Would you live here?

In a recent Portland Tribune article, a photo of apartments going up in St. Johns look just like all the other TOD apartments everywhere else in the city.  For anyone who complains about suburban sprawl and cookie-cutter houses in the burbs, take a look at what Smart Growth is doing to Portland and what Metro (with the help of Central Planning elites) wants to inflict on every community in the area.  The formula is always the same: 3- to 5-story, mixed-use apartment blocks that promise the live, work and play, vibrant ideal that is New Urbanism.  Just add multi-modal and active transit plus a local park for a complete, walkable, sustainable, 20-minute neighborhood.

It is interesting to note however, that a reader commented he would like to see more small houses built because he wants to OWN his own home.

Therein lies the American Dream.  While Tim's dream happens to come in a small-sized package, and others' come in larger sizes, it is still the dream the majority of Americans aspire to - a home of their own.  Caution dreamers, the white picket fence does not come with high-density zoning.

I often wonder how many planners, developers, decision-makers and supporters who are behind sustainsble Smart Growth planning actually live in developments like in St. Johns.  What is your guess?  My guess is that the human warehouses are for the masses and not for the people who do the planning.  If someone can prove that more than a handful live in these types of apartments, please let me know.  It feels like  a paternalistic gesture like when a parent says, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you," when you know darn well that the opposite is true.

The HBA and 1000 Friends of Oregon are partners with Metro in doing a survey about housing preferences of metro-area residents.    "Now the two organizations are working with Metro to craft a survey to help determine the kind of housing Portland-area residents want. The Housing Preference Survey will be conducted by Portland State University with assistance from DHM Research, a local polling firm."  If the survey is truly unbiased and scientific, it will be validation of what data have been telling us - that the public has been voting with their feet for years despit Metro's claims to the contrary.  

"When the survey is completed in March 2014, it will be the first scientific attempt by Metro to measure housing preferences since the 1990s. According to Metro employees working on the survey, no similar efforts have been attempted anywhere in the country in recent years.

Metro Deputy Director for Community Development John Williams says the survey partners are still writing the questions. They will attempt to probe preferences well beyond a simple choice between living in a city or a suburb, however."

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