Day 16 Portland, OR

This morning we had a lecture with Patrick about urban planning. I was surprised to learn that NYC is actually the most efficient city. It is not what comes to mind, but it makes sense! There is a good mixture of business and residences, and everything is so close together and you don't have to drive. This is the idea of smart growth, which is what sustainable urban planning is trying to focus on. It is also called "new urbanism", and Portland is a great example. The idea is that lifestyle changes aren't enough to live in a sustainable way. "We can't buy our way into being sustainable" is a great quote I picked up on. We need infrastructure change, and that's what new urbanism is all about.
So far we have spread ourselves across the landscape in an inefficient way, and our land use and zoning makes it so things are far apart. This means more driving, more land, and more energy use. We have become a wasteful, energy dependent nation, and we need to get away from that. By allowing mixed use zoning, we can combine factories and businesses with residential areas, which lets people walk to work or to the store. Transit oriented development also would let people live and work where there is mass transit. Developing brownfields is also helpful because it uses land that isn't being developed upon or is being inefficiently used.
Another great idea Patrick introduced is setting an urban growth boundary, which basically says, "we're not going to develop beyond this point". This makes it so that towns have to work with the land they've got, for example they change an old factory into small shops etc. Another great idea Patrick mentioned is creating incentives so that the "right" thing to do is the more desirable thing to do, and the "wrong" thing to do is harder and less desirable.
We talked about Portland and how they have a hub with "fingers" that connect to suburbs through rail etc. They also have mixed urban areas that are designed so you can live in the city or nearby without a car. Portland also has many green trees and green roofs, along with storm water parks that let water infiltrate and be treated by plants instead of running off the street.

Talking about the parks in Portland

I really loved Portland!! We took a walking tour and I liked the way they had the residential mixed with businesses and parks. Portland is able to control sprawl because they have an urban growth boundary that was made in the 1970's. As a result, they have many re-purposed buildings and they use what they have better. I was impressed by the light rail and the fact that it had the right of way priority. We walked around for a while and talked about all of the features the city had. I loved the idea of the functional urban wetland in the park because it reduces the amount of nutrients and pollutants in the water. It also looks beautiful and gives people a place to enjoy. I was surprised and happy to learn that there are no pesticides used in Portland. There were lots of trees lining the streets that help improve air quality and reduce thermal pollution.We stopped by a building that used to be a brewery that is now a LEED platinum building. I really enjoyed our time in Portland and I could see myself living there in one of those nice re-purposed apartments!

Beautiful re-purposed apartments from an old factory

Happy people walking their dogs!

Tonight we camped at a KOA and there was a guy who was riding his bike and fell off and hurt himself! He started crying out and telling us we have to call his wife because he broke his collar bone. He ended up riding away on his bike saying that he was going to his Mom's. It was pretty crazy. Then it ended up raining that night into the morning (but they had free coffee in the morning and that made it all better!)