Renting in Portland

So for those of you who don't know me well, I'm not one to get excited about much. Rarer still is for me to be so charged up about something, that I actually speak about it. Disseminating it into more than a few posts on my social feeds? Nearly unheard of for me anymore. So what could possibly stir me up so much as to drive me to talk about it at length? What got me so riled as to expound as much as I'm about to? PORTLAND.

To start, I was born in Portland in late summer 1983 at Emanuel Hospital (pre-Legacy). I spent the first 18 years of my life in the Hollywood/Grant Park area. I attended 5 schools including my high school (2 of which are now named Beverly Cleary). From the mid 80's until 2001, I lived here and watched it change. Even then, the complaints about people moving here and buying up all the houses had started. Not hipsters and young professionals yet; mostly families and newlyweds. Intel's campus, the Rose Quarter, and the light rail system (MAX) having more than one line was still fairly new when I left for college. I was only 2 hours away, so I did visit when I could but I wasn't living here from the fall '01 until the early spring of 2009. I moved back because I'd missed my hometown. I was fortunate enough to be able to transfer a job with a national chain down here from where I'd been.

But the town had changed. A lot. The MAX was branching out all over. The food cart idea had exploded. Films and TV, a staple industry that had waned before I left, was back in full swing. And everyone...EVERYONE...wanted to move here for any number of reasons (including Portlandia, but that's a different topic). It still feels like a small town, but with a lot more people, with more coming every day. Because of the influx of people coming here, housing began to be a problem. And thanks to the housing market collapse in 2008, there were a lot of housing construction projects half-finished; one only has to look at how the Southwest Waterfront area had 4 new skyscrapers mostly empty (if even completed) until very recently. So to respond to the need for housing, developers started building high-density apartments and condos in the middle of town, like SE Division Street. The process known as gentrification has transformed huge swaths of town and continues to in the name of accommodating the influx to come.

Not a lot of people are happy with how the housing crunch is being “solved”, myself included. Many of us see new housing going up at the cost of old houses, then those new places are rented out for amounts well too high for anyone previously living in the area. Others see the slow decay of the city's character into the kind of metropolis many move here to escape. Still others see all these new living quarters going up without an adequate build up of the surrounding infrastructure. All of these voices have been shouting about the issues for quite some time.

Then came the video for Burnside 26, a recently completed high-density mixed use building in the Kerns neighborhood. I'm still not sure if this was satire or marketing, but the video depicts the “typical” Portland 20-something hipster couple loving their life in their new apartment in this building. This got a lot of negative response and was seen to demonstrate the problem with the response to rental demand. One of the actual residents tried to defend his apartment and got himself a load of insults in return. I'd link the video here, but it has since been made private.

This all lead to a cover story in Willamette Week (a long running weekly free newspaper) about how all of these recently apartment buildings, including Burnside 26, were actually good. The title? “Grow up, Portland.” It opens with a 3 page response by the resident from B-26. He doesn't seem to understand why all the hate and assumes that most people just don't understand the need. The story continues by addressing 5 major complaints about these new apartment buildings. It concludes with the call to just learn to love what we hate.

First, a word about Willamette Week by someone who grew up with the newspaper and who, up to this week, still picked it up: This used to be a decent publication. Even after the decline of printed news media, this paper was alright. Recently, however, it turned a corner and is heading down the wrong way. It's mostly ads now, and what little space is still dedicated to articles has taken a more conservative tone as of late. After this latest article, I've decided not to read it anymore. But I digress.

The article itself is a prime example of what I've dubbed Wealth-splaining. It essentially talks down to the reader. At one point stating that those who are complaining shouldn't have slept through basic economics; if they had, they'd see that the high demand for rentals is why it's so expensive. I have to challenge this. High-demand? Really? All the empty houses around town couldn't have been rented out or, since demand for houses dropped, been made affordable? Also, does that mean when the demand for rentals drops, the prices will drop again? Please. I've never heard of a price drop in housing when demand goes down. And those empty houses? Still wildly expensive.

It defends the rise of the multi-unit complex by citing the growth boundary and zoning laws in town. If they were to just build single family houses, we'd drown in sprawl. It also doubts the ability to open up development opportunity in other neighborhoods. What it does not seem to remember is most of East Portland even existing, let alone that it could be developed just as well. Tens of square miles east of I-205 that isn't being considered. Why? They gentrified all the low-income areas west of I-205, why not go east too? Is it because you think people won't want to live out there? I can't imagine why. I mean, it's not like it's ignored by the city government when it comes to new infrastructure—OH WAIT. In short, they're only developing places that people with a lot of money would want to be in.

It also reduces a chunk of the argument down to people not wanting Portland to change. That's rather dismissive of those voices who are, in fact, wanting Portland to change in a better way than this. The calls for responsible development that keeps with the character of the city do not mean people don't want changes, they just don't want these changes. A lot of people moved here because of what they thought the city was. I moved back because of what I remembered the city being. These changes are undoing this city's soul.

So what's the alternative? I'm not going to just rant about this without offering another way, and I've actually got a few ideas.

1. Development without Gentrification: Build up the neighborhoods, but do so in a way that people who already live there can still afford it. Either keep the prices low or raise wages.
2. Require an investment in the infrastructure as part of being allowed to develop in Portland. That means ensuring a minimal impact on the city's water, electricity, telecommunications, transportation, and parking area. If you want to build a place to live, it has to be livable for established residents as much as it needs to be for new ones.
3. Allow for more transparency in planning. A hard-to-read notice in the building's window or on plywood somewhere on the property is not adequate notice. Before you hammer a nail or lay an ounce of concrete, the design should have a decent amount of neighborhood approval.

These are only a few ideas. I'm certain there are more. I'm also certain that the problem won't be solved overnight. I know the buildings already up aren't going away and the ones already under construction will be there too. But I also know that we have to open up dialogue on this between the city, the developers, and the residents who just want to keep Portland Portland even as it grows up.

As always, I welcome responses to my opinions. I just ask that you keep it civil and don't talk down to me; a base level of respect for a fellow human is all. -C.S.