Category: planning
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Urban/Rural – Helvetia Part 1
Another recent piece ‘Pushing the Limits’ comes via the ‘Slow Issue’ of GOOD magazine and looks at the anti-growth policies of which we are well known regionally. It’s a good piece about the current ‘dialogue’ about urban and rural reserves and relevant to the work we are doing for the ‘Urban Edge’ class. :: image…
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Picture Perfect
Check out the article in todays Oregonian authored by The Urbanophile himself Aaron Renn, entitled ‘Picture Perfect Portland’ explores if our fair city is worthy of the praise it receives on a regular basis. The verdict… sure, with a few caveats. :: image via Oregon Live Many of us in Portland don’t have illusions of…
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City Limits: Distance from the Center
As a follow-up to the exploration of the introduction to David Oates’ book City Limits I wanted to write a bit about the first essay in the book, entitled ‘Distance from the Center’, which seems appropriate as a quick take on this thing we call the Urban Growth Boundary as well as the dynamic of…
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City Limits: Where I Walked…
One of the inspirations for the Urban Edge is the book City Limits: Walking Portland’s Boundary by Portland author David Oates. Aside from a great read, David is a fantastic guy and a friend. His recent work as part of the South Waterfront Artist-in-Residence program (which was led by artist Linda K. Johnson, whom also…
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Representing Transects
Picking up on a couple of great posts on transect delineation over at FAD (and a lively discussion thread as well that is worth checking out), this idea continues to permeate the discussions around the Urban Edge. :: image via CATS Taking a different tack than the critique of the transect per se (of which…
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Historic Depave Portland
As previously mentioned, the main drag along the Willamette was formerly a multi-lane highway named Harbor Drive, which was removed in the mid-1970’s to make way for the current resident along the river, Tom McCall Waterfront Park. :: image via Portland Mercury :: image via Flickr – William200549 Text, from the article ‘The Dead Freeway…
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Ghost Highway: Mount Hood Freeway
It’s fascinating to dig into some of the historical legacies that have existed throughout planning over time. Some seem like missed opportunities – while others show that perhaps sometimes cooler heads will prevail, and we think of the awfulness of what might have been. Nowhere in Portland’s planning history is this more evident than the…
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Historic Portland Maps: 1866 Portland Map
The last in this particular era of maps, this survey map highlights the tracing of ‘disappeared streams’ throughout the urban area, which requires research and layering of a number of historical maps onto the modern urban form. One map that has some interesting waterways is a Map of the City of Portland, Surveyed and drawn…
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Historic Portland Maps: 1852 Cadastral Maps
Probably the most detailed and broad ranging of these early maps are from the collection from the Public Land Survey System (or Cadastral Maps). These were generated throughout the 1850s in the Portland metro region, with the main portion of Portland encompassed in two maps, which were obviously the base material for the 1852 Survey…
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Historic Portland Maps: 1852 Downtown Survey
A focused companion in the same vintage as the 1852 Survey Map (which includes the entire city area) comes from the early Portland 1852 Downtown Survey, a more detailed account encompassing the downtown area adjacent to the Willamette River (oriented with north to the right). One interesting pattern is the street grid running right into…