Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants ‘20-minute neighborhoods’

[marmar]

Grist:



Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants ‘20-minute neighborhoods’
by Jonathan Hiskes

18 Jun 2010 2:00 AM


Newish Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants to build more "20-minute neighborhoods" in his fair city. From a Fast Company interview:

We're also working to make every section of Portland a complete 20-minute neighborhood to strengthen our local economy. Two-thirds of all trips in Portland and in most American cities are not about getting to and from work. So if I can offer quality, affordable goods and services, eliminate food deserts, have neighborhoods with schools and parks and amenities--if I can create these 20-minute complete neighborhoods all over Portland--it strengthens our local economy. We drive 20% less than cities of comparable size, and because we don't manufacture cars, produce oil, or have car insurance companies, every dollar that we don't spend elsewhere, will stay in Portland's economy. There's about $850 million that stays in Portlanders's pockets because we drive less. With a 20-minute neighborhood, also reduce congestion and meet our climate action plan goals.

The point is to encourage neighborhoods where basic amenities are within comfortable walking (or biking) distance. Sort of a catchier term for "mixed-use development." Makes sense for all sorts of reasons, as Adams says.

Side note: After President Obama failed to speak the phrase "climate change" in his Oval Office address, there's been a conversation about whether leaders can effectively address a problem they're afraid to name (presumably because polls say the public doesn't care about it). Rather than yet another attempt to rebrand climate change/global warming/global weirding, etc, etc., may I suggest that it might be more fruitful to add phrases like "20-minute neighborhood" that flesh out what a response to climate-change looks like? Concepts such as that and location efficiency help illustrate a sustainable vision, they're not politically charged (for now), and they appeal to notions of health, community, and quality of life along with the environmental benefits.


http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-18-portland-mayor-sam-adams-wants-20-minute-neighborhoods/

[nuxvomica]

1. What a great idea!

Why isn't this being done everywhere? When I was a kid, there were little shops within walking distance, even in suburbia. My mom used to send us to a small local grocery to pick up staples like milk or bread. They also had a rack of comic books, so I was happy to go on these errands and return deposit bottles so I could buy more comics. That store has been gone for decades. In retrospect, having a nearby store like that not only saved gas but forced me to get some exercise and exposed me to some culture.

[marmar]

2. Now it takes 15 minutes just for people to get out of their subdivision......

Bleak......

[nuxvomica]

10. And some of those people are elderly, or will be

There's been a clamp down on elderly drivers in a lot of places yet no alternate accommodation to allow elderly people to live independently without a lot of driving. My 89-year-old mom had to run the gauntlet to get her driver's license back this year after a fender-bender. The thought of being without a car was scary to her but there's no public transportation were she lives and the closest store is miles away. A neighborhood store, like the one she and my dad ran when they were first married, would be a boon to her and her neighbors.

[Odin2005]

16. Or those of us who for whatever reason can't drive.

IMO suburban sprawl and the lack of good mass transit in most areas is a human rights violation against those that can't drive. We are effectively 2nd Class members of society.

[Xithras]

12. We need to relax zoning enforcement in subdivisions.

The subdivisions are here to stay, so any changes are going to have to work within that framework. The simplest fix would simply be to allow small businesses to buy and replace homes in those subdivisions with small neighborhood stores. There are plenty of small business owners who would be willing to give that a try, and many bland subdivision residents who would love to have a "corner store" right up the road from their house, but current zoning laws in most states won't allow it.

[blogslut]

3. Fortunately, I live in a 20-minute town

Practically everything is within walking distance.

Regardless, I have always tried to live near a grocery store no matter the size of the city. I have lived the majority of my adult life without a car and I hope to continue the lifestyle for as long as possible.

In addition, I'm a big supporter of public transit. It is efficient and better for the environment.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Back To The Basics...That Worked

I'm sure many of us oldsters around here can remember growing up in worlds that didn't extend more than a few blocks. You had everything...food stores and pantries, drug stores and a nearby business strip or district with department stores and entertainment. Many city dwellers still can enjoy this lifestyle...and many do. The suburbs are the problem as they were built around the car and malls...and this is where this plan sounds wonderful, if it can be put into play.

One great thing Portland has is a very good light rail system. This is what makes a 20 minute city really work and this is where I'd like to see more money and focus placed. A century ago everyone used electric busses and trains to get in and around large metropolitan areas and time to bring back old ideas to answer current and future problems.

[izquierdista]

5. And on other continents

It was a concerted effort in America to take away the trolleys and streetcars and make the buses unfit to ride on.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Another GM Legacy...

I'm a fan of the "Inner-Urbans"...things like the LA Red Car and the many other small electric railways that operated in the first half of last century. Many of these right of ways still exist and drastically underserved by bus lines that have consolidated over the years as their costs have risen. It's been a big money waster for half a century but all I hear is talk.

Almost all the rail lines in my area were laid 150 years ago. Chicago's rapid transit covered far more area then than they do today...only adding one route in the past half century. Every few years we get a proposal here or study there but nothing is done. One would hope with the need for jobs and the need to move away from combustine engine cars in major metropolitan areas that it would be popular to push for more light rail and replacing buses with electric and alternative fuels.

Cheers...

[formercia]

7. Another failure of Big Oil, Car makers and the 'Big Box.'

We can thank Corporate America for the mess we're in.

[treestar]

8. My dad grew up in a small town

they walked to school, to the post office, to the grocery store, the library, the movies. They played all over town as kids - everyone's yard was open except for a few. They had a big park on the river and in those days could swim in it. Their mother didn't drive - she just walked to the stores.

I really don't understand why that was not our model in this country and why we chose suburbia as it now is. Where I live now, you have to drive to do any errand whatsoever. Nothing in walking distance but houses.

[KharmaTrain]

11. The Car Culture....

As a rank historian, I enjoy visiting old neighborhoods where my parents grew up...Depression kids who walked everywhere, as my late mother would say "who had a car??". I had a similar experience as a kid but then moved to suburbia and the contrast was big time. Most everyone took the bus to school rather than walking, you went to the shopping center rather than the local business district and it expanded from there.

One of the big freedoms of the post war years was the car...the ability to go anywhere and everywhere. It led to the urban sprawl that took a compressed population and spread it out over several hundred square miles. Suburbia enjoyed its years as a middle class haven, but times and many of these areas have changed. When you get stuck in a massive traffic jam or it takes over an hour to get back and forth, that "freedom" seems to be a pain.

Hopefully sooner rather than later our culture and politicians will realize we can't continue our addiction to oil...but it's going to require lots of intervention.

[SoCalDem]

38. Before TV, people were satisfied with their lives

and their needs were easily met by small-town local merchants.People measured themselves by their immediate neighborhood and their own small town/community.

They all shopped at the same stores, and for many localities, Sears, Wards & Penneys were the HIGH END retailers.

It's odd too, because we all seemed to have everything we needed..people had leather shoes, warm coats, plenty of food. We all rented our telephones & paid less than $10 a month.. we managed to stay in contact with people, even though we were unable to text, beep, buzz, IM them every 45 seconds.

We never had grapes in January or watermelon in December, but we had 20cents a pound juice peaches in the summer time, and other fruits when they were in season & plentiful.


We had bakeries.. real bakeries, where the bakers arrived at midnight, and sold out/closed up by 10AM..Milk men supported families by driving those funky little trucks around, leaving milk in tin boxes on our porches.

There were FOUR little Mom & Pop grocers within a bike-ride from our house & while they did not have hearts of palm or Thai spices, they did have the basics and would save a trip to the big store.

People raised 4-6 children in 900sq ft houses..with NO garage..no "bonus room"..and ONE bathroom..and they paid off those mortgages and retired there too.

Times changed, and so did we.. and we may be the worse for it..

[Gormy Cuss]

20. +1 Suburban development was and is the problem.

There's no practical reason why suburban developments can't include a retail nexus and other amentities. Modern suburbs have been built with the assumption that driving longer distances to access services, jobs, and schools is a good plan. Driving longer distances makes sense in sparsely populated areas but not when people are living cheek-to-jowl in subdivisions.

[dmr]

37. I grew up in Detroit suburbia where most everything was within

walking distance, or a quick trip up the road by bus or car.

My mom & I would hop on the bus for a mile ride up to the downtown district to shop. Christmastime was the best, & holds some of my best memories.

For groceries, we'd have to walk only 4 blocks to the grocery store. There was a neighborhood butcher with the best meats. Sealtest delivered our milk, eggs, cheese, bread etc. Smitty would come by once a week from the cleaners, and once a month the insurance man would drop by for payment and a coffee (or a beer). There was a farmer who came by once a week in the summer/fall with fresh or home-canned vegetables and fruit. And, a man came by bi-weekly with dry-good wares to sell (pots, pans, towels). Of course twice a day was the ice-cream man!

It all began to change in the 70s.
:hi:

[treestar]

6. That's great

I hope he succeeds with that idea.

[DailyGrind51]

13. 20 years ago, I said that if Chicago had a database of where people did and where they lived

and worked, perhaps those who come into the city to work could have a "job exchange" with colleagues who leave the city for jobs in the suburbs, thereby reducing fuel consumption, traffic congestion, accidents, and commuter time and stress.

[shireen]

14. it's a fantastic goal. the biggest obstacle in most cities is poverty .

I live in Baltimore, which has one of the highest crime rates in the country. A 20 minute neighborhood, in most places, would be a distant dream until something is done to address poverty and crime. It's a complex issue in inner cities. Most of them are good people trapped in an overwhelming environment. The bad people instill fear and hopelessness. I wish i knew what it takes to stop it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Although the twenty-minute neighborhood would increase employment

and there have been cooperative efforts by inner city residents in some cities to start their own supermarkets.

[DailyGrind51]

40. I could never see the logic in hiring suburbanites to fill vacant jobs in the city.

Give them to people "in the neighborhood"!

[Odin2005]

15. 'Murika hating Commie Libruls! Real 'Murikans drive a hour to work every day...

...and live in suburban McMansions! :sarcasm:

[KonaKane]

30. Alone in their own car!

[condoleeza]

34. Hee, hee

[BrentWil]

17. If alot of cities would ease their zoning requirements, that would happen anyway. NT

[stevedeshazer]

18. Kudos to Sam for clearly articulating a vision for Portland

I'm a Portlander and I've lived in this area my entire life. Sam is right about this. The nice thing about Portland is that there was less of the "urban renewal" craze of the 60s and 70s, aside from the destruction of the ethnic neighborhood south of the downtown Park Blocks.

Aside from this, many of Portland's older late 19th and early 20th century neighborhoods remain intact. Limiting freeway traffic into the downtown core and the killing of the "Sunrise Corridor" freeway project stopped this madness of introducing even more traffic.

Portland is compact and limited by geography from sprawl. That helps, too.

I should note, though, that Sam has a big political problem related to an affair with a young person that has sapped much of his political capital. I agree with the Mayor on this one, for sure.

[condoleeza]

28. Yeah, right, Sam

My favorite quote from the original interview here: http://www.fastcompany.com/article/sam-adams-mayor-of-portland

"I spend a lot more time traveling than the previous mayor because part of my job is to sell the Portland brand"

Note to Sam:
As someone whose daily life has been impacted by your poor choices and your power grabbing reorganization of bureaus that have cost this city inestimable hours of productivity and expenses for new facilities that were completely unnecessary, especially considering the economics right now, since your complete focus has been on saving your own political ass and creating a voting block on city council so that you can build a personal monument to your sorry life, Sam, WOW, you lucked out on getting ONE good interview that got picked up as a positive. Good for you. If the average citizen here had even an inkling of how dysfunctional city government is, they would have recalled you on the first attempt. Meanwhile you have done NOTHING but try to stay out of the line of fire. If you had even one hundredth of the moral character of our former Mayor, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now. Keep traveling, your staff will keep covering for you. The less you are here, the better. In the meantime our former Mayor will continue to act as ombudsman for Portland out of the goodness of his heart because he actually cares, and because nobody wants to be photographed with you. The tram is pretty cool, but was it your idea?

Sam was likely within his "20 minute neighborhood" when he had his accident: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/05/witnesses_describe_crash_invol.html, he should have been on his bike, but I guess you can't jerk off on a bike. "It was a good thing they didn't do a breathalyzer test or they could have added a DUI", not a good thing to say to a cop, Sam.

Only a true sociopath could even remotely function under his circumstances. So, thumbs down on this, sorry, although I know it is a great idea, you can be sure it wasn't Sam's idea and my thumbs down isn't to be taken personally, just hate that he is our Mayor. Hopefully he won't get re-elected, and hopefully the liberals here, which I am one of, will be "informed" liberals next time, but you can't fix stupid. That's how he got elected.

stevedeshazer, which neighborhood S of downtown are you referring to?

[condoleeza]

29. Double post - edited to delete

not sure how that happened.

"

[MrScorpio]

19. Wow. I'm impressed

It's something that needs to be pursued all over America

[Tikki]

21. Seems like more and more young couples want to make these kind of urban neighborhoods their...

starter homes. And some are moving back into town from the burbs to capture the neighborhood feel.
Also, good city parks have a lot to do with it. Portland has great parks and lots of recreation.

Tikki

[taterguy]

22. It's all because of Bill Walton right?

Back in the 70s he was a staunch proponent of cycling.

Wouldn't it be great if every city's biggest sports star was an advocate for something useful?

[Arugula Latte]

23. Portland is bike-crazy, and Sam Adams is bike-crazy.

So, maybe they listened to Bill Walton. :)

[condoleeza]

33. Your second photo

the paint they used on all these bike stops lasted about 2 months, just little specks now. Somebody should have put some thought into the quality of paint they used.

[Dappleganger]

31. This definitely had a huge impact on the corner 5 and dime stores, pet stores...

book stores, cheap clothing stores, and of course local grocery stores.

We are pretty lucky in our little suburban area to have a tiny bit of shopping nearby, although not within a feasible walking distance it's just a short drive. It includes two grocery stores, multiple restaurants (only 2 fastfood, the rest are non-chain), several gas stations, movie store, dance studio, ortho and 2 dentist, pediatrician and family practice. I wish we had a shuttle service of some kind (not sure if full bus service would be warranted here). The elementary school is within walking or riding distance of 40% of its kids.

Too bad dh has to drive 26 miles each way to work. :(

[canetoad]

24. Will every neighbourhood have its own airport?

:evilgrin:

Seriously, great idea. Hope they can make it work.

[Canuckistanian]

25. It's about time

More mayors should be vigorously advocating this. In the coming global energy crunch, cities that plan ahead this way will survive and prosper.

Those that don't will be FORCED to change at a much greater cost and LOSE some control over how the local neighborhoods are structured.

Good for him.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. When I moved to Minneapolis, I purposely chose a 20-minute neighborhood

It has a food co-op, a bakery, a hardware store, a coffee shop, an ice cream shop, a library, one of the best (still pathetic by world standards or even Portland standards) bus lines in the city, a Tibetan store, a toy store, and four restaurants within two blocks of where I live, and 20 minutes takes me to two more restaurants, another coffee shop, a dry cleaner, and a liquor store. Oh, also two lakes and a park.

If I had not found such a neighborhood, I would have stayed in Portland.

[skipos]

32. The problem in my home town is that over the last couple of decades

dozens of mom and pop grocery stores, hardware stores, electronics stores, video stores, record stores, clothing stores etc have been replaced by a Meijer, a Lowes, a Best Buy, and a Walmart. I don't see how you can create a "20 minute neighborhood" without reversing that trend.

[Spazito]

35. That's fantastic!

I hope it catches on, it makes all kinds of sense.

Recommended.

[cascadiance]

36. Some parts of Portland will be hard to do this...

I have a Portland address on the border up in the mountain areas on the other side of the Vista ridge tunnel. About the only thing within walking distance of my house is the freeway, a cemetery, a Starbucks and a gas station is a pretty good mile or so away...

[unblock]

39. hmm, i live in a 20 minute town. it's 20 minute drive to just about anywhere

:evilgrin:

[eilen]

41. When we moved in our home

there was a drug store, a Hallmark, a grocery store and a gas station in walking distance. The gas station closed up, the grocery store moved to the big box highway and the drug store closed because it was unable to pull a profit after the grocery store closed and the Hallmark and Radio Shack also closed-- Radio Shack followed the grocer to the big box highway (it is a strip about 7 lanes wide at intersections--the walkways don't give a pedestrian nearly enough time to cross. The corner produce stand we had that sold penny candy to the kids, had milk, eggs and Columbia bakery bread as well as plants and garden stuff -- it was nice the kids could ride their bikes there without crossing the 5 lane highway to the plaza the grocer and other stores were located-- they sold after the grocer moved and now it is a pediatric medicine practice which outgrew its offices in the medical office bulding a block away.

The bank that had been in the plaza of the grocer closed down, became a gym. Then the gym moved across to the plaza and a health food store moved in (prices are a little high though).

Now we must drive for groceries. I have used my bike to the big box highway but it is dangerous. It's hard for the kids who get jobs in the various big box stores to walk and the bus service is hourly but does not stop at all the box clusters. There is a major thruway that has exits at the highway/strip. There are a few that do bike to work up there but the weekends see some serious traffic congestion and the bus service on the weekends are about 1.5-2 hours frequency. I am in a suburb outside a village that does have walkabilty-- sidewalks, parks, a library, post office, grocer, recreational park, pizza shop, coffeehouse etc. I wish we had moved there. The school district is bent on closing the schools in the village and busing the kids everywhere as the number of school age kids has dipped in that locality. The town has increased the taxes on the homes and FEMA flood insurance premiums has made home ownership there skyrocket. They (the town and village) are in straits d/t new agreement between the County and the City on splitting sales tax. Granted the city needs it to improve their own liveability-- particularly the schools but it also means that the townships and villages are given cuts in funding that they had no warning.

It costs money and requires flexibility in town zoning boards in order to create 20 minute communities. We have very little of both (particularly when zoning boards consist of business owners who are reluctant to allow competition on their turf).