bmike

Yeah, it sucks that housing costs so much.... but is it just me, or would other people pay more for a walkable community, good transit, and a planning vision that looks at things other than just the generic 'jobs' and 'housing starts'?

My american dream is to know my neighbors, be able to easily travel (walk, ride, or transit - but that means its far away) to a farmer's market to buy local produce, school, public services, support our coop, find a way to maintain all the embodied energy we have in our urban cores (houses, buildings, streets, etc), honor and nurture a vibrant meshing of cultures, ages, and ideas, and have access to decent transport for out of town (or longer in town) travel - car share, rail, bus, maybe air.

randya

^^I'm quite certain Portland is doing a much better job at this than Houston, Buffalo, DC and a lot of other cities in the country.

Blue Order

Randall O'Toole is with the American Dream Coalition. While I haven't followed the money trail, that organization raises the astroturf red flags.

Blue Order

That is brilliant! That's exactly what's needed to counter this type of "Let's all return to the good old days of yesteryear" propaganda....

cyccommute 

I glad you guys have got the Toole back. Last time we saw him in Colorado, he was shilling for the Independence Institute against Fast Tracks (our light rail system). Telling us how it was going to cause the downfall of modern civilization, etc.

Now if only you'd take Dougie Bruce, Jon Caldera and John Andrews, Colorado would be a nice place to live. Want 'em? We'll pack 'em up and send the right out...free of charge

Blue Order

Our light rail is so popular there aren't enough trains to meet the rush hour demand. I guess we just didn't realize that they're really the downfall of civilization.

Oh, you can keep those guys.

Dahon.Steve

I've had so many fights with Randal O'Toole. He is a child.

His American Dream Coalition has become a nightmare as the days of cheap motoring will mean the death of sprawl. Whenever there's a lightrail accident, O'Toole is quick to point it out on his site like a child who says see the big bad lightrail should close down! The man has serious issues.

cyccommute 

Oddly enough, the lines that we have built are overwhelmed too. That didn't stop the Toole from telling us that we were wasting money and bringing communism to Colorado.

I've ridden Portland's light rail (with two loaded touring bikes) and found it to be a great resource.

Oh, and we insist that you take those guys. You're closer to an ocean. We'd dump them in a river here but all we've got is the Platte...ankle deep and a mile wide

bpohl

Randy O'Toole has been fighting the Portland planning model for years. He knows absolutely nothing about planning or zoning at all. I'm a planner, so some of his comments just seem so ridiculous to me. His all-time greatest quote was, "In Portland, some places are zoned so that, if your house burns down, you HAVE to build high density housing. You can't even rebuild your house." There's so much fallacy there, it borders in insane. Yes, that may be true on the face of it, but most cities are like that. Most cities were zoned with future development patterns in mind. In Indianapolis, we have lots of houses that are zoned commercial, meaning that if your house burnt down, you'd have to build a commercial structure there. HOWEVER, I guess Randy's never heard of variances to teh zoning code. They happen every day, and only require some sort of practical difficulty or hardship in most states to be granted. I've never seen a vraiance denied to rebuild, unless the structure or use was not legal to begin with (i.e. constructed w/o permits). The dude's an idiot.

bpohl

You've been lucky enough to debate with him, too? I don't know his back ground, but I definitely know he isn't a planner.

Steve Hamlin

Not true.

I lived in Beaverton (Portland suburb) for nearly ten years 'til about 10 months ago. The light rail was my daily commute method. Even in the suburbs I was walking distance to 2 grocery stores (and my gym, dentist and more. . .).

Housing and incomes are directly correlated; labor is a huge component of building, too, recall. Builders (and I am one, small-scale) don't like building on in-fill because it leans out their profit margin/margin for error. If you have to do much excavating to prep a site you have more into the project before you raise the first timber and therefore less chance to eke out a profit. Likewise if you have to raze old structures. Easier and cheaper to pave over level, fertile farmland -- but unwise in the long run, one thinks.

Up, not out. Else it's a microcosm of what's presaged the fall of virtually every empire. . .stretched too thin, too hard to maintain. Leads to bridge failures, if you get my drift. . .