Finally, a sensible article about the so called high rent problem. Can't have it both ways, if you have a decent economy and land use restrictions, you will have higher property prices. If you want cheap rent, go where one of those don't exist.

Really though? So let's make up a new word "demographic inversion" because those responsible for it are uncomfortable when longtime residents rally against the g-word (GENTRIFICATION). I swear, say that word in public and it's like you dropped the f-bomb.

So now it's some population phenomenon instead of City Hall's responsibility to provide affordable housing and the hordes of precious yupsters (look I can do it too) can rest easy that they're not destroying what used to be an affordable and unique place to live. Lol, what a crock of shit.

"demographic inversion" is two words.

Yes and no... The efforts to promote density and contain sprawl may have helped speed the shortage of developable land, but those policies didn't cause the higher rents.

If the explanation was that simple, we could look to places where sprawl is rampant, like California, and expect to see stable housing prices. But the fact that homes are being built on every vacant lot from Santa Rosa to Salinas seems to have done little to keep San Francisco affordable.

The population, there and here, is growing. We can grow well or we can grow badly, but we can't not grow.

Portland and Oregon need to increase the supply of housing but we don't have to plow up our farmland or toss out our land use regulations to do it. We've gone through a relatively easy period of pro-density development, but now is when it gets hard. That means finally identifying real resources to support publicly-subsidized housing and getting serious about regulating devlopers and landlords, while redoubling our commitment to compact and smart transit-oriented development.

PS. Urban renewal in the South Auditorium is interesting Portland history, but it's not very representative of anything.

In that era, many large cities used urban renewal to clear rat-infested slums and build Cabrini Green-style housing projects that were supposed to be clean and dignified low-income homes. It didn't work out that way, and the model of huge projects warehousing tens of thousands of poor people was rightly abandoned decades ago.

With the exception of South Auditorium, Portland never really tried urban renewal for housing. Partly that's because we had few slums to tear out, and partly it's because we just never really gave a shit about poor people.

TOSPITW: It's not City Hall's responsibility to provide housing. It may be their responsibility to put in place the conditions that encourage it, but "provide" it? Nahhhh...I don't think very many of us want the City as a landlord.

Lazaar: Where did you get anything criticizing poor people from Euphonius's comments? He's criticizing the City for not giving a shit about poor people. That's pretty much the exact opposite.

Euphonius, who is supposed to build that housing?

Jesus Christ this word soup.

@Demondog: The typical thing when the city uses urban renewal for affordable rental housing is that they put up some money and a for-profit developer or a non-profit called a Community Development Corporation (a "CDC") puts up the rest. Some of the apartments they build will be market rate and some are subsidized and income-restricted.

So it's built by a private developer and the cost to subsidize the affordable apartments are covered partially by the city and partially by the devloper and passed on to the market-rate renters. If it's a CDC they probably do some fundraising and grants to help subsidize it too.

Short answer: The city puts up som money and tries to leverage it to get as much housing built as they can.

Lazaar: what? Which people? What words? And why are you calling someone "bitch?"

Euphonius,

Please stop posting intelligent, well-reasoned arguments in the comments section. This is the internet, goddamnit. We don't cotton to that sort of thing 'round here.

we planned it that way... it's just the way we planned it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X84tlNzppy…

I was able to take a lot of urban planning classes in high school in the mid-late 80's. Back then our instructor was telling us that the plan for the future is for cities to rebuild and "revitalize" the core and bring new people in. The thought of that happening some day, at the time, seemed like a distant pipe dream. The mid 80's mid-west and east coast city centers were abandoned manufacturing, violent neighborhoods, crack houses, prostitution, gangs, shootings, ect... Portland is one of the first cities that made the once unimaginable something unimaginable. Brooklyn and Philli are the 2 east cost urban centers "inverting".. which i think accurately describes the rapid intensity of the change. The original concept we discussed in the 80's was based on returning to walkable neighborhoods, where everything you needed was right there (and no one worried about getting shot). Portland, Philli, and Brooklyn prove that people now want that more than ever based on the insane prices. Maybe St. Louise, Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Kansas City will follow on a more realistic, diverse, and fair level.

Euphonius for mayor!

"Dr. McLoughlin" gets my vote. Thanks Euphonious for the added thoughts. I'm tired of this new blame the visionaries for making Portland (or any city) so livable and great for getting in this mess now. We need some more leadership visionaries who continually strive to take care of the current residents as they make way for new ones.

Here. I’ll write a more condensed version of this story. Too many people, not enough supply. Tah dah. That was easy. Portland has seen extraordinary population growth for the better part of 150 years. It never had any notable white flight or wholesale inner city abandonment and all the time people kept on moving here. Think of it in a regional context, the west coast. Portland, Boise and to some extent Denver were the last large cities to see notable inner city develop. Seattle, SF and LA were already re-urbanizing by the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Were just playing catch up now. At least Portland has seen the writing on the wall (cough, San Francisco nimbys, cough) and is taking some proactive measures to increase the housing supply. Part of the ball is definitely in the State of Oregon court however. We should have an inclusionary zoning component if we want to take affordability completely serious.

Fukushima will likely change all that.

^^^you do also raise a valid point. if and when we do get a massive earthquake, all the twee urban village-y shit people love about Portland will be toast. collectively, Portland has some of the oldest SF wood and unreinforced brick housing stock in the country. over 80 percent of which has not been reinforced or seismically retrofitted. couple that with A, active faults, B, crumbly 100 year old foundations, and C, sandy and loamy soil in many central neighborhoods and D, you will be moving to Houston right after your 500k bungalow is shaken to the ground!!

@Demondog & @Euphonius

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, trying to coax the housing capitalists, who are on the whole very resistant to not making a profit for investors and/or executive staff, ain't doin' it. It's a strategy of more housing and profits for the relatively rich and more crumbs for the relatively poor. "Crumbs" isn't just poetic exageration either. Just in the last couple days the Mercury reported how the City is planning to give housing capitalists more tax breaks to eek out 200 units a year. http://www.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX… That's about 1% of what we needed according to OPB's reporting on it. "According to the best estimate available, Portland has a shortage of about 20,000 affordable units. " http://www.opb.org/news/article/portlands-…

^ The library is offering free classes on seismic retrofitting. Only two sessions scheduled now, but expect more in the future if there's demand (and there will be demand):

https://multcolib.org/events/seismic-retro…

its units in general. affordable and market rate. who do you think is also competing with lifelong renters as they wade thru the maddening local real estate scene, would be homeowners who are still renting!! lots of folks also got hosed in the recession by taking out shitty loans and subsequently losing their home once they got underwater. guess what, they are renters too! so not only has the market tightened, but they renter dynamic has also changed to include people that would otherwise probably be homeowners. one note from the article, suburbs across the country haven't become wastelands of poor people ousted from the central city, in fact tons of suburbs across the country in healthy cities are seeing lots of growth as well. albeit a bit slower then their central cores. Washington County circa 1990, 331,000 people. Washington County 2010, 530,000....Clackamas county has seen staggering growth too, and guess what, the highest per capita income in the state.

Back in the mid eighties there was some guy on OPB radio saying how if you took the entire population of the World and crammed them all together in one area with the population density of Hong Kong, you could fit everyone in the World in a place the size of the state of Maryland. The State and Federal Governments are hoarding millions of acres of vacant land.

The Homeless have been herded onto the city sidewalks. The emancipated American Negro Slave received forty acres and a mule. Instead of welfare and jail, how about just granting land deeds to those in need?

As for the Forecourt Fountain, the architect publicly announced that it's designed for people to wade in, and the City shit a conniption fit, but had to relent due to public demand.

I mean it. Why shell out shitloads of tax payer booty to house the homeless for not paying tickets for sleeping on dogshit in the park, when there are millions of acres of vacant land everywhere, outside city limits, where a man might start out living in a tent and have the opportunity to raise some crops for food and trade, keep a few chickens for eggs, and maybe a milk cow? Then you would have a contributing member of society in general, while at the same time, out of your way.

@bigteninch Many people who live on the streets and who congregate toward the center of town rely on healthcare and social services that're to be found there and not in the middle of no where. Pushing them out of town is a convenient tactic for getting rid of those people, but it doesn't really deal with their problems or the problem their being on the street represents for us as a society.

It's also ridiculous to suggest that people go just live off the land when we are systematically denied any knowledge about how to do that. Pay no mind to the fact either that living off the land as an individual producer is a ludicrous fantasy that has no grounding in the social realities that individuals of this species rely on.

Don't go banishing the great unwashed into the forest as if of Nottingham. Of course not. How about resuming the recently defunct program of claiming vacant land? Just make it an option for Americans who want the opportunity. Just because most people have been made weak and dependent by social engineering, doesn't mean that it has succeeded in destroying everybody's character.

My grandpa was a farmer who was born and raised on Durham Road, now Tigard, making a living his entire life by rotating crops of wheat and oats on fifty acres. The great depression had negligible impact on the family. My mother always wore cashmere sweaters.

This article missed the elephant in the room. There's another artificial housing bubble being blown by some of the same banks and real estate companies who caused the last crash.
Another telling statistic is ownership rates, which are at historic lows.

Stock market is the your new landlord!!!
The rental bond market is the fastest growing segment of the housing investment market.
There's a glut of over-priced single family rental homes. Craigslist is full of them and they're growing in numbers.
These companies are getting into cash bidding wars over homes, sometimes over bidding by as much as 35% in Portland. How are first time home buyers suppose to compete with that?