street roots
10
INTERSTATE, fro m page 3
The expansion would give the organization
access to loans and grants from the PDC to
renovate the organization’s 6,000-square-
foot building so that it can be used to
provide space for emerging non-profits, she
said.
“It’s giving everyone the same
opportunities,” said Livingston of the
expansion, who hopes the PDC will keep
the lessons from the past in mind as it
moves forward.
The S t Johns Neighborhood Association
is also supportive of having an urban
renewal area encompass its commercial
center and Roosevelt High School.
Clinton Doxsee, the association’s land
use chair, said that after a long process it
became clear to many in the North
Portland neighborhood that the money
could give the streets a facelift put some
empty lots to use and generally make St.
Johns a destination that might even get a
write-up in The New York Times. He also
said the association is cognizant of urban
renewal’s potential of gentrification and
aims to use the money inclusively.
“We basically asked people, who wants
in?” said PDC Business and Equity Director
John Jackley, speaking of the feedback,
process with area residents interested in
the benefits of urban renewal.
Jackley also points to an endorsement
for the expansion of ICURA by the
21-member ad hoc community advisory
committee that included representatives
from minority business organizations,.
neighborhood groups, the county, the
schools, the Portland Trail Blazers, social
service nonprofit Central City Concern, a
resident of the New Columbia Housing
project and others.
The committee met for nine months
beginning in August 19, 2QO9 at the newly
renovated BiHy”^ibb~E lks Lodge7a historic
June 24, 2011
“In 20 years, neighborhood leaders make
clear, the district won’t be measured by the
Starbucks, fancy restaurants or penthouse
condominiums built Instead, the yardstick
will be whether the area continues to
include everyone. History suggests the city
won’t be able to pull it off.”
The plan for ICURA states that it would
be used to “primarily benefit existing
residents and businesses,” create housing
for all income levels, be a driver of jobs, be
a force that would help struggling seniors,
and transform the part of the city that has
suffered from deliberate disinvestment into
a vibrant, attractive and inclusive place.
The plan also explicitly acknowledged
how the area has been on the wrong side of
progress, like the creation of 1-5, which
resulted in some households and
businesses getting the boot The document
also stated that there would be no
condemnation of property, especially in the
Eliot Neighborhood, a clear reference to
the neighborhood-wrecking Emanuel
Hospital expansion.
than ease i t Although he did note that
urban renewal is not the sole cause of
gentrification, he said that too little
investment in affordable housing, which
would have helped longtime residents, has
come too little too late.
Portland State University professor
Gretchen Kafoury, who had recently left
Portland City Council shortly before the
urban renewal area was formed, said she
was cynical about the Interstate URA early
on. However, Kafoury recalled hundreds of
abandoned or decrepit homes that filled
the area’s neighborhoods prior to urban
renewal that have been revitalized.
However, she questions if it has stabilized
and preserved neighborhoods.
“Urban renewal itself contributes to
gentrification,” said Karen Gibson, an
associate professor of planning and urban
studies at Portland State University.
“It sounds kind of hilarious,” she said of
the notion that urban renewal could slow
gentrification. She explained that the very
mechanism of urban renewal intrinsically
lends itself to gentrification. In order for it >
to work, she said, it requires that property
values rise.
John Jackley, however, defends the
hortly after the Interstate URA was
created in 2000, it was expected to
PDC’s record.
“It’s apparent to
generate 6,700 jobs
everyone that
and 2,600 new homes
there is a growing
over the course of 20
segment of
years. No one from
Portland that
the PDC responded to When city officials pitched
doesn’t have the
requests if this goal
the Idea of creating ICURA
same equity of
had been met. (In
in the late 1990s, they
opportunities as
May, County
everyone else. So
Commissioner Loretta argued that gentrification
what are we going
Smith, who represents was already creeping into
to do about this?”,
the North and
said Jackley.
Northeast region,- held North and Northeast
Portland and claimed that
He ticks off a
a forum of African
list of
American men on
the central goal of the new
accomplishments
their concerns and
urban renewal area would be he’s
particularly
yjsionjqr a More
S
equitable com m unity.
to m a k e isivestxneitts th a t
proud of th a t have
helped historic
With hundreds of men would benefit existing
residents of North
in attendance, the
residents, preventing their
prevailing concern
and Northeast
displacement.
Portland, including
was over the access to
jobs.)
the June Key Delta
According to .
Community
Center, which will
Margaret Bax, who
be run by an
worked on housing
African American sorority in a rehabilitated
policy for the PDC when ICURA was being
gas station on North Albina Street with
created, the primary purpose of the urban
financial and technical support from the
renewal area was to help finance the MAX
PDC.
Yellow Line, but its goals were steadily -
expanded to other projects, such as driving
Jackley also said that the PDC provides
apprenticeship training on all its projects,
home-ownership and creating rental
properties.
partnering with organizations like the
Irvington Covenant and Oregon
“We knew we had to spend the train
money, but there was an absolute
Tradeswomen to help provide job training.
commitment to other projects,” said Bax.
He also said that business programs have
been instrumental in helping African
By PDC figures, the stock of rental
housing in the Interstate Corridor had
American small business owners, and
points to the MAX Yellow Line and New
been declining while sale prices of homes
Columbia as worthwhile investments. The ,
soared during the housing boom of the
MAX Yellow Line, which opened four years
1990s and early 2000s as houses were
after the ICURA was created, cost $350
purchased and “flipped” for a profit.
million, $28 million of which came from
The same report also paints a troubling
urban renewal money. The PDC
picture with more than oné-third of all
contributed $6.4 million for the $20.2
households in the Interstate Corridor
million New Columbia project that created
paying more than 30 percent of their
854 housing units.
income on housing costs and 17 percent
But not everyone is sold on the numbers
paying more than 50 percent The Coalition
or promises. Without more detailed
for a Livable Future’s Equity Atlas also
information, the Northeast Coalition of
found that between 1995 and 2004, nearly
Neighborhoods declined to take a clear
every neighborhood in both urban renewal
position for or against expanding urban
areas in North and Northeast Portland and
renewal. The coalition said it wouldn’t take
nearby saw the median sale price of single
a position on the expansion without
family homes rise by over 100 percent
information from the PDC on resident
“I wouldn’t say it’s been good at
displacement, criteria for future projects,
mitigating gentrification,” said Lew
Frederick, a Democrat who represents part an analysis on whether original goals of the
ICURA have been met, and an assessment
of Northeast Portland in the Oregon House
hen city officials pitched the idea of
of urban renewal, among other issues.
of Representatives. “It’s done the
creating ICURA in the late 1990s,
“We are not against investing in the
opposite.”
they argued that gentrification was already
“Whomever is commanding money needs neighborhoods and, not against expanding
creeping into North and Northeast
the URA,” the coalition said. “However,
to be a lot more mindful of who the most
Portland and claimed that the central goal
because this decision involves so many
vulnerable are, or they need to be clear
of the new urban renewal area would be to
that this policy (urban renewal) is not about factors and so many viewpoints, we
make investments that would benefit
continue to believe that complete
abating gentrification,” said Michael
existing residents, preventing their
information is essential to guide the
Anderson, a long-time affordable housing
displacement
decision.”
advocate. Anderson says urban renewal has
Two months before the City Council
The Portland City Council is scheduled
a “spotty record at best” on housing and
voted to create ICURA, a writer in the
has done more to spur gentrification rather to finalize the expansion in July.
Oregonian Issued a prescient statement:
social hub for the city’s African American
community, to discuss investments,
economic development in area, housing,
gentrification, and the historic role of the
PDC. However, the iCURA’s primary
advisory committee — each URA has a
standing advisory committee — voted to
oppose most of the expansion over
concerns it would spread resources too
thin and drain money from existing
projects.
The North Portland Neighborhood
Chairs Network, which represents
neighborhood associations in areas that
would be affected by the expansion, sent a
letter supportive of the expansion to the
committee with its own list of urban
renewal projects.
Sam Brooks, an African American
entrepreneur who founded a successful
staffing firm, wrote a letter of support for
the expansion to the committee as well,
arguing that it could help spur black
entrepreneurship. The trade association he
founded, the Oregon Association of
Minority Entrepreneurs, has also adopted
sent a similar letter.
On May 19, 2010, the committee voted
to support the PDC’s expansion plans while
also prioritizing a $70 million list of
projects including parks, housing and other
undertakings dubbed the “Gem L ist” The
committee punted on the prickly issue of
the Rose Quarter redevelopment while the
details of the deal were being worked out
elsewhere.
W
I Am War
Wallace E. High
I am war,
I am a living, breathing, beast,
Mercy I know it not,
My fuel is diesel and blood,
Bleak detritus of forceful men
Who once knew honor,
Who once knew love,
But power stole their souls.
I am war,
Unleashed bequeathed upon the earth
Where no segment lies untouched,
Carried by the winds hastening
To escape the horror that stirs them,
That makes the cyclone a child’s toy,
A mere puff from a lad’s lips
Blowing at dandelion’s lacés.
I am war,
I am ravenous beyond sating,
Starving for destruction,
There is no justice here within
For there is no heart in this;
This is the madness of men,
Cruel beyond imagining,
Relentless in pursuit of death.
I am war,
I am brilliant in my scheming,
My intelligence soars seeking,
Leaping like a springbok
For meaner ways to erase
Memories of façes smiling,
Baby’s tiny fingers grasping,
Laughing at daddy’s nose.
I am war,
I am the master of waste
Making-mot-heFS,pale-and-cry~«™--<-^-
For dying children tom from the breasts;
My breath comes in napalm blasts,
Clouds of sinister, seeping gases
That stifle feeble efforts at life
And turn good deeds to mockery
I am war,
I am a strident voice ringing
In cloistered halls where
Old men gather to vent their ire
With the lives of stalwart sons
And daughters directed to th e fray
Beguiled and betrayed to stand
Before the maws of howitzers roaring.
I am war,
I am misery beyond reckoning,
The greedy grider hastening
The return to the earth of dust
Made of moldering bones
Strewn by deadly claymores leaping,
Blasting upward from concealment,
Scattered by jackals on desert sands.
I am war,
I am relentless in my pursuits,
Making no distinction in the dying,
Man, woman, child or beast,
What câre I where shrapnël flies;
Suffice to say I am here,
My history written in blood, darkly,
Learn from this, my child, and fight no
more ,