Another
micro-apartment building is being built by the same firm that has one planned for the Hollywood District. This one is on NW Thurman. It too will take the place of a single family home on a 50' x 100' lot. This is Portland's way of "sardining" people into the city. Take the most popular districts and allow them to be plundered to the point no one will like living there. I should not say no one, just not the people who live there now. There will always be someone who comes here from someplace worse and claims this to be a paradise no matter how altered and degraded the livability has become.
For the people who need or want to be in the city and can't afford anyplace else and don't mind living in a shoebox and sharing a kitchen with others, then this just might do. Perhaps I am too old to enjoy the urban-chic spirit of these places, but they don't have much of any spirit to me except $$$ for the smart developer who can pull this off. Congratulations for finding your (tiny) niche.
Ahhh - density! This is living!
Unfortunately, these micro apartments and all the other "no parking provided" high rise apartment bunkers so in vogue today with our urban planners will be the ghettos and crime sinks of tomorrow. Just look at what has happened out at Gateway.
ReplyDeleteThe sad story of Rockwood has to do with light rail and over-supply of apartments. When the light retail ine was mapped out, developers rushed to fulfill Metro's vision of high density (which is pretty low by today's standards). The number of rental to owner dwellings in Gresham shot up and with the abundance of apartments the rents went down and the clientele changed. Gresham finally had to put a moratorium in place to stop the addition of more rental units in Rockwood. As long as the places rent up, the neighborhoods are OK. When the demand whthers, I wouldn't want to be living in or near a station community. But that's just me.
ReplyDelete