavan Moore

Metroscape

This installment of The Landscape focuses on Portland's Cully neighborhood, briefly reviewing its history, demographic trends, and current planning efforts.

Source Of Down Payment, Institute Of Portland Metropolitan Studies

Metroscape

A statistical snapshot of the percentage of owner-occupied housing stock, by major source of down payment, in 2015.

Spanning The Region: A Survey Of Bridges In The Metroscape, Andrés Oswill

Metroscape

Bridges get us where we need to go. They also have character that contributes to a sense of place. Here we profile a selection of bridges in the Portland Metro area to understand the history and logistics of each bridge. When was the bridge built, how was it funded, who maintains it? The bridges we selected reflect the area’s wide variations in bridge style and management. Some of the bridges are county owned; others are run by a state or city transportation department. The bridges range in age, but all are inspected every twenty-four months. A bridge’s story offers important …

Cultivating The Technology Ecosystem: An Interview With Skip Newbury, Sheila Martin

Metroscape

An interview with Skip Newbury, President and CEO of the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO). He is a frequent speaker on technology trends and topics, economic development, public-private partnerships and civic innovation. Before joining the TAO, Skip served as an economic development policy advisor to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, where he helped create Portland’s first comprehensive economic development strategy in 16 years, recognizing software as a key industry cluster.

Scappoose, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

A brief snapshot of Scappoose, Oregon, discussing its history, growth and development, and a look to its future.

A New Vision For Timber City Usa, Kerry Politzer

Metroscape

A look at the city of Willamina, Oregon, as it attempts to transition from a timber-reliant town to a sustainable future. Provides a brief history of the community and its economic struggles, and its attempts to foster economic development though tourism, arts and winemaking.

Cross-Laminated Timber: An Innovative Building Material Takes Hold In Oregon, Andrew Crampton

Metroscape

In a rapidly urbanizing world fueled by the enormous demand to house and shelter billions of people in the upcoming decades, building materials must be utilized that have a lighter climate impact than today’s commonly used energy-intensive building materials.

Is there an alternative to the energy-intensive concrete jungle that is both sustainable and financially viable? How can our built environment enhance, rather than destroy, the natural environment? Part of the solution lies in a recent innovation that uses one of the world’s oldest building materials, wood, with a modern twist: cross-laminated timber, often abbreviated as CLT. These wood-based structures can …

Women In The Trades: An Interview With Connie Ashbrook And Nora Mullane, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

Liza Morehead interviews Connie Ashbrook and Nora Mullane.

Connie Ashbrook is the Executive Director and founder of Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., Previous to her years with OTI, she worked in the trades for seventeen years as a dump truck driver, carpenter apprentice, and elevator constructor. She was the first woman in Oregon to become licensed as an elevator mechanic.

Nora Mullane has been a union journey-person carpenter, general contractor, building inspector, and City of Portland Bureau of Developments Services supervisor. Nora says that successfully completing her carpenter’s apprenticeship program has served her well throughout her entire career, and life in general, …

Election 2016: Voter Turnout And Results Across Oregon, Kevin Curry

Metroscape

Metroscape went inside the numbers from the 2016 general election. We examined Oregon’s new "motor voter" law to see if it affected turnout and to better understand the new voters added to the rolls in the ‘Beaver State.’ We looked at voter turnout and election results in Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, and Yamhill counties in Oregon and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington to answer several questions about the 2016 General Election.

Periodic Atlas Of The Metroscape: The Geography Of Future Housing, Randy Morris, Sheila Martin

Metroscape

In this edition of the Periodic Atlas, we provide a glimpse of housing construction that has been permitted over the past few years, with a focus on multifamily housing. Focusing on recently-permitted units provides a perspective on how the newest housing is and will be different from existing housing. The type of housing that will be built, where it is built, its characteristics, and its price will shape the Portland region in the years to come.

Indicators Of The Metroscape: Average Wage Per Job, Institute Of Portland Metropolitan Studies

Metroscape

A chart offering Portland MSA average wage as a percentage of the US metro average wage, 2001-2015.

The Landscape: Tualatin, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

This edition of The Landscape takes a brief look at the city of Tualatin, Oregon, located twelve miles south of Portland, and examines its population, growth, and demographics, as well as defining features and points of interest.

The Landscape: Tiny And Very Small Houses, Andrés Oswill

Metroscape

The article describes one of many approaches to creating more affordable housing choices -- tiny and very small houses. The author explains how the current trend returns to an affordable housing approach used much earlier in Portland's history.

Indicators Of The Metroscape: The Young, The Old, And The Single, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

Elizabeth Morehead focuses on the changing demographic of households in the Portland metropolitan region

Periodic Atlas Of The Of The Metroscape: The Geography Of Publicly Subsidized Affordable Housing, Meg Merrick

Metroscape

Meg Merrick maps publicly subsidized affordable housing units across the region, discusses their geography, and describes their location in relation to two important amenities: schools and libraries.

From The Frontlines Of The Housing Crisis: Two Vulnerable Tenants Discuss Their Experiences In Portland's Increasingly Brutal Housing Market, Thomas Kerr

Metroscape

Homelessness is the most visible face of Portland's affordable housing crisis, but the numbers of street sleepers and tent campers are nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of beleaguered tenants. They may be hidden away in their separate apartments, but they are suffering the effects of crisis all the same. Forty percent of the 900,000 households in the Portland Metro area are tenants, and half are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. A quarter pay more than 50 percent, and the percentages go higher as the households get poorer. Besides forcing them to impoverish themselves …

Living On The Edge: The Forgotten Tribulations Of Affordable Housing In The Suburbs, Linn Davis

Metroscape

The article describes how the housing crisis is playing out in the region's suburbs.

The Landscape: Walkable Tigard, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

Elizabeth Morehead takes a walk in Tigard and reviews the effort to make Tigard and other suburbs - built in a car-dependent area - more walkable, healthy, and attractive to current and prospective residents

Boom Town: Prioritizing Preservation Under Pressure, Linn Davis

Metroscape

A demolition epidemic? Linn Davis explores the history of architectural preservation in the region, how it intersects with other development issues, and how we might strengthen our ability to protect architecturally important buildings amid Portland's rush to build sufficient housing and commercial space to accommodate our growing needs.

Looking Back At Planning Oregon, Henry Richmond, James Sitzman

Metroscape

An interview with Henry Richmond is the product of a new project called People and the Land: An Oral History of Oregon's Statewide Land Use Planning Program. Richmond explains the political and economic conditions in which land use program was forged, and how these have changed over time.

The full interview is available here: http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/16296

Periodic Atlas Of The Of The Metroscape: Warming Up The City - Mapping The Hottest (Literally) Neighborhoods Of Portland, Vivek Shandas, Jackson Voelkel

Metroscape

Vivek Shandas and Jackson Voelkel show us how urban head varies by characteristics of a neighborhood's built and natural environment. The Atlas reminds us to be aware of the potential impact on those most likely to suffer ill effects from the heat.

Indicators Of The Metroscape: Housing Cost Burden, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

Elizabeth Morehead focuses on the percentage of households spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing.

6 Reasons To Relax About Portland's Recent Sell-Offs, Thomas Kerr

Metroscape

Are you feeling nostalgic for Oregon-born companies like Dave's Killer Bread, Little Big Burger, and Precision Castparts? Thomas Kerr asserts that we need not fear the recent rash of acquisitions. New owners often bring fresh ideas and capital to the table while maintaining the characteristics we've come to love about our locally owned companies.