Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

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Uffda
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Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by Uffda »

I thought this was an interesting article in the Sunday paper. So could this happen in Omaha? I have a friend who moved from the Blackstone area to elkhorn with his family -- the rent was going to be going up.

Portland has been a magnet for young, creative adults for more than a decade, beckoning droves with its quirkiness, liberal appeal and quality of life. But the city’s popularity has had another effect: Those who helped make it cool can’t afford to live here anymore.
Evictions and skyrocketing rents are putting apartments out of reach for many, especially those working part-time, low-wage or artistic jobs. It’s even harder to afford a house.


http://www.omaha.com/money/portland-s-r ... 4ad41.html
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TitosBuritoBarn
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by TitosBuritoBarn »

I doubt it. We don't have the sort of building/development restrictions and requirements that Portland, San Francisco, New York, etc have and we still have plenty of old urban neighborhoods to rejuvenate. Once one neighborhood becomes too expensive, developers and residents can simply move on to the next one.
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RNcyanide
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by RNcyanide »

Maybe it's time to reconsider an actual residential high rise again...
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jessep28
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by jessep28 »

Portland sits in a mountain range, the Omaha metro area does not. Portland also has an ocean border preventing growth, the Omaha metro area doesn't. Kansas City or St. Louis minus its inability to annex would be a better large city to compare a future Omaha to. I don't think that we need to start talking apartment blocks yet. There's too much open land on both sides of the river.
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by Midwestern »

Omaha, Nebraska is similar to Portland, Oregon in almost zero ways. So, no, this is not the same situation.

Did they really write an article about how people with only a part-time job or an artistic job are no longer able to afford living in the core of a coastal metropolitan area of 2.5 million people? Good lord. I'm pretty sure we all already knew that if you are in a field where your rate of pay doesn't fluctuate all that much based on what city/region you're in, you should probably choose one of the lower cost-of-living regions, which would be inland areas.
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by bigredmed »

Midwestern wrote:Omaha, Nebraska is similar to Portland, Oregon in almost zero ways. So, no, this is not the same situation.

Did they really write an article about how people with only a part-time job or an artistic job are no longer able to afford living in the core of a coastal metropolitan area of 2.5 million people? Good lord. I'm pretty sure we all already knew that if you are in a field where your rate of pay doesn't fluctuate all that much based on what city/region you're in, you should probably choose one of the lower cost-of-living regions, which would be inland areas.
I feel that the article is pertinent to a number of discussions on this board where the venerable Portland is held up as a shining example of hipster urbanism. The down side to that culture is never discussed. That working people leave to the surrounding areas, that people move across the Columbia river to live in Washington and commute to Portland just to go from high Oregon taxes to slightly less high Washington taxes as the cost of living in Portland keeps accelerating.

The downtown and other areas we are gentrifying are great as long as people can afford them. Once they crater and become filled with rich experience junkies, it is a downhill slide to a a city full of TIF deals that can't generate the revenue that they need to pay off the debt, so we have the city being touched to cover more of them.

I have always argued against special area concepts like street cars for midtown at the expense of mass transit that can be grown as the city's needs change and this is the reason. What happens when the cool kids move out of MTC and the streetcars now cycle between empty storefronts and UNO, but the students who were counted on to ride down to the bars are unwilling to go there?
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GetUrban
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by GetUrban »

bigredmed wrote:
Midwestern wrote:Omaha, Nebraska is similar to Portland, Oregon in almost zero ways. So, no, this is not the same situation.

Did they really write an article about how people with only a part-time job or an artistic job are no longer able to afford living in the core of a coastal metropolitan area of 2.5 million people? Good lord. I'm pretty sure we all already knew that if you are in a field where your rate of pay doesn't fluctuate all that much based on what city/region you're in, you should probably choose one of the lower cost-of-living regions, which would be inland areas.
I feel that the article is pertinent to a number of discussions on this board where the venerable Portland is held up as a shining example of hipster urbanism. The down side to that culture is never discussed. That working people leave to the surrounding areas, that people move across the Columbia river to live in Washington and commute to Portland just to go from high Oregon taxes to slightly less high Washington taxes as the cost of living in Portland keeps accelerating.

The downtown and other areas we are gentrifying are great as long as people can afford them. Once they crater and become filled with rich experience junkies, it is a downhill slide to a a city full of TIF deals that can't generate the revenue that they need to pay off the debt, so we have the city being touched to cover more of them.

I have always argued against special area concepts like street cars for midtown at the expense of mass transit that can be grown as the city's needs change and this is the reason. What happens when the cool kids move out of MTC and the streetcars now cycle between empty storefronts and UNO, but the students who were counted on to ride down to the bars are unwilling to go there?
Sounds like you're discrediting the rebirth and popularity of higher density urban areas by calling the trend "hipster urbanism" It's really nothing new, just a fairly recent realization that suburban living doesn't have to be the ultimate goal of life in the USA, and even if it is, there are times when higher density urban living is the most desirable living arrangement, outside of the child-rearing years.

It's all well and good to want suburban areas to be served by mass transit, but the actual physical form of the suburbs does not lend itself to collecting riders efficiently, unless you can develop "nodes" within sort distances of residences where people can board or disembark. The automobile commuting times are not yet long or painful enough in Omaha to make people want to park & ride from the burbs.
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by bigredmed »

Park and ride or circulators may be useful in some of the city now and in others later. If you build a system that can expand organically and provide quality service to all parts of the covered city, you get a lot more buy in than if you set up Cadillac service to move one hipster group to another. The service can't expand and we have an expensive service that needs upkeep, but nobody will let their taxes go up to cover something useless to 90% of the city.

Portland is now experiencing an urban decline due to it's high cost of living, all the cool hip things need maintenance, but the city is already strapped and can't swing it. The next brick in their pile will be the decay of their previously hip areas.
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GetUrban
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by GetUrban »

Where's the evidence Portland is experiencing urban decline? The opposite is true. Demand and prices are up. People are getting priced-out of their rentals. Property owner's aren't going to let high-value properties crumble and fall into disrepair. If these areas were in decline, the values would drop and they would eventually be snapped-up again for redevelopment by people who see the potential. The cycle keeps repeating itself over and over in many cities over a long period of time.
He said "They are some big, ugly red brick buildings"
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bigredmed
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by bigredmed »

GetUrban wrote:Where's the evidence Portland is experiencing urban decline? The opposite is true. Demand and prices are up. People are getting priced-out of their rentals. Property owner's aren't going to let high-value properties crumble and fall into disrepair. If these areas were in decline, the values would drop and they would eventually be snapped-up again for redevelopment by people who see the potential. The cycle keeps repeating itself over and over in many cities over a long period of time.
Cities lose their "cool factor" long before they crumble. The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy piece on Hollywood producers and other behind the scenes people leaving LA for points east simply due to the hassle of living there. Look at the area around Children's. Back in it's day, it was one of the choice places to live. Still nice, but with it's famous cell coverage holes, crappy expensive to repair streets, and high District 66 taxes, its not as desirable. Look at the tarnish San Fran is experiencing. Not a big loss in structures, but there is more people now who don't think that it's the cool place people used to view it as.
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iamjacobm
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by iamjacobm »

Portland isn't unique in this case. People from Austin I have talked too hate the boom there b/c it is a lot of very wealthy Californians/New Yorkers driving prices sky high and changing 6th Street from what used to be DIY local music, art and food to night clubs and high end shops. Some of the people that I talked to that have a little experience in Omaha from Austin actually told me Omaha reminds them of Austin in the 90s before every "cool kid" decided thats where they wanted to move. Low cost of living, lots of local music/art if your in the scene affordable to be in a band and work part time and make due.

I thought the most interesting in the article was
Experts say there’s a national “shortage of cities” as people seek out hip, urban lifestyles.
I know a lot of people think this "hipster urbanism" is a trend that wont last, but people coming out of school now are often saddled with debt and can't or don't want to own a car or have a mortgage or they don't want to be tied down if their career offers them chances to see different places. The number of people that want multiple transit options and walkable neighborhoods is just going to increase. What I think people don't understand when I say something like that is that I am saying I want Omaha to become Brooklyn. I don't. I have a car and drive it plenty, but I also like that I can take the bus two days a week. I like being able to walk to get my haircut or to the bar or to get a couple things at the store. I wouldn't mind biking more, but my current situation doesn't work for that. I don't live in an apartment building either, I live just north of the Med Center in a house.

I am not alone in liking those things either. Many people don't want to live without a car, but we just want some damn options. The fact that so few cities offer reasonable options in terms of walkability, bike-ability and alternate transit is why places like Portland, Austin and Brooklyn get priced out for the average joe.
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by bigredmed »

We agree that Omaha needs better mass transit. Where we disagree is that attitude that Omaha begins in the Old Market and ends at Saddlecreek, so we can just blow our whole mass transit budget there and shrug off the rest of the city.

We need a system that can expand in two conditions. First, permanent condition change like gas goes to $4/gal and stays there. Second, time limited change, like the coming Summer when we will have the Berkshire meeting, then shortly after, the CWS, and then the Swim Trials and we will need mass transit for lots of the city.
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iamjacobm
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by iamjacobm »

I am not entirely interested in going super deep into this b/c the streetcar is the most over talked thing on this site and no one is going to change their minds at this point. That being said...

I would love to have commuter transit stretching into the suburbs and I do think more substantial planning should be going into it so something can be executed in a decade or so. The issue is there is no way we scrounge up a billion to make a system worth anything at this point. I know you like to say you aren't in favor of Cadillac transit for one small area of town, but unless our infrastructure funding changes drastically we could either afford a competent system in a part of the city that will use it and was designed around that mode of transit decades ago and have it be "Cadillac" or we can have a Geo Tracker level city wide transit system, which would do more harm than good IMO. It would only perpetuate the idea that mass transit doesn't work. When the reality is bad mass transit doesn't work.

What is kind of funny your idea for the future transit of Omaha is even more idealistic than mine! And I think I have unrealistic expectations for Omaha a lot of the time.

The streetcar can be the gateway to the suburban transit. It can make the core stronger, bringing more jobs increasing the need for more mass transit options. It can give people in this town a comfort level with the train seat instead of the driver seat. I can help support a future light rail line down Dodge or from Bellevue by offering the people that take commuter lines the chance to move around the core without their car.

Mass transit in Omaha is not going to happen in one massive project. It is going to be a generation long process that maybe could become an above average option in 25 years(if we are lucky). We just have to start somewhere or we will never get suburban or urban transit options.
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Re: Portland’s reputation: hip, urban ... and unaffordable

Post by mcarch »

Eventually yes, but not anytime soon (probably 50-100 years). You'll see increases every now and then until the day we don't have any more expansion westward (Elkhorn/Platte River). Sarpy County expansion will also slow things, as no one seems to build in Papillion on the Springfield/Platteview School district side - not yet anyhow, you will only get the push to build on that side once the Papillion-La Vista School district area is full. Growing north will take time, as you have the Ponca Hills, which will cost more to build in the infrastructure, plus the image of the schools slows development. The same goes for NW Omaha.

Please note this is observation of growth and does not reflect my opinions on school districts.
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