Before all of the thoughts generated by the pdXPLORE panel discussion on Tuesday exit my brainpan altogether and my notes go stale, I wanted to get something in a post, even if it’s not completely organized. The five panelists — Carol Mayer-Reed, Rudy Barton, Michael McCulloch, architect William Tripp and Richard Potestio — have each produced elements for an exhibit at PNCA that makes a few stabs at how we can think about Portland’s future in a creative way. I haven’t spent a lot of time with the exhibits, but they didn’t seem integrated into a whole “concept,” at least not to me, so perhaps a more haphazard report makes some sense. So we’ll just jump directly into the highlights.
Portland is a river city. Well, yeah. But both Mayer-Reed and Barton pointed out that the city does a poor job of celebrating its rivers, reaching out to them, dipping its collective toes in them, especially the Willamette. I’ve been hearing this comment a lot lately, which makes me think that the idea of burying I-5 on the east bank of the Willamette may be back in play in a more serious way.
Portland isn’t as green as it thinks it is. Mayer-Reed pointed this out, based on her researches that compared the city to its near West Coast neighbors San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., but several of the panelists mentioned that Portlanders shouldn’t be smug about their density and sustainability initiatives because other places actually have had better results along these lines.
Design something. McCulloch cited the three principles espoused by Jaime Lerner, the architect and former mayor of Curitiba in Brazil, widely praised for his thoughts AND achievements in remaking cities: 1) understand your city 2) protect the qualities you love 3) do something to make it better (even if it’s wrong). I think McCulloch rightly recognizes an attitude of “keep it the way it is” in the city, even when we see so many things that could be better now and so many forces lining up that will change the city in the future. McCulloch advocated a “collage” approach to the city: add to what’s there, add new dimensions (but don’t bulldoze and start over). Oh, and don’t move to Montana just because the city is going to grow substantially in the decades to come.
Design can allow you to integrate forces that seem irreconcilable. This comes from Tripp, and it connects neatly with McCulloch’s point. Mostly, Tripp was arguing for the power of public, communal spaces to make the city work, urging us to think of the city as a network of community spaces rather than a grid of private property. He also advocated a specific project — creating a plaza where Burnside Ave. (Portland’s primary east-west arterial, for those who don’t know the city) meets Sandy Blvd. (an ancient diagonal street through the city’s Northeast quadrant), which would celebrate an intersection that is now pretty horrid with a public space. Good idea!
The Burnside-Couch couplet? Forget about it. Both McCulloch and Potestio spoke vigorously against the plan, which would make Burnside one way and direct a LOT of traffic down Couch the other way, on both sides of the river. Their objection: It’s a plan for cars, not for people. And all the panelists supported design that encourages pedestrian and bike travel over car travel.
Plan for trains. I think Potestio pointed out what a bottleneck Portland is for freight train traffic, and as one questioner in the audience pointed out, train travel (freight AND passenger) is one obvious solution to increased oil prices and carbon emissions. The questioner asked if Portland was prepared to build a hub for rail traffic (like similarly sized European cities), but none of the panelists could answer. Let me! No, we aren’t; our thinking hasn’t evolved far enough. Maglev trains zipping up and down the West Coast at more than 300 mph? Uh, no, that’s the stuff of science fiction, or Japan.
When I get the chance, I’ll spend more time with the exhibit at PNCA and perhaps report back. In the meantime, if YOU visit, feel totally free to report your thoughts to us!
Here are some links.
For a full transcript of the panel, visit Amber Case’s website.
The next pdXPLORE event is a panel that includes mayor-elect Sam Adams and will discuss issues raised by the exhibit, which continues. It’s on Tuesday, July 22.
The Daily Journal of Commerce account.