Better.jpg

The shape of things to come on Northeast Broadway?

(Steve Duin)

Since returning from a weekend in SoHo and the East Village with a fresh appreciation for urban density, I've been asking folks whether there are lessons for Portland on the sidewalks of Lower Manhattan.

It's hard to find anyone downtown who isn't energized by the growth of this city, or unnerved over how much longer they can afford a place in it.

Luke Mathews lives at Southeast 36th and Division, less than two blocks from his job as an assistant winemaker at the Southeast Wine Collective.

"People need to calm down about growth. Portland is growing in a healthy way," Mathews argues. "We're growing in corridors. We have the opposite of a brain drain. We're seeing new businesses, more tech, better health care.

"In my day-to-day life, I rarely leave a six-block radius, and to me that is awesome. I walk to New Seasons and Fred Meyer. I can walk home from my mechanic and my barber. It's very rare that I get in my car and drive anywhere; I just don't need it."

On North Mississippi Avenue, Michael Ring at Bridge City Comics marvels at the throng of customers that sustains every shop on the street.

"There's this gravity that sucks people in," Ring says. "It's not just people coming down to Fresh Pot or the ReBuilding Center. There's critical mass. It's a combination of the people who live in the neighborhood - there are more young families - the foot traffic from people who want to spend an afternoon on Mississippi, and the tourists."

Todd Putnam, the owner of Framing Resource on Southeast Stark

And at Framing Resource, owner Todd Putnam is understandably jazzed about the escalating value of real estate in the Buckman neighborhood: He owns his building at Southeast 13th and Stark.

But, he adds, "I've been looking for two years to get out of the neighborhood. Parking in Portland is gold, and I have no parking. Most of our business comes from the west side, and that cripples our business."

In the escalating negotiations over the city's precious space, Putnam says, "Businesses like ours, which aren't entertainment and food-oriented, are going to be driven out.

"A new business will come in that can capitalize on walk-ability. This building will rock as a restaurant or a small brew pub. Either that or a bicycle shop. Or a marijuana dispensary."

While I was in New York, Joe Cortright and City Observatory released "The Storefront Index," which maps the concentration of small retail businesses in the country's 51 largest metropolitan areas.

In an attempt to calibrate the "vibrancy of the urban core," Cortright compares the central business districts of Portland - which ranks 10th nationally in retail density -- and St. Louis:

St. Louis has 426 retail storefronts within a three-mile radius of the center of town, Portland 1,686. At the heart of this city, at least, business is booming.

But the city's inner circle is increasingly strained by a dearth of parking and affordable housing, a surge in homeless camps and intractable traffic, and a contentious debate between those who want to preserve the ol' neighborhood and those who want to reshape it.

In the years to come, notes Aaron Brown, president of Oregon Walks, "The ability to live in a house that's 2.5 miles from one of the most important economic centers in the country is going to cost a lot of money."

The millennials who work at frame shops, restaurants, or athletic and apparel firms will struggle to find an affordable apartment on a single transit line or within a reasonable cycling distance.

There won't be the adequate parking. Nor are there easy answers on how to bring the prosperity of North Mississippi and Southeast Division to blue-color neighborhoods where the sidewalks end.

"Changes are coming," says Brown, the campaign manager for Fix Our Streets, which champions Measure 26-173, the $64-million gas tax. "We don't have a choice."

Yet change is more necessary and less intimidating than some might think.

If we want to strike the right balance in the daily commute, we may not need that inbound passing lane on Northeast Broadway. We may need the traffic dividers on Southeast Clinton, even if they simply divert auto traffic a block or two south onto Woodward.

If we hope to see our parents and children age gloriously in the neighborhoods where we live, we may need zoning changes that support new triplexes and duplexes in Buckman. We may not be able to afford the three-car garage.

Like the planet, we may thrive if we walk to work with our neighbors, seek our community on the sidewalk rather than our laptop, and consider change an opportunity, not an affront.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com