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LINDA CARGILL
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| The Gentrification Risk Assessment Map shows two important elements. First, the shaded or cross-hatched areas show the areas of Portland with the highest concentrations of vulnerable populations. Second, the different colors represent levels of gentrification risk based on demographic trends and real estate market dynamics. COURTESY PORTLAND PLANNING AND SUSTAINABILITY |
The map, which Tom Armstrong, a planning supervisor with the city of Portland, presented in a recent Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission meeting, shows east Portland residents abound in three or four risk factors: being renters, low-income, without a bachelor's degree and people of color.
Traditionally, those groups “don't have the resources to absorb increasing housing costs and have more difficulty finding a better job,” Armstrong said. “Renters can have rents bumped up on them each year.”
The good news for east Portland is the city is finally pumping millions of dollars of resources into the area, improving roads, sidewalks, parks and transportation systems-part of the Portland Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2012.
“The challenge really is as you make investments you make the neighborhoods more attractive and that could raise the pressure on rents and housing costs,” Armstrong said.
That is when wealthier folks start moving in. The map is a kind of an “early warning system” showing planners which residents might get pushed out first. Some areas, marked in yellow, are in greater danger because they are adjacent to sections where housing costs are rising.
In east Portland, these “yellow areas” include the Sumner neighborhood, north of Sandy Boulevard and west of the I-205 freeway, as well as the corridor hugging either side of I-205.
Several neighborhoods have already experienced such sudden change, especially large chunks of inner North and Northeast Portland. Most recently, the Cully neighborhood, near Northeast 42nd Avenue and Cully Blvd., has recieved private and public investments to help deal with increasing housing values, including a Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative to help Cully businesses, plus improved parks and rezoning. An active community dialogue about new pressures has led to “community-based strategies,” Armstrong said.
That dialogue has kept residents from falling prey to speculators who might know an area will increase in value and try to buy homes or businesses cheaply.
“So if a community has a greater awareness of how things will get better they will be less likely to sell out and leave too soon,” Armstrong said. “You want to be there when it turns around.”
This spring the city will add new census data to its map, tracking even more changes throughout the city, and try to be more proactive in making Mid-county more livable, while lessening the impacts of gentrification. To access the map and the complete Gentrification and Displacement Study visit https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/62635.
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