The Use Of Smart Growth/environmental Policies In Portland To Solve Rising Housing Prices

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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Currently, the United States of America is facing an affordable housing crisis. This crisis is worsening unless measures are taken in stopping sprawl, manage development, and revitalize cities through the use of smart growth policies and strategies. In this country, it has become very hard for a wage earner to afford a two bed room apartment at a fair market rent whether in the major city, outlying community, rural town, adjoining suburb, or even downtown neighborhood. According to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, housing needs have reached an all-time of 5.4 million families which is an increase of 4% between the year 1995 and 1997. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is a 5 per cent decline since the year 1991 in the number of affordable rental units available in this country. This is a big problem since the population of this country is expected to increase by another 70 million people in the next two decades. It should be noted that the problem of affordable housing shortages is not in the inner cities only as more than a third of the worst cases are experienced in the households ...
... that live in the suburbs. Studies conducted on this area have indicated that, many people in the United States of America use approximately 30% of their total incomes in paying house rent. Additionally, around one in every ten households lives in inadequate units.
The smart growth promises to revitalize declining urban areas, create more sustainable and diverse neighborhoods, and prevent explosive suburban development. It should be noted that these promises can bring about displacement of low income residents and neighborhood gentrification. One can therefore ask a question, where the low income earners will live tomorrow? Portland is a city in the United States of America that is heavily facing the crisis of shortages of affordable housing as a result increasing housing prices and declining economy. In order to solve the affordable housing crisis in Portland, everyone’s support is required right from the state, local, and federal government officials to community based organizations, developers, and smart growth advocates . The importance of this study is to shed lights on the concept of shortage of affordable housing in Portland and its suburbs. This study shows how useful are smart growth in solving this problem and promising low income earners in this city a place to live tomorrow.
Analysis of the smart growth policies in Portland
Smart growth and regional development have been considered by many communities in the pursuit of defining the challenges of 20th century and addressing them. Portland has become the focal focus of such policies and strategies where a lot of emphasis is based on the enforcement of an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) . Planners and politicians in the United States of America are looking to the concepts of growth management in order to control sprawl and organize space as a way of increasing recognition of the consequences and effects that consumptive land use have on the quality of economic, physical, and social environment. Portland has experienced high rocketing rents as a result of increased population in this area and hence many people are not able to pay their house rents.
An examination of the Portland with its Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), the land has been made scarce and hence the housing prices have increased drastically. The amount of land that is remaining for development in this area has been stated to be very few and hence the existing houses are being sold at very high prices. The practice of developing an urban area is very crucial as it brings about urban development and also results in the low income earners failing to afford the houses. Because of the increased development in Portland, the housing prices have been increasingly raised from 1980s . It should be noted that the restriction of the supply of vacant land and higher costs of development in inter-city locations; the housing prices in this area have increased. This has reduced the potentialities of some people to afford houses in this area. Despite the fact that there is increased need for development in Portland, the available land that can be used for development in this area is declining hence increasing the costs of development.
The assessment of the increasing housing prices has indicated that this increase has been brought about by urban growth boundary. The smart growth policies that were implemented in Portland metropolitan area are viewed as the gold standard for supply restriction . Oregon is the only state in the United States where effective regional government policies aimed at land use planning is present.
Planning in Portland
Portland offers the supremacy model for regional planning and growth management in the United States of America. This is so because this city is highly recognized as having high reputation, livable place, and being green . This aspect has attracted a lot of people from the whole state of Oregon to come and reside here. It should be noted that this increase in population has called for expansion of the city and since the available land for expansion is limited, there is increasing housing prices.
The smart growth policies have helped in solving the rocketing housing prices in Portland by ensuring that there is no large scale conversion of open space and other lands that are environmentally sensitive to urban areas. It should be noted when large scale of land is converted into urban use, a lot of development will be done and hence increasing the prices of houses. This is because the costs of developments are heavily increased especially in environmentally sensitive areas. In this respect, people staying in the open space areas are forced to rent a house in the developed areas and hence the payment will increase . In this case, the smart growth policies applied in Portland have helped in limiting outward extension of new development so that settlements may be made more compact and the open places may be preserved. This is usually done by urban growth boundaries where urban growth should not exceed certain boundaries. The effectiveness of this aspect is that low income people will be able to stay in open spaces rather than the urban center. In the United States of America, urban development has made people to reside in towns as there are no rural areas to reside in. this shows that some of the houses build in Portland city are big houses that do not hold large volumes of people. When this is the case, housing prices increase as there are many people who would like to rent a house.
The failure of redeveloping existing neighborhoods has been solved by the smart growth. Rather than redeveloping the existing neighborhoods, there was development of new or open spaces. This states that the cots of development are increasing and hence the house owners are forced to increase the housing prices . It is upon the planners to make sure that the existing neighborhoods are well developed before engaging in developing new areas. In Portland city, the smart growth policies have ensured that the existing neighborhoods are heavily developed in order to attract many people. A point worth noting is that these neighborhoods are poorly developed hence people are not attracted to reside in these areas. People are of different social classes in this city and hence the middle and high class people usually reside in well developed areas. The smart growth policies have maintained that the existing neighborhoods should be redeveloped in order to accommodate even the middle and high class people. The aspect of increased urban development in this city has brought segregation where the poor live in lowly developed areas while the rich go for the highly developed areas. Through developing the whole area, the services provided in these areas will attract many people and hence the concept of spreading out will be done away with.
The smart growth policies in Portland have ensured that the public costs of new developments are loaded onto its consumers through impact fees rather than having the general community paying these costs. In Portland, the costs of development have increased greatly making the planners or developers to increase the housing prices . This aspect has been solved by ensuring that the costs of public development are shared among the consumers but not the general community. This has helped in making sure that the costs of development are lowered hence decreasing the housing prices. The local and federal government has helped a lot in lowering the costs of development. This has resulted to people earning lowly being able to pay for house prices.
A lot of money is used in bringing about new developments and hence making the developers to increase housing prices. The smart growth policies have ensured that these funds are used in redeveloping the already existing roads, water systems, sewers, and other infrastructure in Portland. In this case, the amount of money used in redevelopment is low and hence the prices of houses are lowered. This policy has been very essential and viewed as effective especially following the urban growth boundaries . Redevelopment indicates that more value is added to the existing neighborhoods in order to make hold more people at lower housing prices. The reason as to why people in Portland go for newly developed neighborhoods is that, the existing ones are not completely developed and hence residents are not satisfied. The planners in Portland have decided to lower rocketing housing prices by adding value to the existing neighborhoods through introducing services that are not available like water systems, sewerage, and improvement of roads.
There is increasingly mixing of uses in order to reduce the need for travel. This implies that the land that is used for urban development is now used for other purposes. In this case, employees in Portland are able to reside in areas that are near their working areas in order to minimize the costs of living in this city. In this respect, there are pedestrian friendly layouts that minimize the excessive use of cars for transportation on shorter trips . This has been as a result of urban growth boundary which has ensured that residential areas and commercial houses are not at distant in order to reduce the cost of transportation. It should be noted that use of private vehicles has increased the congestion and traffic jam and hence smart growth objectives make sure that public vehicles are the mostly used vehicles for short trips. This increases the area in the urban area where more development can be made is increased and hence the capacity of the urban area is increased.

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