Comprehensive Community Action Plan
Issue: Building a Healthy & Inclusive Society
Target Level of Office: Local
Policy Origin: City of Portland, Oregon
Link: www.YEONetwork.org/2013policy/?i=230
Summary Narrative of the Policy: The Portland Plan focuses on a core set of priorities – prosperity,
education, health, and equity – to drive a comprehensive plan for growth and community health.
The plan was crafted by a diverse group of shareholders and emphasizes actions that achieve
multiple objectives, sets numerical targets, and suggests ways of measuring progress toward
them, in addition to including both 25-year policies and 5-year action plans.
Relevant Talking Points & Important Information:
• Developed in response to some of Portland’s most pressing concerns – including income
disparities, high unemployment, a low high school graduation rate, and environmental
concerns– the Portland Plan presents a strategic and comprehensive path forward. Given
teeth by a Portland City Council resolution passed in 2012, this plan reflects the strategic
collaboration of a diverse group of shareholders and more than 20,000 comments from
Portland residents.
• The Portland Plan includes actions for the short-term as well as the next 25 years to help
Portland:
oo Grow the economy and add more and better jobs;
oo Create housing and neighborhoods that are more affordable for more Portlanders;
oo Reduce disparities in health, income, and education;
oo Improve graduation rates and get Portlanders ready for jobs;
oo Improve the health of kids, adults, and families;
oo Increase Portlanders’ sense of safety and overall well-being;
oo Create a cleaner and greener built and natural environment – more trees, better
air and water quality, and lower carbon emissions;
oo And promote greater access to complete, walkable neighborhoods – with health
food, parks, shops, transportation options, and other amenities.
• Developed through a bottom-up planning process, the Portland Plan involved several
years of community meetings and public outreach, resulting in more than 20,000
comments from residents and businesses.
• This comprehensive plan will be used to guide – amongst other things – the city’s landuse decision-making process over the next 25 years following adoption.
• One of the guiding principles of the Portland Plan is the advancement of social equity,
from addressing income inequality, educational attainment, to environmental justice and
healthy equity. Viewed favorably by Portland working families and labor advocates, the
plan recognizes that one of the key strategies needed to achieve this goal is the creation
of well-paying, family-wage jobs. In doing so, the plan tries to tailor specific strategies to
“geographic districts that have distinct issues.”
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Local Level
Policy
2014 Book