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Robert
Liberty, Executive Director, 1000 Friends of
Oregon
Based On A
Presentation To The Coalition for a Livable
Future's, Metro Future Conference: Common Good,
Common Ground, Conference of Church Members and
Clergy, First Presbyterian Church, Portland,
Oregon, May 4, 1996.
Introduction
Most of us feel lucky to
live in this metropolitan area and this state. We
believe this region's greatness lies not in its
size, but in its quality; the quality of our
environment and the quality of our communities. Our
state tourism division has a slogan that reflects
this pride: Oregon; things look different
here.
But there are troubling signs
that things are becoming just the same here, as a
result of our growth. These are signs which we
share with practically every other metropolitan
community in the United States. And what is
happening in our cities is of concern to the
majority of citizens for we are now an urban
nation: Over one half of Americans live in
metropolitan regions with populations of one
million or more.
Let us first consider the signs
of the times in our nation's metropolitan areas and
our own region and then consider their moral
significance.
The
Signs of the Times In America's Cities and Our
Region
1.
Urban Sprawl |
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The first sign of the
times is sprawl, low-density urban
development.
Between 1970 and 1990,
Chicago's metropolitan population grew by 4% but
its land area grew between 46 and 55%. Between
1970 and 1990, the Kansas City metropolitan area
grew by 29% in population but 110% in land area.
The Seattle metropolitan area's population grew
by 38% during the same period while its land
area grew by 87%. Cleveland's metropolitan
population shrunk but its land area grew by
20%.
According to a recent report,
between 1990 and 2020, Michigan's population
will increase 12%, but its urbanized area will
increase by 63 to 87%. One fourth of Michigan's
remaining farmland could be consumed.
The preliminary figures I
have heard for the Portland metropolitan area
suggest that we are doing better than these
other metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, it
appears that our urbanized area is growing
faster than our population. In the Willamette
Valley as a whole, between 1970 and 1990 the
population grew by 30% but the urbanized area
grew by 91%.
2.
Automobile Dominance and
Dependence |
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The second sign of the
times is the dominance of the automobile. The
pattern of low density sprawl has serious
consequences for how and how much, we
travel.
Low density population growth
means that we cannot use our feet or bikes or
mass transit to get places; we must drive. So it
is not surprising that the population of cars
has been rising faster than the population of
people; between 1975 and 1990 U.S. population
increased by 16% while the number of cars and
trucks increased by 42%. In the Pacific
Northwest, if every single driver got into a
vehicle and drove at once, there would still be
one million vehicles parked.
Not only are there more cars,
but we are driving more. Between 1975 and 1990,
the rate of increase in miles traveled in the
U.S. far exceeded the rate of growth of
population and of vehicles.
Between 1990 and 1994 the
vehicles miles traveled per year in Multnomah,
Clackamas and Washington Counties, increased
from 5.3 billion miles to 5.9 billion miles.
That is a distance equal to a round trip from
Portland to Pluto (at least right now, when
Pluto is especially close) with enough miles
left over for a round-trip to Mars. In these
three counties we are driving 16.2 million miles
every day; equal to 6,000 miles since the
beginning of this speech.
We are spending more and more
time in our cars; between one quarter and one
third of workers in these three counties spend
more than 30 minutes, one way commuting to
work.
Yes, transit ridership is up,
but it is not rising as fast as the use of cars.
Despite the construction of light rail, the
share of trips made by transit in our region
decreased from 15.9% in 1980 to 10.9% in
1990.
Because we are now so
dependent on cars, the primary use of land in
this or any other metropolitan area in the
United States is for the car: roads, parking
lots, garage space, junk yards. More space is
devoted to the car than to housing. Tri-Met's
General Manager, Tom Walsh, estimates there are
eight parking spaces for every car in our
region, far more parking spaces than
people.
All this driving means that
the improvements in the efficiency of automobile
engines and emission controls are being
overwhelmed by the sheer amount of driving. As a
result, our air quality is going to deteriorate,
and we will be breathing more and more of our
cars' waste.
3.
Property Taxes |
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The third of the signs
is public anxiety over property taxes.
A study was commissioned by
the 1989 New Jersey Legislature of the relative
costs of continuing the current pattern of
dispersed growth compared to a more compact
pattern of growth.
The low-density pattern
required 130,000 more acres, than the
alternative compact growth pattern. That is a
relatively modest area. It is slightly more than
one-half the amount of land in our regional
urban growth boundary. Yet, by not spreading
development over an additional 130,000 acres,
New Jersey would save $740 million on state and
local roads that wouldn't be necessary and $440
million in water supply and sewer infrastructure
costs. At the end of the 20 year period there
would be $400 million in annual savings to
municipalities and school districts for
operating costs under the compact growth
alternative.
The American Farmland Trust
analyzed two different potential development
patterns for the projected tripling of the
population in California's Central Valley
between 1990 and 2040. By distributing that
growth over about one-half million acres,
instead of one million acres, the cumulative
savings in the cost of taxpayer financed
services for compact growth would be $29
billion. The low density growth pattern would
produce significant local government deficits
while the compact growth pattern would produce
budget surpluses.
By building sprawl we are
forced to spend more and more of our taxpayers'
dollars on things like roads and emergency
services and less on less on things like schools
and community centers.
4.
Destruction of Nature |
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The fourth sign of the
times is the destruction of nature.
Sprawl consumes more than
gasoline and taxes. When we build sprawl, and
the roads serve it, we are building on top of
something. Often that something is the green
lands: The productive farmlands, where our foods
come from, the forests which produce wood for
our houses, the water, and the wild areas which
are the home for salmon and salamanders, elk and
eagles.
We are losing our
greenlands.
According to the United
States Natural Resources Inventory, between 1982
and 1992, 70,500 acres of private farm and
forest lands, in the Willamette Valley, were
converted to rural residential and urban
uses.
During that decade, the state
of Oregon lost 4,000 acres of wetlands and
deepwater wildlife habitats to
development.
Inside our urban growth
boundary, undeveloped lands are disappearing at
the rate of 2,100 acres/year. They include many
of the region's important natural
areas.
Now let us turn our focus
from the edge of the metropolis to its
heart.
5.
Urban Decay |
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The fifth and perhaps
most ominous sign of the times is urban
decay.
At the heart of most of the
older and larger metropolitan regions in the
East, Midwest and California, is a ghetto, the
antitheses of the affluent suburb. The ghetto is
the place where people in dire poverty are
concentrated, regardless of race. It is where
jobs have left, businesses are closed, property
values are sinking and hope is
disappearing.
In New York, Philadelphia and
Chicago, it is possible to drive for several
miles through a landscape which is as desolate
as anything in the Middle East, provided you are
willing to risk your life on the journey. In the
Chicago region there are old suburbs, 40 miles
from the Loop (downtown Chicago), which are
ghettos.
Urban decay begins with the
formation of pockets of concentrated poverty.
Once a concentration of poverty is established,
the process of decay spreads. Middle-class
families move away to get away from crime, which
is endemic in ghetto areas. They also move away
(as my parents did from NE Portland), out of
concern for the quality of education their
children will have in public schools, where
staff and resources must focus on the additional
needs of poor children. Some people move away
because of simple racism.
In ghettos, businesses close
or move away as their middle class customers
leave. Property values decline and the tax base
begins to shrink even as the demands on public
services provided by the inner-city begin to
rise.
The middle class moves to the
suburbs. The suburbs don't have the crime and
social problems of the inner-city, at least at
first. The absence of housing affordable to
lower income citizens means new suburbs avoid
the responsibility of meeting the needs of poor
citizens. It also prevents the poor from living
in the suburbs, near their service
jobs.
The wealthiest suburbs have a
lot of valuable property to tax and low social
needs on which to spend those taxes. Therefore
they can have good services at modest property
tax rates. Good services and modest property
taxes attract businesses to the suburban edge.
New, prosperous suburban communities often
benefit from state and local investments in new
roads, highways, schools, and sewers.
This is the cycle of economic
polarization, the process by which inner cities
and older suburbs become tax-poor,
problem-ridden enclaves, struggling for state
monies to replace the tax income lost when
wealthier citizens flee to suburbs.
Has the Portland metro region
escaped this pattern of regional economic
polarization and urban decay? Information
compiled by Rep. Myron Orfield and others
suggests that the process of urban decay has a
foothold in our region:
- In a circle from the middle
of downtown Portland extending three miles,
10,000 jobs were lost between 1980 and 1990
(net). But in the ring from 6 to 15 miles out
from downtown Portland, 55,000 jobs were created
during the same period. (ULI)
- During the recent high
growth period of 1990-94, job growth in the
south and southwestern sections of the
metropolitan region was five times faster than
the rate of growth in Portland and the older
southeastern suburbs.
- In 1990, 21% of Portland's
preschool children were in households with
income below the Federal poverty line, with
incomes of less than $8,420 for a single mother
and a child.
- In 1993, 45.1% of the
students in Portland Public Schools qualified
for free or reduced lunch while only 3.7% of the
students in Lake Oswego School District and 0%
of the students in the Riverdale School District
qualified.
- The number of poverty tracts
in the region increased from 21 to 38 between
1980 and 1990. For the first time, two of the
poverty tracts were located outside Portland,
one in Beaverton and one in Gresham. The number
of extreme poverty tracts, where more than 40%
of the households are below the Federal poverty
line, more than tripled from three to
ten.
- There are serious
disparities between the value of taxable
property in different cities and school
districts. The average assessed value of all
property was $115,852 per household in the city
of Portland and $118,251 in Gresham. In
Wilsonville, the total taxable value per
household is $314,034. The average property
value per household in the West Linn School
District was $229,036 compared to about $89,000
in David Douglas and Centennial School
Districts. (However, Measure 5 has sharply
reduced the significance of those school
district disparities.)
6.
Civic Apathy |
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The sixth sign of the
times is civic apathy.
One of the saddest aspects of
this pattern of metropolitan polarization,
central city decay and suburban sprawl, is the
way in which it is regarded as inevitable. Many
citizens believe such changes are rooted in the
invisible hand of the market, or American
culture, including its alleged love of the
automobile.
Whatever the reason, these
changes are perceived as beyond remedy.
Obviously, if government is incompetent in
solving national problems, it cannot solve
regional ones. And even if citizens thought
government could do something they doubt their
own ability to influence government to take
action.
What meaning does democracy
have unless citizens can exercise some choice
about the futures of their neighborhoods, their
cities and their region? Democracy is undermined
when citizens come to believe that sprawl and
urban decay are inevitable, that there is
nothing they can do to affect the places where
they live.
7.
Conclusion for the Story of the
Region |
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So those are the signs
of the times in our nation and our
region.
What do all those statistics
mean?
They mean our region is in
trouble. We may be different today from other
places but we are headed in the same
direction.
The
Signs Of The Times Reveal About Our Civic
Values
This description of our region's
direction should be a matter of concern to all
citizens, not just policy experts. These numbers
say something about our values, about our civic
character.
1.
Waste |
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The first and most
obvious characteristic of our metropolitan
regions is their wastefulness. First, however
frugal we may be in our private habits, as a
region and a nation, we are wastrels.
We are wasting more and more
land in America, instead of being more and more
careful about how we are using it. We are
abandoning neighborhoods at the center of the
region, neighborhoods which were once vital,
desirable places to live. Meanwhile, at the
urban edge, we are destroying the rich,
productive lands that provide us with food and
shelter.
We are wasting more and more
of taxpayers' money to build capital and provide
services at low densities. We are wasting more
and more time traveling between destinations
instead of being places; this is time lost from
work and family. Our metropolitan development
patterns are giant symbols of
profligacy.
2.
Disrespect for Nature |
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The second
characteristic reflected in our urban patterns
is a disrespect for nature. We are wasting our
air and water and destroying the wild areas and
wild things too.
I find the destruction of
nature disturbing because we still regard nature
as having a civilizing, that is a moralizing,
effect on people. For at least a century the
experience of nature has been part of various
programs to socialize or civilize perpetrators
of violence and victims of urban poverty. That
tradition continues today in Portland through a
variety of program for urban youth.
(Psychologists have now
quantified what we already know from practical
experience, that humans can watch moving water,
with an undivided attention for as long as we
can watch television. They have also quantified
the calming effects of natural sounds like the
sea, moving water or wind in trees and the sight
of greenery.)
A respect for nature is a
fundamental part of earth's religions and
ethical systems, although not all religions or
ethical systems treat nature in the same way.
Christians may debate whether or not God's
command was to "subdue" nature or to "tend the
garden" God created. But I know of no religion
that celebrates the destruction of nature, even
if it provides a justification for its
consumption by man.
Our pattern of metropolitan
development is disrespectful of
nature.
3.
The Triumph of Individualism and Property
Over Community |
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The third
characteristic reflected in our metropolitan
development patterns, is our preoccupation with
individualism and property rights. The way in
which our communities are dispersing us across
the landscape while separating ourselves on the
basis of class and race shows that we are giving
priority to individual interests over community
interests. This pattern represents the
antithesis of community.
Our development patterns
reflect the idea that we have no connections to
anyone except those who live on our own street.
The design of our communities suggest that we
need not concern ourselves with the question of
why our town welcomes people to wait on us in a
restaurant or in a store but that these same
people are not welcome to be our
neighbors.
Instead of the principle of
community, we have emphasized property rights
and the individual. Based on these values, our
postwar suburban communities have neglected
things like sidewalks and parks and neighborhood
stores, where people interact and form a
community. Instead we have emphasized the
private domain: big back yards, three-car
garages, cul-de-sac subdivisions. In many
suburbs, if our neighbor has an automatic garage
door opener, we may never meet them. We regard
cities as places to flee. Our ideal becomes an
"acreage homesite," safely separated from our
neighbors.
This loss of community is
reflected in huge polarizations by income and
race. Today, there are ten times as many
Americans living in private communities, usually
gated, than there are Oregonians.
Our post-war development
patterns celebrate property over community,
private consumption over neighborhood
engagement.
4.
Indifference Toward Civic Responsibility
and Cynicism about
Democracy |
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The fourth
characteristic is indifference toward our civic
responsibilities.
Given this effort to separate
ourselves from other people it is not surprising
that citizens no longer regard the participation
in civic life as one of their responsibilities.
In fact, the whole idea of participation is
threatened and therefore democracy is
threatened.
Conclusion:
Metro's Regional Planning Is Our Opportunity To
Shape A New Metropolitan Community And Give It A
Moral Foundation
The signs of the times in
America's metropolises are the signs of the times
here in our own metropolitan region. And those
signs are disturbing. They reflect poorly on our
communities and our values.
But there is hope for us in this
region. That is why it is appropriate that the
design used for this conference shows a rising, not
a setting, sun.
Unlike any other metropolitan
region in the United States, the Portland area has
a directly-elected regional government -- Metro --
with powers that transcend city and county
boundaries. It is this unique concentration of
responsibility at the regional level, in an elected
governing body, that creates an opportunity to
change the signs of the times, to reverse the seven
malign trends I described at the beginning of my
speech.
Metro is proposing that
Portland's regional urban growth boundary remain
fixed for the next 20 years...while 485,000 people
move into it. Metro is proposing that we stop
sprawling and grow up, that we return to the
densities of neighborhoods built in the early 20th
century.
Metro is proposing that we build
no more highways but instead focus transportation
investments on light rail, boulevards for buses and
people and bicycles. And the citizens agreed to tax
themselves in the amount of $475 million to pay for
new light rail lines.
Our fellow citizens also agreed
to spend $135 million to buy some of the most
important natural areas inside and near the urban
growth boundary. Now Metro is gingerly examining
how to go about protecting the vast majority of the
green infrastructure we will not buy.
And Metro is now considering a
regional affordable housing strategy, of
identifying how affluent suburbs will go about
assuring affordable housing for the people who work
in their silicon chip plants, clerk at their stores
or teach their children.
We have another advantage too.
We have what I call the "grey infrastructure," the
grey stuff between our ears, the knowledge and
understanding of how planning works and how it can
shape our future. And we have the energy and
creativity of our citizens, nonprofit organizations
like the Coalition, churches, government,
educational institutions and businesses.
We have the opportunity to
devise a better future for our region, one which
reestablishes a sense of community in every
neighborhood and across neighborhoods, which
embraces the reality of our interdependent
metropolitan community. We can shape our
metropolitan region and give it the moral
foundation it lacks.
This regional effort at planning
our future and imbuing it with community values is
not going to be easy. We will have to overcome old
ideas, old prejudices, some entrenched powers that
benefit from the current patterns of
development.
But we will succeed...because we
love our region... because we want succeeding
generations to live in a better, broader
community... because we must.
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