The recent announcement
The question of how to prevent gentrification has eluded economists for years. Some gentrification is inevitable due to economic development. As James Frank Dy Zarsadiaz wrote recently for CityLab
The affects of gentrification can be rather academic. Here In Portland, the conversation usually revolves around young people coming to retire and driving up housing values and changing the culture of a particular neighborhood.
However, when I hear how people who have actually been affected by it personally (not just something someone heard about on NPR) what I hear is people mourning a sense of loss; a loss of community, a loss of place and even a loss of identity. I hear people describing what its like to be displaced. I mention this because as a city, we need to reframe to talk of gentrification from one focused on rising property values, invading hipsters and Portlandia to one focused on stopping the displacement of poor folks and communities of color.
Portland is rapidly changing. Property values in the central eastside are skyrocketing, rental prices are up more than six percent from last year, and people of color are being pushed farther towards the margins of the city. We are trending towards San Francisco. However, we can’t solve the problem unless we first correctly define what the problem is. The problem is about stopping the displacement, plain and simple. We need a citywide conversation about how to stop displacement and how to ensure that Portland remains affordable for all people.
Also, when we talk about stopping displacement, we need to be honest about what we’re talking about and who is going to pay for it. By its very nature, affordable housing is housing below market price, which means it needs to be subsidized along the way. We also need to have honest conversations about various policy prescriptions. For starters, density is one of the best tools we have for fighting the runaway costs of housing. Simple economics tells us when we increase the supply of housing, we can lower to demand and therefore the cost. However, increasing density requires us to build more units in neighborhoods in the inner-east side that have traditionally rejected such projects in the name of NIMBYism. But you can’t be progressive on one hand, and then reject the notion of development in your neighborhood because you think it will change the character of the neighborhood. Such a position is hypocritical.
Moreover, we need to address the other sacred cows in development like parking requirements and other upgrades. Yes, it would be nice for every new apartment building to have a corresponding amount of parking units, but such a requirement effectively prices out the very people who need affordable housing anyway. Any developer will tell you that when you start adding requirements like parking, your cost per unit goes through the roof and quickly becomes less affordable. Stopping displacement isn’t going to be a painless process. It’s going to be really tough, and it requires everyone to give a little bit. But if we are going to have an open and honest conversation we need to talk about the sacrifices that will be required to stop displacement, and hopefully even reverse it.
But beyond the need for a citywide conversation on displacement is the need for action. Portland has a history of talking about big ideas but not always following through with implementing them. Displacement is the most important issue of our time in the city, not because we’re the only city to wrestle with how to stop (and reverse) displacement, but because unlike other major cities, we can still do something about it. Portland has come to a fork in the road and if we don’t act, we risk missing our chance to solve the problem. We may never be a city of international finance like New York, or a city of power and influence like Washington D.C., or a city of Ivy-league universities like Boston, but we can be the city of livability, where people from all walks of life can afford to live and raise a family and enjoy everything that makes this place unique and great.
Either we take active steps to stop displacement, provide more affordable housing and lower housing costs in general, or passively squander the opportunity for change and become San Francisco; a city where only the wealthy can live.
