Ok - rhetorical question. Nobody, at Metro, least of all councilor Rex Burkholder, is inclined to listen to the "common" folk. As Rex makes clear in an interview here, and as Coyote remarks upon here - the "planners" aren't about to increase road capacity in the tri-county area because, to paraphrase Rex himself, "people will just use them". No, Rex is big on pay-to-use. Nevermind the fact that your gasoline and other taxes paid to build the roads in the first place, Rex wants to find a way to insist that you pay extra to use them - but only if you're driving a car. Bicycle riders like Rex should get continued carte blanche. As noted in the interview, Rex Burkholder has a new bike, and he's not too shy to show it off. Rex loves bicycles, hates cars, loves congestion. And sees really expensive toys like choo-choos and streetcars as important things that you should pay to build and run - even though you never use them.
Rex thinks it's really important for you to live close to where you work, so that you can walk or ride a bike to get there and back. This strategy works well for Rex, because he happens to live on the east side of the river and works in a government agency that also happens to be on the east side of the river. If he happened to live on the west side, he might find bicycling a whole lot trickier due to the winding roads, lack of shoulders on the roads, and little inconveniences like 800-foot-high hills.
But Rex lives on the flat east side, where everything was nicely planed over during the course of the great floods that carved the Columbia River Gorge. So for him, riding's no big deal, and everybody else should be forced to do it. And by golly, if he and his pals get their way, you're either going to do it or you're going to pay!
Of course, Rex also really likes paving over large chunks of land and building "mixed-use" stuff on the sites. "Mixed-use" is plannerspeak for "the ground floor has a Starbucks and maybe an art gallery, while the upper floors are all rabbit-cages that cost half a million dollars apiece". It's all very trendy. Of course, Rex doesn't live in one of those things himself. He and his "partner" live in a single-family dwelling. Which is rather ironic, since it seems pretty unlikely that Rex and his "partner" are going to be producing any "family" members anytime soon.
That being the case, it seems only reasonable that Rex and his "partner" be forcibly relocated into one of those expensive rabbit cages that he so loves, in order that their single family dwelling can be allocated to its original purpose: as a dwelling for a family. You know, the kind with kids that might want to go out and play in the yard?
And here's another idea: why not quit paving over large spaces to build "multi-use" structures of interest only to wealthy, trendy, childless people?
Why not take this idea and run with it? After all, the city of Portland places no requirements on "dignity village", what gives them any reason to assert control over "minimum" sizes for homes on residential lots? In fact, what gives Metro, the county, or the state any say in such matters? If density is good (and it appears to be wonderful, as we continue to elect some of the densest induhviduals currently available), then why not restore to citizens their right to decide how much space they need in order to call it "home"?
Nahh...never happen. In Oregon, you can have any kind of sense you want - as long as it isn't "common".
Oh, the community or urban village concept is a good one, but our cities are just not organized that way. Living close to work, or working close to home is a great idea, and the mixed-use development is as well. Many people like living downtown, not owning a car, but no one should be forced to live that way. Conversely, no one should be forced to live in a suburban tract either. It's all about choice- zoning ordinances and land use rules are insane- literally pathological, and they really are designed to enforce vestigial ideas of maintaining property values for elites.
Posted by: thebastidge | May 02, 2007 at 09:19 AM