Seeking a Sustainable US and Canada: Chapter 17 Pacific Northwest

Traditional and Sustainable Cities      

Polls cite Seattle and Portland as favorite places to live in the United States because of their reputations for a healthy quality of life. They are typically listed within the top cities in sustainability in the U.S.[13a] Vancouver is consistently rated one of the world’s best quality of life cities.[13b] Each of these cities has a stronger sustainable community practice than is found in most U.S. and Canadian locales, including a commitment to compact neighborhoods, but Pacific Northwest cities still have multiple sustainability issues.

Portland

Portland, Oregon, is the kind of city where a “greener-than-thou” restaurateur’s dilemma over what to do when Monsanto executives make a dinner reservation is a lead story in the local ‘newsmakers’ column, where local chefs are celebrities and have their own cooking shows, and where a neighborhood BBQ joint feels the need to advertise its vegetarian fare.[14]

            Portland, the healthy dream of California transported hundreds of  miles north, is all about bicycle riding, hiking, green gardens, healthy lifestyle, and local foods. But the liberal city’s popularity and attraction may have become its undoing. Portland grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s doubling in size to over one million auto-dependent residents. Portland’s CBD decayed as suburban areas grew. Efficient transportation became untenable as low-density development sprawled across the Portland landscape.

In 1973 Oregon passed a land-use law mandating urban growth boundaries, thereby restricting sprawl and forbidding rural development. Portland continued to develop, eschewing sprawl for infill, and featuring walkable, low-rise urban units accessible to shopping and public transportation. Growth was not entirely eliminated but was strictly controlled. In 2002 the city added 18,700 acres to accommodate its growing population. Public transportation systems, such as light rail, were developed. The central city has free public transit, bicycling is encouraged, and bike lanes connect communities.

            Limiting urban sprawl escalated Portland’s cost of living. Zones that permitted growth experienced more than 500 percent increases in land prices in a five-year period. But controlled sprawl, Smart Growth, had other unanticipated effects. Metropolitan growth shifted north to Vancouver directly north of Portland but in the state of Washington, where the law had no effect.

Land use restrictions reduced property value for many rural residents. To address these losses Measure 37 was enacted in 2004 ungluing Smart Growth. Measure 37 requires the government to pay cash to land owners whose ownership predates the rule. If the government cannot pay, then the owners can do what they like with the property. By early 2006 almost 3,000 claims across the state requested $4 billion, an unaffordable amount for state and local governments. Though Measure 37 mostly affects rural areas it also influences Portland’s land. Portland officials are working to bypass the new regulations by tying its land use to federal regulations, which trump state regulations, but the end to Smart Growth may be near.

But this picture has many other colors. Measure 37, which spawned copycat measures in other states, was sold to the public as providing justice for the small landholder, even though the bills were financed by large lumber companies seeking development rights. Another unintended consequence of the measure is the loss of cherished landscapes, such as Columbia Gorge vineyards and orchards (Figure 17.9).

Figure 17.9: Basalt cliffs flank the Columbia River Gorge formed during the Missoula Floods. Today the gorge remains a major rail link between the Willamette Valley and the interior.

 

The star witness at the hearing was John M. Benton, whose family has been growing fruit near Hood River for nearly a century. This town, a destination resort for Columbia River wind surfers, has experienced a steep rise in real estate values caused, in large measure, by land use laws that prevent orchards on the edge of town from turning into subdivisions.

To take advantage of this market, Benton wants to convert 210 acres of his family orchard into housing. The resale value of his orchard, if it continues to be zoned exclusively as farmland, would be about $8,000 an acre. But if it were sold for housing, Benton said, it would fetch $284,000 an acre.

Benton and his family filed a Measure 37 claim demanding that they be paid $57 million for their land or else be allowed to build as many as 800 houses. State and county officials say that they have no money to pay and that building appears to be the only option under the law.

…His testimony appalled many of his neighbors, who are also longtime fruit growers in the gorge. They testified that Benton's plan to inject suburbia into orchard country could push the local fruit-growing economy into irreversible decline. They also said that development unleashed by Measure 37 would desecrate scenery that makes the gorge one of the major tourist destinations in the Pacific Northwest. Tourists, they said, do not come to the gorge to look at subdivisions.[15]

In 2007 The Courts ruled that the Columbia Gorge was protected as a federal scenic area and so Measure 37 compensation did not apply. However, Measure 37 has had and will continue to have an impact in Oregon and the nation and the end to Smart Growth may be the result.

Seattle
At the millennium Seattle was sprawling in every direction. Traffic was outrageous, housing prices skyrocketing, and the natural resources including the almighty salmon, deteriorating. Numerous NGO organizations and the public began to turn the city around following Smart Growth compact city design.

Since that time Seattle has built a more cohesive transit-oriented neighborhood and a public transport system to remove autos from the road. Many compact homes are being built along the numerous bus routes. The bus routes into the downtown area make it alive, vibrant, and a favorite for local residents and visitors alike.

Vancouver

            Vancouver is the champion of compact neighborhoods in the Northwest. Vancouver’s population has grown over 50 percent since it hosted Expo 86. Sprawl is restrained though, because of land use policies fashioned to preserve agricultural land. Though West Vancouver sprawled, most growth has concentrated in the dense, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods near the downtown area or in Northern Vancouver. Sixty-two percent of Vancouver’s residents live in compact neighborhoods of high-rise condominiums, compared to 24 percent in Seattle (figure 17.10).

Figure 17.10: Vancouver grew over four building booms. The first two were between its 1860 founding and World War I and the last two during the past 30 years. The most recent was after Expo 86, when glass and steel condominiums took over the main streets. The Expo brought new investors to the beautiful setting of the coastal city.

Seattle (2010 Population 608,660; CSA 4,158.293[2009])

 [Seattle]  ... probably represents one of the most in filled, graded, and leveled of all North American Cities.[16]

            Seattle, the Emerald City is green both in its thinking and its foliage. The thinking stems from the love of the aesthetics of this place, while the foliage is because of ample precipitation (Figure 17.11).

Figure 17.11: Downtown Seattle on the Puget Sound was originally interspersed with marshes and hills. In the early twentieth century the hills were sluiced, the marshes drained, developing a more amenable cityscape for the growing metropolitan area.

But green does not mean natural. The flat portions of the downtown Seattle landscape are artificial. Located on a narrow isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, Seattle’s hills blocked growth, travel, and ease of construction. The city quickly outgrew its original timber resource hinterland purpose and evolved into the Alaskan gateway. As the city grew the undulating late nineteenth century city was regularly flooded and in need of reclamation. The Great Fire of 1889 provided the impetus the city needed to rebuild by improving nature, which it then set about doing in Belltown and Pioneer Square, the original downtown site.

In Belltown engineers hydro-sluiced the hills and created the Denny regrade early in the twentieth century, but by the end of the century Belltown was rundown. In the twenty-first century this waterfront neighborhood just north of downtown has been redeveloped.

Pioneer Square was built on a low-lying island that was landfilled to meet the mainland. Pioneer Square was destroyed by the 1889 fire and rebuilt, but drainage problems forced a new first floor 36 feet higher than the original street level. For many years customers climbed down ladders to access buildings below the street. Over time entrances were adjusted to the new level, leaving the old downtown with an underground city, used nefariously and condemned in 1907 when bubonic plague killed three.

Seattle developed its port and large industrial areas by filling in the tidal flats during the early twentieth century. The city continued to grow and become more important for the national welfare during WWI, providing Puget Sound lumber, fish, and shipbuilding. During World War II a small local aircraft company, Boeing took off along with the aviation industry and Seattle boomed. Today Boeing is still important, supporting 3 percent of the economy and 80,000 jobs, but the Pacific Northwest economy is now diversified and no longer dependent on Boeing (Figure 17.12).

Figure 17.12: Billed as the largest building by volume in the world this Boeing hanger in Everett, Washington, 30 miles north of Seattle, covers 98.3 acres (39.8 hectares) and has 472 million cubic feet (13.3 million cubic meters) of space. The Seattle area was considered an aviation company town from after World War II until the 1990s.

During the 1990s the Puget Sound economy grew at twice the national rate and per capita income was 20 percent above the national average. But Seattle has not been immune to millennial issues. The city that spawned Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon entered the new millennium with a staggering Asian economy, dot.com bust, a Microsoft anti-trust suit, WTO riots, and a downturn in the airline industry, especially after 9/11. However, the Pacific Coast location has helped the port economy.

Two days closer to Asia than Los Angeles the Seattle and Tacoma harbors are deepwater ports capable of handling large container ships coming in from Asia. Container traffic increased 40 percent in Seattle and 19 percent in Tacoma between 2004 and 2006, and has formed bottlenecks when distributing the containers to rail or truck lines. The overflow of Asian imports has stressed local ports and traffic infrastructure.

Constructed in the 1950s U.S. port infrastructure is not as modern as Chinese and Indian ports. The lack of modern infrastructure in America has hindered the flow of goods and added to shipping costs. Ships have grown larger than American ports can handle. Though deepening channels is an option, the environmental consequences are negative and require a global agreement regarding shipping practices. Additionally, port congestion also effects the environment by releasing more harmful diesel emissions into the air and water, and truck traffic is hard on local roads and increases congestion. Despite the environmentally sensitive problems, the Puget Sound allure and belief in its continued success remains, partially because of its commitment to sustainability.

Seattle is grounded in the non-profit “Sustainable Seattle” organization formed in preparation for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Seattle focuses on the long-term health and vitality for the city through links between economic prosperity, environmental vitality, and social equity.[17] Seattle is also home to the Sightline Institute, a northwestern think tank addressing regional sustainable development and a model for bioregional awareness of sustainable issues.

Through an active program of grants and community participation, city administrators have internalized sustainable goals more successfully than any other U.S. city. The city has many LEED certified buildings and has implemented a retrofit program that has created thousands of jobs. Seattle has worked to improve its carbon footprint by revamping its transit system, using buses, a new light rail, an extensive ferry system, and bicycle lanes. In 2005 the mayor implemented a program to cut CO2 emissions in alignment with the Kyoto Protocol, despite the federal government’s lack of commitment. Since that time more than 1,000 other mayors have joined Seattle’s resolve.

Box 17.8
Ferries
Washington’s cities are separated by Puget Sound making ferries a vital and extensively used transportation link. Washington State and B.C. have government and private ferry systems. Overall 16 ferry services connect islands and peninsulas in the Puget Sound and Inside Passage (Map 17.4).

Map 17.4: Washington ferry system. Ferries are a way of life for many people in the Puget Sound Basin. Costs have elevated rapidly in the past decade.

The Puget Sound population has expanded well beyond the Seattle city limits. Many cities are located on the Olympic Peninsula, on islands within the sound, such as Bainbridge or Whidbey, or in Vancouver or Victoria in B.C. Regular ferries cross these areas several times a day, some hourly.
Ferry service connects the various areas, but the fares are expensive if used for cars and drivers. The ferry network can be avoided, but at great expense and roundabout traffic patterns, such as a long congested trip south to Tacoma and then north to Seattle. However, another way is to use the public transport system in the region and not use a car at all. A round trip for a passenger alone is $6.70.
Plans are underway to privatize parts of the system, but more infrastructure and terminals are required. The ferry problem will remain in Washington, which needs to generate additional funds for its complex system.

Portland (2010 Population 583,776; MSA 2,241,841[2009])

Built at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers Portland’s location benefited from access to the Pacific and to Willamette Valley agriculture. Later an intercontinental rail connection established Portland as a main distribution point for the northwest. But today Portland is best known as the “greenest city in America,” because of its dedication to renewable energy, commuting patterns, and healthy buildings.

In 1994 Portland was among the first to adopt a global warming policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In 2005 the city had achieved its goal of cutting carbon emissions below 1990 levels. The strategy for this achievement included adopting long-term sustainability principles, which are fully integrated within city administration operations, including an incentive program for using public transport or building green. Portland’s successful light rail and bus systems have a ridership level of seventy-six million annually. Free downtown public transport, the venerable Powell’s Bookstore, numerous public gardens, and the perfect climate for blooming plants, added to a civic outspoken stance and strong laws against sprawl, makes the “City of Roses,” many people’s favorite city.

Portland’s urban growth control has attracted large companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Hyundai, and educated workers who seek a high quality of life. The riverside location has substantial geographic and economic advantages for freight shipment. Portland is ranked as the third largest-volume port on the West Coast; the nation’s, largest wheat exporter, seventh largest export gateway, and fourteenth largest container port.

Portland has been at the forefront of sustainable issues, but there has been a price including price differentials between undeveloped land and land that is allowed to be developed (See Box 17.7) and the widening gap in jobs. Portland and Oregon have had higher than average rates of unemployment since 2005. In January 2011 Oregon unemployment was at 10.4 percent (Portland at 10.0 percent), above the national rate of 9.8 percent. But people are still moving to the city. Manufacturing jobs, even high tech manufacturing are down, and so is the median income, and yet the city has jobs, though at opposing ends of the pay scale: low paying or highly skilled. The people move to the city to enjoy the quality of life and sense of place. Many are wealthy and work outside the city, commuting weekly by air, returning on weekends to play in their private utopias. They move to Portland because they can afford to, and in so doing economically squeeze many locals out.

Victoria, BC (2006 pop. 78,659; CMA 330,088)

Figure 17.13: Capitol building, Victoria, British Columbia. Victoria won as the provincial capital but Vancouver is the larger and most economically important city.

Victoria began its existence in 1843 as a Hudson’s Bay outpost to protect British interests on Vancouver Island and in 1848 developed sawmills for timber bound for San Francisco. When gold was discovered along the Fraser River, Victoria (Vancouver did not yet exist) was the dominant city in the Canadian Cordillera and the transshipment point for miners. Vancouver eventually competed with Victoria for economic and political power. Despite being overshadowed by Vancouver, the older and more established Victoria became the capital when British Columbia joined the confederation in 1871.

Situated at the southern end of Vancouver Island, regular ferries from Washington State or Vancouver provide access. Once in the town, the genteel atmosphere of hanging flower baskets, Butchart Gardens, and the fairy lit domed capitol is a world away from the high tech power of Vancouver (Figure 17.13). As the capital the city economy is largely governmental, augmented by tourism and services.

Vancouver (2006 pop. 578,041; CMA 2,116,581)

            Vancouver, the economic core of British Columbia, is one of the most livable and green cities in both the United States and Canada, and has spawned the buzzword Vancouverism; such is its appeal to numerous cities imitating its sustainable resolve. The fast growing Canadian city was intentionally founded as a terminus to the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which received and shipped goods from Canada’s interior. Though founded thirty years after Victoria, a mere fifteen years after founding Vancouver in 1901 became the largest city on Canada’s West Coast at 30,000.

Sitting at the mouth of the Fraser River, the city is the largest port in Canada, shipping lumber, Western Canadian crops, and minerals, such as potash from Saskatchewan and coal from the Rocky Mountains. Biodiesel and ethanol plants have increased the need for oilseeds, so canola exports have been on the rise. The city is also a major port for cruise lines.

The city thrived economically until a downturn in the 1950s and 60s when suburbanization sapped energy, and the rail and port manufacturing economy flagged. During this time the city considered standard renewal programs, building freeways through the city and into the suburban sprawl, but instead arrived at a more locally based, participatory land use and planning policy. The policy separated Vancouver’s growth from the rest of Canada and the United States. Vancouver’s postindustrial knowledge-based economy replaced the resource and manufacturing economy. Today central Vancouver is a densely populated compact city--the only large North American city without freeways bisecting the core.

The lack of freeways leaves the city with traffic congestion, but neighborhoods remain whole. Vancouver modeled a new paradigm, one based on density, public transport, walking, and bicycle paths. The city developed into an innovation storehouse for Canada and the world. It adopted a Livable Region Strategic Plan in 1996 and a 100-year plan that anticipates climate change, pollution, sprawl, disease and terrorism, all the while conserving energy and water and aiming to become a thoroughly sustainable city.

The appeal of Vancouver and its lifestyle is unfortunately matched by becoming one of the least affordable cities in the world, especially in housing. Though the city has increased affordable housing for low paid service economy employees the amount does not nearly meet the needs.

This unfortunately is a trend in cities that value sustainable goals. Cities that are both affordable and sustainable are often mutually exclusive. While living sustainably itself is not out of the reach for the average person, sustainable housing is available in so few places and the demand is so great, it decreases affordability.

The Greater Vancouver Regional District aims for sustainability in waste management, air, land, energy, density, water, and green design. A few of their accomplishments have increased water quality, reduced chlorine and removed microorganisms from drinking water; reduced sewer overflows, and created Skytrain an elevated train transportation network. The Skytrain stations have become dense mixed-uses urban village nodes, such as False Creek and Metrotown. The lack of freeways, the Skytrain system, and the commitment of Vancouver’s policymakers toward a green and densely populated city has limited reliance on the automobile, and made the city one of the most desirable and sustainable in North America.

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