Because it’s an impossible goal - desirable digs without a higher cost than less desirable digs – the folks employed to figure it out are guaranteed work for life.

Kind of like getting the King to hire you as a professional alchemist. “Gold from lead is right around the corner your Majesty!” Nice work if you can get it.

Portland is just as exclusive as elitist as it was under the Ku Klux Klan... only the membership requirements and methods of enforcement have changed.

You vote for the dogs, and the fleas come with. GMfleas, these days.

Hmmm. I seem to remember about four or five years ago when Sam Adams made a big deal about a new program for "affordable housing", which consisted of subsidies for certain creative class types to cover their otherwise unaffordable rent. Of note in the article where I read this, we had a character who argued that he needed the subsidy because he was an up-and-coming model who didn't make enough to live in downtown otherwise. Anybody know if this program was abandoned, if it was renamed, and if anyone ever got on the program who wasn't somehow connected with Sam Adams?

Why is it that the first thing that pops into my mind when I see a map like is a chart from the CDC or WHO?

TTR - it was/is called Mile Post 5.

It is still there but I understand they've had some issues.

Interesting, Carpet. Do you know what sort of issues?

They had to get Mayor staff involved to mediate disputes. BEAM didn't do very well at the beginning. The place, when it opened, was kind of crap. I've heard it's slightly better now but not by much. A perk is the beautiful location on the Blvd of Roses, 82nd Ave:

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/mutiny-at-milepost-5/Content?oid=4384474

Oh, geez. Yeah, this is pretty awful and pretty typical, but I seemed to remember a program that was supposed to pay for subsidized apartments around W 16th and Burnside that was allegedly open for "artists". This was back around the time when most of the apartments around there were being bought up and turned into condos, before the real estate bust, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it never got off the ground in the first place. However, as we know, there's no idea so stupid that someone in CoP won't try to revive it...

The smartest thing that could happen is that Portland, east of I-205, south of I-84, north of Johnson Creek and west of Gresham secede and form their own city.

Then east of I-205/north of I-84 their own city. Then the folks in St. Johns should split (west of the BNSF railroad? Or west of I-5 and north of, say, Rosa Parks?)

As long as downtown's City Hall calls the shots they will pick winners and losers.

Another approach the city could take is to declare which parts of the city won't receive government-funded improvements and will be kept off the light rail and streetcar lines, so that the prices in those areas stay affordable and are not pushed up by the tremendous desirability for which the streetcar areas are known.

I hate to say this, but Portland attracts ten untalented "creatives" for every real artist. Real artists don't need gov't help.

Why should we build apartments for folks going through their slacker phase? Where are the three bedroom apartments for returning vets? I have a friend with two kids who served in Afghanistan. If he wanted a job in downtown PDX- these new apartments are worthless. Not big enough for a family.

OK I'm fairly educated, but what the heck does "Drilldown in a neighborhood" on the last page mean? As in "Drill it into your thick skulls" as my grandmother used to say, or does this have some other meaning in the urban planner alternative universe vernacular that isn't spoken by the rest of us.

Don't know what drilldown means.
I noted on the same page the words
"is access needs for mitigating tools or opportunities to enhance vitality."
There goes that word again, mitigation.
This says to me something needs to be done then to lesson the impact of plans.