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State of the Centers report

Planning and conservation  ›  Urban development and revitalization  ›  Downtowns and main streets  ›  State of the Centers report

Learn more about the region's 38 distinct regional and town centers and the important roles they play in enhancing the region's quality of life.

In 1995, with the support of the public and elected officials of the region, Metro adopted the 2040 Growth Concept as a vision to guide growth and development over the coming decades. The 2040 Growth Concept calls for maintaining the region's connections with nature, preserving existing neighborhoods, strengthening employment and industrial areas, and concentrating growth in designated centers and corridors. By adopting the 2040 Growth Concept, the region committed to create compact, vibrant communities and to protect the region's farm and forestland.

The 2040 Growth Concept designates 38 centers across the region (in addition to Downtown Portland) as the focus for redevelopment, multi-modal transportation and concentrations of households and employment. Since 1995, local governments have taken several actions to create vibrant centers, including amending their comprehensive plans, providing financial assistance and investing in essential public infrastructure.

Centers vary greatly in geographic size, urban form and transportation access. Some, such as the undeveloped Pleasant Valley Town Center, have only recently been included in the Metro Urban Growth Boundary, while others, such as the St. Johns Town Center, reflect early 20th century street-car era development patterns. Each of the centers is truly unique.

The State of the Centers report, first published in January 2009 and updated in May 2011, is an assessment that uses the latest available data to provide basic demographic information for each center, describe how each center has developed and list the types of amenities each center offers.

Learn how the Metro Context Tool scores and displays data on regional and town centers

The report is intended to facilitate discussions across the region about the aspirations of each community for focusing housing and employment growth in their center. The report also highlights the many actions taken by the region's cities and counties to enhance their communities.

The State of the Centers report features:

• An activity spectrum and typologies that provide examples of successful centers in the Portland area in order to better understand the relationships between transit availability, the number of people per acre, urban form and the diversity of businesses required to make a community vibrant. More specifically, this analysis looks at certain businesses as "urban amenities" that help create desirable local destinations and enhance the amount of economic and social activity in centers.
• Regional and town center descriptions that illustrate current population and employment concentrations in each center, as well as the number of different types of urban amenities. These descriptions include basic demographic information such as median household size and income, home ownership rates, jobs-to-housing ratio and other indicators.
• A resource list that summarizes a number of publications that Metro has prepared to assist local communities in developing their centers.

New in the 2011 State of the Centers report are additional measures to help communities understand how their centers are performing, including information on jobs, income and transportation use. Also added, is a visual representation for each center of the seven characteristics of a successful center and the relative strength of each compared to the region.

The 2011 State of the Centers report, along with the 2009 edition, is available to download from files listed below. Hard copies of the report can also be requested by writing to Metro's Planning and Development Department, 600 NE Grand Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97232, or by calling 503-797-1562 or sending email to 2040@oregonmetro.gov.

If you have new or corrected information, questions or suggestions for improvement, use the contact information provided above.

Related Documents

• 2011 State of the Centers report 14.3M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published November 1, 2011
• 2009 State of the Centers report part 1: Table of contents, introduction, activity spectrum and typologies 6.0M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 30, 2009
• 2011 State of the Centers report part 2: Regional centers (corrected version) 2.8M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published November 1, 2011
• 2009 State of the Centers report part 3: Town centers - Aloha through Hollywood 9.6M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 30, 2009
• 2009 State of the Centers report part 4: Town centers - King City through Rockwood 3.2M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 30, 2009
• 2009 State of the Centers report part 5: Town centers - Sherwood through Wilsonville 3.4M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 30, 2009

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