Shaping Portland

“Portland is a wonderful city and Paddy Tillett’s thoughtful and exhaustive analysis describes the important contribution that intelligent place making and urban design has made. This book is surely a must read for any aspiring politician as while Portland currently benefits from enlightened governance there is no cause for complacency. Tillet’s fictional epilogue charts a cat- astrophic, but credible, future that matches any Hollywood block-buster script, should his warnings be ignored.” Howard Sheppard DArch, MSc, MA, MRTPI, RIBA “An insightful and laser-sharp assessment of the successes and shortfalls of Portland’s innovative and place-based planning and urban design within an international professional context. The result is a must-read book with hope and direction for development that sustains a healthy metropolitan life-style while confronting the realities of climate change, flooding, landslides, and a major seismic event.” Don Miles, FAIA, Founding board member of Project for Public Spaces, Retired principal of ZGF Architects LLP “Paddy Tillett is a student of urbanism and design, able to articulate well how each has been exhibited in his adopted home town of Portland, and the role each has played in the evolution of one of America’s most livable cities. He has a good grasp of how the implications of our urban design decisions, whether intentional or not, greatly affect our use and enjoyment of a place, and its spaces. In Shaping Portland, Tillett communicates this in a manner accessible to both the professional design practitioner seeking to learn from the experience of a successful natural and built environment, as well as the lay person seeking to quench their thirst for knowledge of how this most successful exhibition of a healthy and livable city came to be. There are many lessons contained within this book that provide insight into Portland’s future as a resilient city, and to inform others who may wish to apply them to help improve the health of communities elsewhere.” David M. Siegel, FAICP, Former President, American Planning Association Shaping Portland Portland is a young city founded on a riverbank in a virgin forest less than 200 years ago. Shaping Portland: Anatomy of a Healthy City is about the values engendered by the place, and how those values have influenced the growing city. It examines how and why the public realm supports or obstructs the health-forward lifestyles of those who choose to live there. This book explores the values and dynamics that shaped a healthy city to enable those things. It is a case study of a recognized success—looking more closely at a recent urban infill: the Pearl District. The future roles of the planners and other design professionals in continuing to build healthy and responsive environments are suggested. The cities of the future will be those that we already inhabit, but infilled and adapted to tomorrow’s needs and values. Understanding the dynamics involved is essential for those in whose hands we entrust the design of cities and urban places. Paddy Tillett is an architect, urban designer, and city planner with 40 years of international professional experience, having worked for consulting firms and public agencies in many parts of the world before settling in the Pacific Northwest. He grew up in rural Scotland, completing his formal education in Oxford and at Liverpool University, where he gained a master’s degree in civic design. He is a principal with ZGF Architects LLP, focus- ing on planning and urban design, and is an adjunct professor at Portland State University. Paddy is an Accredited LEED Professional, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design Series editor: Peter Ache Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design is a series of academic monographs for scholars working in these disciplines and the overlaps between them. Building on Routledge’s history of academic rigour and cutting-edge research, the series contributes to the rapidly expanding literature in all areas of planning and urban design. www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Planning-and-Urban-Design/ book-series/RRPUD The Architecture of Phantasmagoria Specters of the City Libero Andreotti and Nadir Lahiji Revolt and Reform in Architecture’s Academy William Richards City Branding The Politics of Representation in Globalising Cities Alberto Vanolo Urban Planning’s Philosophical Entanglements The Rugged, Dialectical Path from Knowledge to Action Richard S. Bolan Lost in the Transit Desert Race, Transit Access and Suburban Form Diane Jones Allen University Spatial Development and Urban Transformation in China Cui Liu Shaping Portland Anatomy of a Healthy City Paddy Tillett Shaping Portland Anatomy of a Healthy City Paddy Tillett First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of Paddy Tillett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tillett, Paddy, author. Title: Anatomy of a healthy city / by Paddy Tillett. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge research in planning and urban design | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017007972| ISBN 9781138693449 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315528496 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Urban health. | City planning—Health aspects. | Urban ecology (Sociology)—Health aspects. Classification: LCC RA566.7 .T55 2018 | DDC 362.1/042—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007972 ISBN: 978-1-138-69344-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-52849-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon LT Std by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK Contents List of Illustrations x Introduction xi 1 Symptoms of Urban Health 1 What Makes a Healthy City? 2 Urban Health 3 Urban–Suburban Divide 5 Public Realm 7 2 A City Cast in Place 10 Place Defines Behavior 10 Gentrification 12 Urban Growth Boundary 14 Ideas That Shaped Early Portland 15 Geography and Climate 17 City Form and Scale 19 Growing Downtown’s Public Realm 22 Planning Law and Urban Growth 28 Transit and Daily Travel 30 Bike Culture 32 Land Use Changes and Mobility 33 Land Use and Transportation 35 Central City Planning 37 3 A City Shaped by Values 40 People Who Shape the City 40 Values: Place-Based Livability 44 Changing Demographics 45 What Is Livability Worth? 46 viii Contents Health and Diversity 49 Civic Health 51 4 Dimensions of a Healthy City 54 Discrete, Sensible Places 54 What Is the Right Size? 57 Economic Opportunity 59 Streets That Endure 62 Evolution of City Form 65 The Consequences of Street Grid Scale 67 The Evolving Public Realm 69 The Urban Forest and Biophilia 73 Growing Up, Not Out 76 EcoDistricts and Green Streets 77 5 The Pearl District 82 A Vital New Metropolitan Community 82 Timing Is Everything 84 District Identity 85 District Expansion 89 The West End 93 Who Lives and Works in the Pearl? 95 6 Past Errors and Future Options 98 The Costs of Sprawling Suburbs 99 Street Size and Safety 103 Asking the Right Questions 106 Bogus Cities 108 Wealth Through Conservation 110 Green Design 112 Strategy for Smarter Cities 113 Portland’s Natural Heritage 113 Resiliency 115 7 Corrective Measures 118 Transportation Equity 118 Affordable Housing 120 Improving Livable Environments 123 Expecting the Best 125 Regenerative Development 126 Contents ix 8 Improving the Health of the City 128 Development Regulation 128 Performance-Based Zoning 129 Design Review 131 Corrective Measures 133 Urban Design Quotient 137 Vocabulary for the Public Realm 137 Sensory Urbanism 138 Unselfish Choices 141 Evading Natural Disasters 143 Addressing the Sensuous Environment 145 Updating Livability Expectations 148 A Grammar of Place 150 9 Look Back in Anguish 152 A Backward Glance from 2050 152 Advance Precautions to Be Taken Now 156 Before the Event 159 Aftermath 161 Index 166 Illustrations Figures 1.1 Map of Central Portland 4 2.1 Ira Keller Fountain 24 2.2 The Transit Mall on SW 5th and 6th Avenues 26 2.3 The Green Loop 27 2.4 The 2040 Plan 29 4.1 Elks Temple 55 4.2 Chicago Ripple Tower 56 4.3 Bell curve of density, distance from core 59 4.4 Plan of Savannah, Georgia 67 4.5 and Giambattista Nolli, Pianta Grande di Roma, 1748 72 4.6 4.7 The Transit Mall 75 4.8 NORM, the Natural Organic Recycling Machine 79 5.1 Drawing of River District rail yards redevelopment 87 5.2 Brewery Blocks 91 6.1 Diagram of road areas and crosswalk distances 105 6.2 Cirencester 109 8.1 Pedestrians behind Hyatt in Houston 136 9.1 Seismic event chronology 153 Table 6.1 Street users 104 Introduction Portland is a young city founded on a riverbank in a virgin forest less than 200 years ago. Unlike ancient towns and cities that were isolated from all but local influences, Portland was born into a world of international trade in ideas as well as goods.

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