Oregon Population Thread Including PSU and Census Data

[aquaticko]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

I was using the term in a general sense, the building boom in Austin is directly related to the rapid population growth they have been experiencing for years which is also making their prices skyrocket. It would be nice to see a building boom for affordable housing with some high end residential happening in Portland to meet the demand without having to deal with the type of population growth that Austin is experiencing right now. I would rather see a conservative steady pace of population growth that is much easier to manage.

I fully agree with you that housing within Portland should be all in the form of townhouses, apartments, and condos rather than single family housing. The city should be focusing on strengthening the density in the core neighborhoods and increasing the number of affordable housing within the city to help reduce the amount of people being pushed out due to cost of housing.

So don't confuse what I said as being anti-development, since I have always been in favor of dense development in the city and in surrounding downtowns and around MAX stations and key bus routes.

I appreciate that and stand corrected about your sentiments, but housing prices in Austin are declining in part because there's been such a building boom, and the thing is that because we've already made the big leap to having a higher-capacity mode of transportation--the MAX (imperfect though it is), we have probably the biggest impediment of managing growth out of the way, unlike Austin which can't even manage to get a light rail built, never mind the subway that it really probably needs, in the future if not now.

That's what makes Portland's failure to densely develop around MAX stations so frustrating; one of the hardest parts is already done.

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Tthis trend of stagnant inner city growth and booming suburbs isn’t just a local thing, it’s a post covid trend nationwide. Sure there are some exceptions in the south, and Seattle is the only major west coast city to show growth in the last 2 years. The decline in inner Portland has slowed to a trickle, and while we should be vigilant about addressing the core reasons behind it (stubborn reputation issues, slow building permit process, taxes) i don’t think it’s a long term trend. This is the least expensive housing market on the west coast and while downtown has a ways to go the neighborhoods are still very vibrant and attractive.

I certainly hope you're right, and I do think that the city's darkest period is behind it, but it's important not to take that for granted. Well-established cities do sometimes end up in near-permanent declines, and while Portland doesn't have the double-edged sword of any one industry dominating its economy (unlike both healthier economies like Seattle, or Rust Belt cities that've been trying to recover for decades), that also means there's less momentum in getting better.