The Affects of an Urban Growth Boundary on Portland Metro.

The state of Oregon is admired across the nation for its livability, largely because the state has adopted the “Urban Growth Boundary” initiative in 1977 to control urban growth.  This has helped the Portland Metro area grow in a responsible and prosperous manner.  After the 1977 initiative took effect requiring Oregon cities and metropolitan areas to create urban growth boundaries for each city, Portland and its surrounding cities knew they had to band together to make this work.  As a result, in 1979 voters created an entity we know today as Metro.  This entity is chartered to oversee the planning effort of the urban growth boundary.  A year later the Conservation and Development Commission approved the boundary as consistent with statewide planning goals. 

Metro didn’t stop there.  By 1990 they had developed a policy called the 2040 Growth Concept.  This policy is a fifty year plan for Portland Metro’s future.  It is designed to be a guide on how the urban growth boundary is managed to stop urban sprawl, develop a transportation system that moves people and goods throughout the area, and to preserve access to nature.  Most importantly the plan was developed to ensure the community characteristics stay intact for the citizens, and to continue to develop the Portland Metro area.

Humbolt Gardens Neighborhood is a perfect example of how the urban growth boundaries have affected Portland in a positive way.  This subdivision is located in North Portland along North Vancouver St. between North Killingworth St. and North Alberta St.  The Neighborhood used to be low income housing, but due to the Urban Growth Boundaries developers have been encouraged to redevelop inner neighborhoods like this one rather than waiting for more land to become available.  The new development includes a mix of low and middle income housing as well as a mixed use building with retail space on the ground floor to help bring local businesses to the area.  My Buddy, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1990, says the new development has greatly reduced crime in his neighborhood.

The implementation of the urban growth boundary has made better use of taxpayers’ dollars in its effort to reduce crime and add better public services.  The cost savings of emergency services has helped maintain the amount of police and fire stations.  If urban sprawl was allowed we would have to spend money on building and maintaining Policeand fire stations for sprawling neighborhoods.  By not allowing urban sprawl we have stopped the creation of endless mazes of roads that need to be maintained and policed by the city.  Now we can concentrate dollars and police manpower on existing neighborhoods.  

The stop of sprawling neighborhoodshas also been helping maintain Portland’s home prices.  Communities that have limited restrictions on where homes can be built have ended up with a large excess of houses for sale.  This extra inventory has driven down the price in many of those cities.  According to an article Home Prices by Metro Are published by MSN Money Staff, the housing prices fell in the  Portland Vancouver Metro area by 5.2 percent compared to California Merced Metro area which fell by 49.5 percent in 2008.  Much of California was hard hit with an average drop in home price of 23.25 percent.  There is no doubt that if they would have established an urban growth boundary sooner they would be in much better shape today.  California waited until 1996 to adopt such a policy and only a handful of cities did, with the rest slowly to follow.

Whenever I think of California I think of large amounts of traffic and smog.  Development of transportation plays a key role in sustaining a cities way of life.  Portland is well known for its attention to public transportation planning and bike friendly streets.  To stay compliant with the state’s urban growth policies, Metro planners developed the 2035 Regional Transportation Plan.  This plan is a model to sustain the livability of the Portland Metro area and helps plan the region’s transportation goals from now to the year 2035.  An example of this plan is the new Max line from the Gateway Center to the Clackamas mall, which is schedule to open this fall.  City planners hope this will reduce the amount of traffic on 82^nd avenue and I-205, and bring more economic prosperity to the I-205 corridor by creating better access between the Clackamas town center and NE Portland’s Gateway district.

Metro has other practices that addeconomic prosperity to the Portland area.  The 2040 plan has a provision to help economic prosperity by allowing the growth boundary to be expanded to create jobs.  Metro has moved the urban growth boundary about three dozen times since its creation to help economic prosperity.  One of the largest was in 1998 when metro expanded the boundary to allow 3,500 acres for approximately 23,000 houses and 14,000 jobs.  Another notable expansion was in 1999 where another 380 acres where added for a concept called “Sub Regional Need.”  This was done to balance the number of Homes to Jobs available.  Most recently was in 2005, Metro added 345 acres of land for industrial purposes.

There is no doubt that Metro will continue to make adjustments to the Urban Growth Concept as we continue to make Portland Metro the best livable area in the nation.  There have been some tough initiatives on the ballot in recent years.  So the next time you see an initiative on the ballot regarding land use, do a little research before casting your vote.  You may not think that it will affect you, but directly or in an indirect way, it will.  I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck in traffic, breathing smog on the way to a job interview wondering how you are going to make your next mortgage payment on a house that is worth less than you are paying for it now, and with no chance of selling it because it is in a crime ridden neighborhood.  Or do you?

act out towards Tiffany

The authors desire to fit in caused him to act out towards Tiffany.  I believe this essay is about the effect of wanting to belong.  All his examples of how they ridiculed, teased, and beat her were the effect of wanting to be part of the group, and to have the feeling of belonging to something of a higher power.  I am sure that we have all seen this and have been a part of it is some way, either by being on the receiving or giving end of it.   I don’t think that it stops at the school yard.  I have seen it happen in the workplace as well.  May people use gossip as a way to try to make them look better than a coworker, or a way to make that coworker have less worth to the company than they do.  It could just be to make them feel better about themselves, as if they were somehow raising their own self worth by ridiculing others.    

Working for a company that has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy

Thesis Statement:  Working for a company that has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy was one of the most stressful things I have done.

1^st point:  I had to call my customer and tell them that they will be getting a letter in the mail that we have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. 

How would I phrase it?          

How would the customer react?

                        What am I going to say if they want out of their contract?

2^nd Point:  Telling my customer that our accounts have been frozen and the vendor will not release the materials for his job.

            Vendor would not allow my customer to pay them directly for the materials

            Vendor would not accept a check written jointly from customer to us and them.

My customers customers’ business was scheduled to have their grand opening on     Monday today is Friday and I don’t have their carpet to install.

3^rd point:  I found my assistant that afternoon sitting in his cubical crying, he had cracked under pressure.

He had to call on every single order to be sure it was on order and was being shipped.

We where days behind on installing jobs and getting product shipped to keep upcoming jobs running on time.

He was being bombarded with call from the onsite formans wanting answers to why we were not out their installing.

It is important to have a support group when quitting smoking

Thesis Statement:  It is important to have a support group when quitting smoking to help keep you on track.

            1^st point:  Bosses’ kids brought me candy to eat instead of smoking.

Not letting a little kid down

Sucking on hard candy took the place of sucking on a cigarette.

I was getting pressure from my boss to succeed in my goal to quit smoking. 

            2^nd point:  Talking to my coworker Michael about addictions.

Was able to relate to what I had set out to do because he to had struggled with quiting smoking and other addictions.

Took a walk to show me how he copes when he is craving a cigarette.

Talking about what sets off your cravings.

            3^rd point:  Telling my family I was trying to quit smoking.

I didn’t want my wife to know in case I could not quite she might think I was not strong enough.

Had two small children at home and wanting them to grow up without the worries of the possibility that their father would die of cancer.

My grandmother has lung problems do to smoking.

The Pines

It sounds like the point to his writing was to describe his trip to the pines forest to see for himself whether or not it had been touch by man.  He didn’t believe that a forest untouched by man could still exist so close to such a large city.  When he traveled through the pines he discovered that this forest had been touched by man.  Two gentlemen had taken up residence in theforest and were thoughtlessly leaving a path of destruction.  The two men felt that they had a since of entitlement to live as if they didn’t have any responsibility to keep their trash picked.  Instead of finding a pristine forest McPhee found it littered like it was a junk yard by the two men.  His description of the house, yard, and how they lived proved his point that the forest had been touched by man.  Even though the two men may have felt that their way of life was non intrusive to the forest and excused their behavior by saying that this was Gods by referring to the water as gods water.  I believe McPhee supported his point well.

The Porch

The porch blog was a fun read.  It reminded me of a house that I used to rent in NE Portland.  It had a great porch with a swing that hung from the rafters. My neighbor used to stop by often and have a smoke.  We would sit for hours and talk about nothing.  I could relate to his contrast about the porch and the living room.  He is right; on the porch there is no obligation to make small talk.  You can just sit there and do your own thing.  In the living room it seems much more confining and you feel you have to entertain your guest rather that just let them relax.   He uses great detail like “sorry bunch in the living room /see how hard they work to keep up a steady dribble of talk.”  It is the detail he uses that kept you flowing from one idea to the next.e He

Sandwich

I think the thesis was the 1^st sentence, that the L.A. Langer’s pastrami sandwiches were the best in the world.  But found the article hard to follow because she never really gave much supporting detail until the last couple paragraphs.  She rambled on about other Langer’s restaurants.  Made a comment about the decorations and a brief description about the surrounding neighborhood and possibly scared you off from buying a sandwich from them in the evening hours.  I was not convinced until the last paragraph that their sandwiches were anything special.  If I saw the article in a news paper and said to myself “let’s read this article and see if Langers is worth going to to buy a sandwich” I would have stopped reading by the 2^nd paragraph.