Bragdon initiative: Plan for quality growth
David is using regional planning as a tool to protect quality of life and create new options.
It's no secret that the quality of life in the Portland metropolitan region is among the best in the nation. It is also no accident. Civic leaders and residents have made choices and investments that are paying dividends today. We have clean water, clean air, great neighborhoods, vital town centers, and no matter where you are in the region, nature is always close at hand.
A million more people
But there are a million more people expected to arrive here in the next 25 years. Many (like most of the people living here now) will have been born someplace else and will come here for the reasons we came here, but a third to half will be our own children and grandchildren.
A New Look at Regional Choices
In most metropolitan areas, growth has meant crowding and congestion, loss of precious farm and forestland to development, and degraded rivers and streams. That doesn't have to happen here. With good planning and preparation, we can maintain and even improve on the way of life that sets us apart from other places. David initiated the "New Look at Regional Choices" to achieve two results: 1) attract investment into our existing urban areas to increase capacity and make them even better places for new and existing residents to live and 2) when the region must grow, find ways to do it sensibly.
Accomplishing this will require new financing tools. It will mean creating incentives (and eliminating disincentives) for investment and working collaboratively with local governments and the private sector.
There are already examples of what the future will hold. Under David's leadership the Metro Council is working with the city of Milwaukie on a boulevard improvement to McLoughlin that will help open up their Willamette waterfront, and has made a new housing development possible on an abandoned grocery store site. The Metro Council provided transportation dollars to Gresham for access improvements to their downtown - and the financial analysis shows that it is more economical for the city of Gresham to grant a tax abatement for one to two additional floors of office or residential buildings in their downtown than it would be to extend new infrastructure to the edge of town.
Under David's leadership, the Metro Council is working to transform the process of expanding the urban growth boundary from a bureaucratic and legalistic nightmare to an efficient process that leverages market forces to create better urban areas. That has required working much more closely with the 25 cities and 3 counties in the region; with neighboring cities such as Vancouver, Estacada and Sandy; with private sector firms; and with farmers and other groups.
Urban and rural reserves
This collaborative approach has already produced some early results. In the spring of 2007, an unprecedented coalition of business, government and nonprofit organizations won a legislative victory in Salem that authorizes "urban and rural reserves," an important step in reforming the region's approach to managing growth.
Good planning should be a means to create more of what we love about living here. It should give people more transportation options, more housing opportunities and more recreational activities to choose from. Unfortunately, until recently, planning had become a means to codify what people couldn't do, a means to limit choices rather than creating them. David has set out to make planning work for the residents of the region, ensuring this will continue to be one of the greatest places in the world to live.