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 via GOOD

The idea of close-proximity farming at the urban-rural interface isn't exclusive to Portland, but it does often seems more evident due to the sharp distinction between the two land uses in our region. One major discussion point for growth has been the little pastoral enclave known as Helvetia, discussed in the article in terms of a local farm called La Finquita del Buho. Helvetia: "... is not so much a town as a hazy-bordered swath of bucolic paradise that looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, a Wendell Berry essay on sustainable agriculture or, at least, a TV commercial for a high-performance sedan. Two-lane country roads twist through lush hills, past browsing cattle and cozy farmsteads. Wheat farms dating back to the Swiss and German pioneers who settled the area in the 1850s stand next to boutique operations like La Finquita that supply heirloom tomatoes and organic kohlrabi to Portland’s rapidly expanding ranks of the food-obsessed. The whole place begs to be romanticized."


:: image via GOOD

The romantic (and economic) notions of the rural so juxtaposed with the urban is at the heart of the land-use policies that shape our region... and seems to benefit as well as be clouded by the eons of cultural baggage with hold in perceptions of city and farm. Helvetia is one of those disputed territories that make the discussions so interesting. One one hand it . How many cities the size of Portland can boast a beautiful agricultural resource so close to the urban center that hasn't been swallowed up with sprawl? As mentioned in GOOD: "Along with creating dense neighborhoods, encouraging mass-transit use, and irritating free-market zealots, the growth boundary saves farmland close to the city. The resulting proximity between country and town defines life here."

A quick measure via Google Earth shows that the center of Helvetia is about 12 miles (as the crow flies) from the Central Core:


:: image via Google Earth

As a poster child for anti-sprawl, Helvetia isn't a bad example of these policies at work - allowing for development in some areas and retention of the 'working landscape' in others. Protection of the farmland is one of the major drivers of Senate Bill 100 and the establishment of the Urban Growth Boundary that is required to be established by every municipality in the State of Oregon.

While limiting growth, this also is meant to provide for, not prohibit, opportunities for development by including a requirement to determine area to meet a 20-year supply of land for housing, industrial, commercial, and other uses and expanding the boundary accordingly. This is sometimes a vague and contentious discussion, so one way of guiding this is a recent shift to determining urban and rural reserves, or areas that will be slated for development or protection for up to 50 years. In the case of a place like Helvetia, which is only about one half mile from the UGB, this means the determination of a future for development, or the long-term retention of agricultural use and character.

The term 'slow-sprawl' is used, which I think is an apt term for the mechanism that continually expands the boundary... a state of tension that makes it impossible to determine the future. The recent planned version precludes Helvetia from the urban reserves, but there were some moments of tension when Hillsboro planned to swallow up the farmland for industrial expansion. While it's easy to take polarized sides in the argument, this distinction between economic development and protection of agricultural lands is a big deal. From GOOD:

"The land-grabbing suburb makes an almost inevitable villain in this kind of tale, but Hillsboro can make a good case for why it should grow. Around 1970—when Spencer Gates, the wheat farmer, was a kid—Hillsboro was a purely agricultural town with a population of about 15,000. Today, it is the fifth-largest city in the state, with about 90,000 people and sizeable Asian and Hispanic communities. Intel, the silicon-processor giant, built manufacturing and advanced research facilities here in the 1970s, and today employs more than 15,000 people in the area. Other tech, manufacturing, logistics, and research businesses piggyback on Intel’s massive presence. Any chance to expand on Hillsboro’s successes looks tempting in Oregon, a state currently afflicted with double-digit unemployment."

The arguments often pit 'economics' versus farming, but this tends to downplay the role that agriculture has in the State and regional economy of Oregon and Portland. The balance isn't just a question of livability, but what is more appropriate for the financial bottom line as well. Read more in-depth in the rest of the GOOD article, and stay tuned, as the discussion of course, still continues.

In Part II, i'm going to look at the progression of maps related to Helvetia and it's proximity to the Urban Growth Boundary, as well as how this area has been designated within this part of the urban-rural reserves determination process.

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 inside versus outside. This short essay gets at the roots of contemporary urbanism by taking a measure of sorts for our planning, or at least an investigation as to whether the UGB is a mechanism for good (p.6):

"Since the inception of Oregon's land-use system in the 1970s, Portland has evolved from a decaying, lackluster provincial burg, into one of the nation's most successful and distinctive cities. One of the things I'd like to figure out, as I walk, is whether the UGB might be contributing to that success. And if so, how."


:: image via Boston.com

" A boundary is a lie that reveals truths. Sharp edges -- distinctions -- are indispensable to clear thinking. On a map, the UGB looks perfectly clear. It says we are separate. But in fact we are connected."


:: image via Free Association Design

Images of the edge reinforce this distinction with a defined inside and outside delineated in sharp clarity. It's easy to imagine this as a social contract - but it's as much a product of the political as the topographic and hydrologic. By walking the line the specificity is evident, and perhaps rooted in something as old as our need for prospect and refuge, a remnant from the evolutionary days on the African Savannah - as mentioned by Oates on p.7: "...I want to see how the UGB runs along the wooded hilltop just behind those houses. When I go up a cutbank to look close, I see second growth Douglas-fir crowding its whole life right up to the magic line. For one morning hour, this vivid parallel world hovers above the street... The human habitat, maybe, imprinted deep in an old part of the brain. Edge of the forest. Safety and a prospect of possible dangers, or dinners."


:: image via Prospect-Refuge Theory

Although rooted in evolutionary comfort, there is another face to the peri-urban, something many urban folks feel is mirrored in Oates comments of feeling 'unease' when far from the center. While the center seems a place, the boundary is a marker of the urban area's 'self' (p.8-9). "Distance from the center" implies that one place has a relation to other places: to the center first of all, the place of convergence, and also to the edge where intensities relax and then distinctly, cease. You can map any point by reference to center and circumference, metering the intesity, knowing where you're at: Edge or Downtown or in between... So 'distance from the center' is the physical and emotional yardstick of a place that is a place. Its center and edge are located, findable. And feelable, too; each has its paradoxical human meanings marked out as well. Emotional trade-offs, clarified by their relation to each other. This, not that. More connected (but crowded); more private (but isolated)."

The concept of a boundary assumes that there is a bit of homogeneity within the line, which a quick drive or stroll around the entirety of the urban area will quickly prove a challenge to pin down. It's all 'Portland' but is it different shades? Can we maintain individualism while adopting the share communal ideology that the structure of our urban area rests on? Oates relates this as a question of our linked humanity (p.10): "We cannot think a thought, speak our native tongue, drive down the street, or even stand there in our genes except by profound connectedness to the other humans who have built the species for a million years, body and mind, and who are doing so this very moment all around us."

"What we receive from others is, pretty much, everything. This implies reciprocal responsibility."

This responsibility is the root of what makes Portland tick. It's what allows Metro to govern and provide a net around many separate municipalities, as well as allow us to accept that there is good for one, and good for all, and that those are rarely the same thing. The application on-the ground leads to quirks like islands within the UGB that are outside while simultaneously inside and myriad other notable places. And they aren't theories and policies but places where people inhabit. And the line is merely a delineation, but not a specific container, as Oates mentions on p.11: "Ecologically, all places are connected. Economically, the life of Oregon flows into an out of Portland with little regard for the UGB. What's the line mean, after all? What's inside, what's out?"

To that end, as the ever shifting boundaries evolve, what is outside will become inside. But the distinction is perhaps less important than the result. From page 12, Oates reflects: "...it occurs to me that Portland could be riding that paradox of boundaries in a most productive way. 'Distance from the center' works for us. Here's how: By making Portland a center in its own right, we can be inside and outside at the same time."

The idea then is that it seems to work for us, and perhaps not for others. We are urban yet not too global to lose a feeling of togetherness. We aren't coastal, but are connected to the water. We are metropolitan and provincial at the same time. Thus the conclusion from page 13: "Portland may be building a place -- just far enough away, just close enough -- where meaningful edges and a defined center give us groundedness in place and expansiveness of spirit. That's our civic goals, our Portland commitments, argued and plotted endlessly: the good place, under the watchful view of snowy Mt. Hood, where we work on being human together."

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 had a UGB installation of her own) showed his innate interest in both the urban in addition to the wild, nowhere more evident as in his essays on the boundary from this compilation of thoughts and voices.


:: image via Amazon

The first two essays in the book are worth some exploration. First, the introduction, entitled 'Where I Walked, What I Walked For' provides some motivation and background for the trip - providing an experiential context for the trip, or perhaps justification for getting on foot to experience the entire 260-mile trek around the edge, as mentioned in page 2: "I passed by berryfields and vineyards and orchards along this perimeter: housing on one side and edens purloinable on the other! O taste and see, said the scriptures, so I did. This made me well-disposed toward the entire Urban Growth Boundary project, despite its lumbering superstructure of laws and bureaus, planners and land-use hearings, disputes and wrangles, and to oversee it all, an entire extra layer of government the like of which does not elsewhere exist in these United States, called 'Metro' and hidden in plain site in North Portland..."

"...It is a crazy, going-forward teeter of hopefulness, this Portland."

The beauty of Oates journey isn't just the act of walking and documenting, but rather the fact that this came from a self-described 'non-planner' who didn't get too caught up on the details but rather explored and experienced with a minimum of baggage. His realization wasn't about a policy or a line, but rather, "We were working out how - and whether, to live together." Oates continues (p.2-3): "Our Boundary, both visible border and invisible symbol, is our attempt to agree on how to live: what trade-offs to make so that all (not just a few) can benefit. Oregon's planning scheme is a bit of urban utopianism, an optimistic attempt to tray and live a little better here in this blessed Northwest..."

This isn't to say Oates didn't have a knowledge of the structure, as evidenced in the text. His take really is even-handed (although I know his bias) and truly trying to understand less what the boundary is but moreso what it means as mentioned on p.3, "Portlanders are highly aware of it [UGB]. It's part of our identity... It has given Portland a pleasant and dynamic downtown, close-in neighborhoods that folks love to live in, pretty good public transit, and a fighting chance not to spread endlessly, meaninglessly, in every direction."

Thus the experience of living and not losing what is important is the point, versus the novelty of planning policy of innovative urban form. It's less about what it is than what it's not: (p.3) "We think the orchards, fields and vineyards of the Willamette Valley that have not been covered by tract housing will continue to make our lives richer. We hope to grow in and, in places, up...

"...To become richer in connections and cleverness - to get deeper - instead of wider, flatter, and shallower."

To rely on experience of walking in cities and spaces is historically relevant as a method of inquiry. The travels of the flaneur or the psychogeography of the Dérive or my favorite and more obscure idea of the Greek 'periegete' (mentioned in Placeways, by EV Walter, p.19) that describes a 'tour guide who led people around, giving commetaries on whatever was work seeing," and compiling written guides, known a a periegesis. Oates mentions inspiration of Lucy Lippard's 'Lure of the Local' (p.4): "One way to find ourselves is to walk the map, to think about how the land around us is being and has been used. Looking at land through nonexpert eyes, we can learn a lot."

A true understanding comes not from books or words, but from experiences - informed by a quest for knowledge. Oates mentions Douglas Kelbaugh and paraphrases such on p.4: "...all the theory and blueprints in the world mean little, in the achieving of a real city, without those invisible ingredients I thought about most often during my walk: that certain idealism, naive perhaps, that yearning and striving he names, from the Greek, arete," which for lack of a better term means 'excellence' or I think more appropriately 'purposeful'. Maybe that's the point - a fulfillment of purpose - not a utopian or planning ideal?

The counterpoint is that a lot of what Oates saw, and exists, on the boundary is sprawl, ticky-tack, garbage - or that much of the good and the bad 'on' the boundary would not be on the line for long - enveloped within the urban, no longer the rural. It's a line and a policy - but it's about real places and real people. Either way, it justs makes you want to walk and see - and perhaps translate this to others in a way half as witty as David does.

David included a number of other voices to augment his, which are captured in the volume - including writers, planners, government officials, and artists. I had an opportunity to walk a section of the UGB with David on his journey and it was a great experience to get into a mode of seeing and interacting with folks along the way - while picking our way through an appropriately named section of King City. My fascination with radio documentary at the time led me to record our visit along the edge, which I will try to do a final edit and get into a web-friendly format for distribution sometime in the future.

David also has a new book out entitled 'What We Love Will Save Us' (Kelson Books, 2009).

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 there is plenty), I've been tooling around looking at ways to break out of the traditional modes of representation when showing the experience of the transect and the ability to communicate this to a viewer. As we know, the common transect has a simple expansion of the typical section cut technique. In a natural condition this slices through a number of ecosystems:


:: image via CATS

A common reference is this diagram that has become a touchstone for New Urbanist applied theory, outlining a generalized zoning diagram with their associated T-zones (transect zones):


:: image via CATS

The definition from the CATS site gives a quick idea of the concept of transect which borrows from the ecological concept: "A transect is a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive. Human beings also thrive in different habitats. Some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place, while others thrive in the rural or sub-urban zones. Before the automobile, American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed."

The CATS site has a range of transect images that provide some good ideas for representation. The most simple, falling along the natural ecosystem transect comes from McHarg's Design with Nature, and is represented by more of a typical scaled sectional cut through a dune landscape. An interesting interpretation via the CATS site that sort of oversimplifies the work as anti-humanitarian: "McHarg’s brilliant analytical/ operational system never integrated the human habitat, which was simply relegated to wherever nature was least valuable. In this sense. it is a step backwards from the Geddes transect of a half-century earlier."


:: image via CATS

Another adaptation is from the transect done for an Regional Plan for Western New York State shows some of the precedents in representation and analysis, which are the seeds of modern transect studies: "A regional transect of natural conditions and existing thoroughfares, drawn in 1926 with compact towns and villages, is overlaid with the present SmartCode's three basic Community types in purple."


:: image via CATS

These were inspired by the more generalized earlier transect from planner Patrick Geddes - which is delineated with this more graphical 'Valley Section' showing a typical natural system overlaid with use zones showing, for lack of a better word, exploitation zones of the landscape section. I guess that's the step backwards we're talking about by not including overt humanity into the equation.


:: image via CATS

I find it fascinating that many of the concepts in the New Urbanist pantheon are 'borrowed' from ecology including transects, zones, quadrats, and such. It's also interesting that these are as much a graphical exercise as they are a planning one, with a very specific intent and bias from the drawings (show me a drawing that isn't biased in some way?). For instance the 'wedge' shape denotes relative usage of land: "The wedge shape of this naturalistic illustration signifies that the more urban Transect Zones, with their greater density, use less land per capita than the more rural zones."


:: image via CATS

To say that any of these drawings is merely inert is sort of laughable - as there's typically an agenda at work behind the scenes (literally behind the scenography of these graphics). That's not to say there's some nefariousness, as they are generalized stereotypes and tools for use in planning, and application of some of the more robust planning materials like SmartCode (more on this later). The more traditional vertical transect drawings start to look like panels in a cartoon, showing a typical American and European iteration of the panels:



:: images via CATS

There's some parallels with the idea of movement as captured in graphic novels, film storyboards, flip-books and the like. There is also a reference back to Chinese scrolls, where the entirety of a transect can be captured on a never-ending length of paper... at an appropriate scale could be new maps of territories.




:: images via CATS

One commentor on FAD alluded to this image from R.Crumb 'A Short History of America' (posted here on L+U) which is graphically a little too similar to the stylized transects above:


:: (click to enlarge) - image via R. Crumb

Check out the Center for Applied Transect Studies site for some more great info on the topic and some great historical graphic. More about this soon, as I'm continuing to look at how the transect (the generic or ecological term that is akin to section) is valuable in urban exploration, notation, and planning in the particular context of Portland's urban edge.

There's much to learn from this in terms of both technical application as well as marketing cachet, as it leads to a pretty compelling (albeit graphically utopian or manipulated) version of (new?) urbanism that many people respond favorably to. The real question is: Does this work on a City with an urban growth boundary, or does it need the more gradual filtering of density from sprawl to really accentuate the beauty of the transect? Do we skip over a few T-zones in this way or does the construct fall apart? Can this be captured in selected explorations of our urban edge?

How to represent a line, which is a place itself and a container for a place delineating in- and out, that is dynamic with flex and pull and change of weather as well as politics and economics? It's gonna be a fun ride.

Suburban Still Life

Another upcoming highlight to our class will include a visit by Linda K. Johnson, a dancer and performance artist most known locally for both the work recently at South Waterfront and the ongoing series of dances that celebrate the local legacy of Anna and Lawrence Halprin and Portland fountains entitle "The City Dance of Lawrence and Anna Halprin" which is a regular annual performance in the city (more here from Portland Architecture as well).


:: City Dance - image via Portland Architecture

Back in 1999, she was involved in a curated installation related to the UGB. From the ORLO site: "Spanning Boundaries” was a series of site-specific art works, performances and a one-night symposium into the exploration of Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). Growth issues are a provocative topic throughout the nation and each artist created installations along its edges. In this intriguing visual juxtaposition of site/non-site art, “Spanning Boundaries” created a broad civic dialogue about community identity, individual rights, historical antecedent and the future of Portland’s growing metropolis."


:: image via Orlo

Johnson's installation entitled 'The View From Here' included site specific performance work at Riverside/Clackamas, Bella Madrona/Sherwood, Broughton Beach/Marina Drive, Dabney State Park/Troutdale, Springwater Corridor/Powell Butte and Jackson Bottom Wetlands/Hillsboro.

A quote from the book Urban Sprawl, by Gregory Squires "The UGB has even attracted the attention of artists, surely a rarity for a land use regulation. Dancer and performance artist Linda K. Johnson set up camp for 36-hour stints at four different points on the UGB, living in a fence-like tent supplied with a TV set and Martha Stewart dishes and bedding. She quickly replaced her specialized choreography with straightforward chats with visitors, pulling opinions from yuppies, school kids, construction workers, and architects. Out of the resulting "suburban still life" came new, complex understandings of the way that the UGB has affected "every single solitary aspect of the way we livie... traffic, education, taxes, our desires and housing and architecture." For Johnson - and for many other Portlanders - the growth boundary has become "a different viewfinder to see the city through" (Gragg 1999).

Quest for the Livable City

For an upcoming seminar class that myself and my colleague Brett Milligan are teaching in the Winter Quarter at the University of Oregon Architecture Program here in Portland, I've been doing a good bit of research on our local planning. Look for some upcoming posts here and at Brett's blog FAD on the topic of Portland's Urban Edge.


:: Portlands Urban Growth Boundary

The class will investigate the phenomenon of the Portland Urban Edge in . One recent resource that I picked up from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is an hour-long documentary called 'Quest for the Livable City', part of their Making Sense of Place Series.


:: image via Northern Light Productions

I just finished watching the DVD and it's a great overview of some of the pros and cons of our unique system of land use planning, a passable primer for understanding the edge in a number of ways. Check out a quick trailer here: