SILICON
FOREST
This sort of evolution has become a familiar thread of the
American story. From Detroit to
Oakland, former factories and
warehouses within the city core
have been turned into condominiums and eateries, their plain brick
walls and exposed plumbing retained as urban chic accents.
HUFFINGTON
11.10.13
Portland adopted one of the
toughest urban growth boundaries in the nation, limiting development beyond the urban core
and effectively preempting the
suburban sprawl that has devoured the outer rings of major
metropolises like Los Angeles,
Phoenix and Atlanta. Develop-
“We’re trying to diversify. We’ve definitely been
pushing ourselves to think of ways to generate more
buzz around startups and tech in Portland.”
Portland, a metropolitan area of
2.2 million people, stands out as a
particularly dedicated practitioner
of this variety of urban re-imagination. The efforts are central to
the city’s work to attract investment and generate employment.
As most western American
cities have over the decades
embraced car culture, adding
freeways to exploit access to
abundant land as cheap housing stock, Portland has famously
axed planned highway expansions while emphasizing public
transportation and pedestrian
walkways. In the early 1970s,
ers and rural landowners protested, but the result was precisely the sort of development
favored by the urban planning
set: densely clustered, laced with
bicycle lanes, and endowed with
a wealth of parks and landscaped
walkways. This sort of living has
attracted people — and their
money — from California, New
York and elsewhere.
In recent years, the Pearl District, a cluster of old warehouses
in the city’s northwest, has been
reborn as a hive of glass-fronted
condos, designer home-furnishing
outlets, boutiques and wine bars.
In neighborhoods once written off
as dilapidated or rife with crime,
moneyed professionals have de-