Nguồn gốc và những năm đầu của hệ thống khu phố Portland: Thập niên 1970

146  CHAPTER III ORIGINS AND EARLY YEARS—1970s Portland’s internationally-known citywide neighborhood and community involvement system is nearly 40 years old. Over that time, the system has evolved and changed to meet new community needs and changing political priorities. Many of the early goals, purposes, and key elements and challenges established during the founding of the system continue to be part of the system today. Additional elements and programs were added over time.

Some endured and others did not. Some recommendations for improvements have been made many times, but still have not been implemented. Other changes were implemented and have strengthened and improved the system. This section describes studies and documents that provide insights into the original thinking that shaped the origin and early years of the system.

These early documents include a formal proposal by the Portland Planning Commission for the creation of community district planning organizations supported by city planning staff that would develop district plans for different parts of the City. The City Council responded to this proposal by created a District Planning Organization Task Force to study and make recommendations for a citywide neighborhood association system. In 1974, the Portland City Council adopted the first ordinance establishing Portland’s formal neighborhood association system and the Office of Neighborhood Associations to support the system. A year later the City Council adopted a revised ordinance that eased some of the requirements of the 1974 ordinance.

Mary Pedersen, the first director of ONA, prepared two reports on ONA and the neighborhood system—one in 1974 after the first 147  year of the new system and in 1979 as she was leaving her position as ONA director and a new Portland mayor was coming in. This chapter closes with a review of Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt’s mayor’s budget messages that accompanied the seven city budgets during his time in office and through which he stated his goals and priorities related to community involvement and city governance. Origins of Portland’s System Before the 1970s, Portland’s governance culture was very similar to that in other cities. Community members had little involvement or say in governance decisions.

Reforms instituted during the 1970s set the stage for a dramatic expansion of community involvement in local decision making. Many of those early reforms and structures continue to shape Portland’s system today. In 2013, Portland has a vibrant downtown surrounded by older neighborhoods that are full of life, activity and character and strong housing values. Portland regularly tops national lists of desirable and livable cities.

Portland was a very different city in the 1960s. The city at that time had a lot of older housing in need of repair, especially in Portland’s older inner neighborhoods. Abbott (1983) writes that professional planners at the time took for granted that these inner neighborhoods were in decline and should be cleared and redeveloped rather than preserved and revitalized. Abbott writes that “Changes in public tastes, political leadership, federal programs, and the housing market all combined to convince citizens, planners, and politicians that neighborhood change is not necessarily a one-way street leading to urban blight” (186).

Neighborhood planning between 1957 and 1967, according to Abbott, 148  made “no reference to neighborhood groups or citizen involvement.” Plans were “prepared by city employees for their colleagues in city hall” (188). Portland planning underwent startling changes from 1966 to 1972. Abbott credits the changes to “the emergence of active and often angry neighborhood organizations” that “made local residents the actors rather than the objects in neighborhood decisions.” Neighborhood activists had different values than Planning Commission members and staff and they were able to alter both the process and content of neighborhood planning in Portland. Abbott also credits a “change of generations on the Portland City Council in 1969-70.” New city leaders were “less committed to old policies and personnel” and while most did not “initiate the neighborhood revolution” they were “willing to respond to neighborhood requests.” The Federal government also had an impact through its demands that community members be included in city spending decisions through the Community Action program of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Model Cities program, and the Housing and Community Development program (190-191).

The Birth of Portland’s Neighborhood System Portland city planners, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, faced increasing opposition from neighborhood activists who organized groups to oppose urban renewal and other city planning projects. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, community activists in northwest Portland had organized to oppose an urban renewal plan to clear 16 blocks of northwest Portland to allow expansion of Good Samaritan Hospital. Community activists, in 1969, quickly organized themselves and created the Northwest District Association, one of Portland’s 149  early organized neighborhood associations Hovey (2003). describes how these activists were able to convince the city council to allow the development of a plan for the larger neighborhood.

Community activists worked with sympathetic city planners and other community members to create the Northwest District Plan, which the City Council adopted in the early 1970s. Hovey writes that the early community organizing and neighborhood planning by the NWDA set the stage both for Portland’s subsequent style of urban planning and the creation of Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system. Community activists in other parts of the city also were organizing to oppose City urban renewal and other redevelopment projects and to advocate for their own approach to revitalization of their neighborhoods. City planners determined that a major reason neighborhood activists were organizing to oppose change was that “they have not been given the opportunity to become fully involved in affecting change” in their neighborhoods (Portland.

City planners also found that their efforts to involve residents in neighborhood and district planning were hampered because they did not have “staff who could stimulate and coordinate the citizen participation” as did the staff of the Model Cities program in northeast Portland. City planners responded by proposing the creation of a formal district planning program that included the formation of District Planning Organizations in the community similar to programs developed in other cities at the time (i. San Diego and Fort Worth) (Pedersen 1974 2). The Portland City Planning Commission approved the planners’ proposal in April 1971 and forwarded it on to the City Council.

150  The City Council supported the idea and appointed the District Planning Organization (DPO) Task Force in January 1972 to review the proposal and recommend steps to implement the proposal. The DPO Task Force submitted its report to City Council in December 1972. Together these two proposals shaped much of the early thinking that influenced the purpose, scope, and structure of Portland’s neighborhood involvement system. Many of these original elements still exist today—40 years later—while others have been altered or dropped.

1971 Planning Commission Proposal for District Planning City planners and Planning Commissioners recognized an increasing ability and inclination of neighborhood activists to oppose and block land use planning and urban renewal projects in Portland. Planners hoped a district planning program would channel neighborhood opposition into more constructive involvement and begin to give community members a greater voice in shaping their communities. Planners had had some experience and success at the time involving citizens in developing plans in the Model Cities Program area in northeast Portland and some other parts of Portland. Planners had found that residents and independent neighborhood associations had the capacity to play a constructive and meaningful role in local planning projects.

Hovey asserts that the experience of city planners working with the Northwest District Association (NWDA) to develop the Northwest District Plan significantly shaped planners thinking about the potential for broader involvement in land use planning in Portland. 151  In April 1971, the Portland Planning Commission approved a proposal, developed by city planners, to create a formal city district planning policy and program. The essence of the proposal was the creation of district planning organizations (DPOs) that would represent community interests and provide a formal vehicle by which community members and city government leaders and staff could work together to develop comprehensive plans for districts across the city. The proposal also represented a significant shift of decision making responsibility and authority away from City staff and agencies to the community—at least on issues with a local versus citywide impact.

The Planning Commission Proposal for District Planning asserted that: “Recent years have seen an increasing awareness on the part of the citizens of Portland concerning the issues that are affecting the environment of their city and specifically their districts and neighborhoods. Too often this concern has been expressed by opposition to some governmental action or opposition to planning that had been developed without their participation. Groups have formed spontaneously to oppose change because they have not been given the opportunity to become fully involved in affecting change. It should be apparent that if the City is to prepare itself for the changes that must be made, it must redirect the powerful force of citizen involvement from its present role of opposition to the much more meaningful task of creation” (Portland.

City planners and Planning Commissioners hoped that the district planning program would encourage citizen participation in the planning process, clearly define the City’s role and commitment to the community, and allow “growth and change” to “take place in a logical and orderly manner” (Portland. The primary focus for each DPO in the proposal was to develop a comprehensive plan for the DPO’s district. (The City of Portland did not have a formal city-wide comprehensive plan 152  at the time. The Oregon State Legislature passed SB 100 in 1973, which required every city to develop a comprehensive plan.) Key elements of the 1971 proposal included: Creation of community-based district planning organizations (DPOs): Neighborhood groups in an area could choose to request that the Planning Commission and City Council approve the creation of a formal DPO for their district.

The initiative to create a DPO lay with the neighborhood groups rather than the City unilaterally establishing DPOs across the city. A DPO proposed by neighborhood groups would need to meet specific standards to receive City Council approval: x “the organization is representative of the district” (3-4) x The organization “evidences stability” x The district boundaries are “logical” x The district needs planning assistance, and x The City is able to “budget to meet this need for planning…. Clarification of roles, responsibility, and authority: The proposal identifies four key players in the development of district comprehensive plans: the DPOs, city planners, the Planning Commission and the City Council. The proposal emphasizes that “each is reliant on the other three” in the planning process (2) and expresses the hope that a clear understanding of this interdependency “will build bridges between government and the citizens” and “discourage conflict for authority.” The planners who prepared the 153  proposal also expressed the hope that a better understanding by the DPOs of what the “City can and what it cannot implement” will help discourage “unrealistic demands” (2).

The proposal recommends a significant decentralization of some land use planning decision-making from city planners and officials to the community. The DPOs were to be the source of opinions and ideas for the planning process and to act as “district organizers” and a community forum to develop opinions and ideas within their districts. The proposal explicitly states that City planners were to serve as facilitators and advisors but not decision makers. A significant element in this proposed shift of decision making power was that issues and conflicts that primarily affected the area within the district should be resolved “among those who are immediately affected by the decision”—not by City leaders and staff.

City Council and the Planning Commission often had found themselves “arbitrating issues that are purely local in nature.” The proposal maintained that Community members are much more likely to understand potential costs and benefits for themselves and their community and to help achieve compromises and resolve trade-offs if they are included in the decision making process.