Street Roots • Jan. 1-7, 2016
News
Page 7
Urban growth vs.
nature in Portland
Can cities and nature coexist in the same space?
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
Nature is a part of Portland. The city has
one of the densest urban canopies in the
country. Nearly every neighborhood has at
least one park. People can hit the trails and
see wildlife after a 30-rriinute MAX or bike
ride to Tryon Creek, Forest Park, Powell
Butte or Oaks Bottom.
The Audubon Society of Portland has a
robust backyard habitat program that
encourages residents to plant native plants
and remove invasive species. Some trees in
people’s backyards or along many of
Portland’s tree-lined streets are more than
100 years old.
Cutting down trees, as well as
demolishing craftsman-style homes to make
way for new development, has become a
common sight in Portland - due to the city’s
population boom. It is a trend that many
would have thought unimaginable a few
years ago. It has many residents up in arms
as they try to stop some developments in
their neighborhood and pursue policy
changes at the city level (“Tree loss spurs
Portland residents to action,” Street Roots,
Aug. 13, 2015).
Can cities and nature coexist in the same
space? People like Mike Houck think cities
need nature to be livable.
Mike Houck is the founder of the Urban
Greenspaces Institute, which is run out of
Portland State University’s geography
department The institute’s mission is to
advocate for public policy that integrates
greenspaces — parks, trail systems and
greenways — with cities in thè Portland-
Vancouver metro area.
Houck has served on numerous boards
and committees, including the city’s Bureau
of Planning and Sustainability, and is a
nationally recognized authority on
integrating nature with urban environments.
He spoke with Street Roots about
preserving Portland’s access to nature, what
he calls the “natural green environment”
Amanda Waldroupe: Development in
Portland over the last couple years has a lot of
people wondering if nature can coexist with
highly developed, urban areas. What do you
think?
Mike Houck: That’s the conundrum. I
was shocked to learn that there is no tree
preservation requirement at all in the new
tree code. There’s a mitigation requirement.
We have a goal to have a 33 percent urban
forest canopy. What is.it now? Twenty-seven
percent I think. I’m an advocate for infill
development I can’t say I’m an advocate of
tearing down a smaller house and cutting
down trees and building a big mansion.
A.W.: WW value is there to living around
greenery and a natural environment?
M.H.: People’s physiology changes when
they’re around something that has green in
i t Blood pressure is lower, our sense of
well-being is increased. People just feel
more at ease and they feel better. It’s a
human, physical thing for both mental and
physical health. There’s a lot of research
that is coming out that is becoming a lot
more credible and science-based.
You take a walk around Portland on, say,
Tillamook Street, versus 82nd during the
summer and it’s 95 degrees out. Trees are
incredibly important just for quality of life
and for combating urban heat island effect
(an increase in temperatures due to
absorption of heat into concrete and
asphalt). The city of Portland has mapped
the entire city in terms of where the worst
urban heat island effect will be, due to
climate change. Those are the areas that
may be most in need of increasing the urban
forest canopy. It is a huge issue from a
human health perspective. You go into
Portland and you go into the well canopied
neighborhoods, and it’s a totally different
feeling from being someplace like 82nd.
A.W.: How does it feel?
M.H.: It’s hard to describe. It’s a gestalt
It’s beauty. We put too little value in th at
Mike Houcke, founder of the Urban Greenspaces Institute
the smaller stuff like the bioswale, the tree
canopy, eco-roofs and what role they play in
creating a more livable environment,
ecologically and for human health.
accommodate that population quite easily i
A.W.: There are some who argue that,
because Portland’s population will continue
growing quite rapidly fo r the next couple
decades, Portland should become more dense,
at the sacrifice of the urban canopy and other
parts of the city’s natural amenities. What do
you think of that?
A.W.: Why do you say that?
M.H.: Everything has to be monetized.
We have to quantify everything. My ecology
professor once said that ecology is the
painful elucidation of the obvious. But that’s
not good enough, especially if you’re trying
to implement public policy. There is the
whole concept of ecosystem services, that
the ecosystem provides us with services:
clean water, clean air, better health. There
is a long-standing and ongoing effort to
monetize that. That tree is worth $4,233 in
property value, $215 in air quality, $782
contribution to combating urban heat island.
It’s just another in a long list of rationales
for increasing the urban forest canopy.
Above and beyond the fact that the people
in the neighborhood want these trees,
there’s economic reasons for that as well.
We have Forest Park. We have Powell
Butte. We have Oaks Bottom. The big
chunks are out there. That’s a battle we’ve
fought and mostly won. The big challenge, in
my mind, is that we need to do a better job
of integrating the built natural environment
at the streetscape, at the building scale.
That’s the challenge now.
A.W.: W/zy do you think that’s the biggest
challenge?
M.H.: We haven’t gotten to the tipping
point yet, in my mind. There’s still not an
across-the-board recognition among policy
makers andpQliticiansabout the value of
M.H.: T he B ureau of Planning and
Sustainability has concluded through th e
Comprehensive Plan process th at we can
M.H.: It’s bullshit If what they mean by
that is we wipe out all the green in the city
in order to density, I don’t agree with th a t
It’s the same argument people made 20
years ago with protecting areas like Oaks
Bottom — that there was no place for nature
in the city, and that the purpose of the
Urban Growth Boundary is to protect nature
“out there.” Most elected officials and
planners and other people in authority had
this bizarre notion that it was enough to
protect nature outside of the Urban Growth
Boundary and let everything go to hell on
the inside. The Urban Growth Boundary
became such an icon, an end rather than a
tool. The idea holding the Urban Growth
Boundary (at its current boundaries) at any
cost is crazy. We need nature. People want
access to parks and trails where they live.
We can have a combination.
A.W.: Do you think the Urban Growth
Boundary should be expanded to accommodate
for current development?
M.H.: Let me rephrase that question. If,
in order to protect quality of life, ecological
integrity inside the Urban Growth
Boundary, we need to expand it, yeah,
absolutely. It is not acceptable to trash
everything inside the Urban Growth
Boundary to hold the boundary.
A.W.: 7fow do you think we densify and
preserve the city’s natural environment?
th e land w e already have by being m ore fS
efficient There are a lot of techniques that
don’t require trees to be cut down, like
building (accessible dwelling units) and
smaller-scale apartment units. We know
we’re going to have much more multi-family
housing. We don’t have the classic 1940s
mom, dad, two kids family size. That doesn’t
exist any more. We need the right kind of
codes and zoning that result in better
protections. That doesn’t exist right now.
We need to be much more stringent in
regard to what we’re requiring.
A.W.: How do you do both?
M.H.: You do a better job of integrating
the built and natural environment. You have
more green walls, eco-roofs, the fine-scale
stuff needs to be part of how we develop.
Because you happen to have higher density
multi-family development does not mean you
can’t have the green with that. That’s a
matter of how we require developers to
develop. It’s not like we have to sacrifice
everything to achieve that objective. We can
do both.
A.W.: You’re talking about things like
bioswales and ecaroofs — things that are green
and ecologically friendly, but that are
artificial. They’re not as natural as, say, trees.
Do you think cities are destined have more
artificial greenery — what you call “built green
infrastructure, ” and that it is not possible for
cities, especially dense ones, to have nature in
them?
M.H.: You can have a combination. We
need both the natural and built green
infrastructure. Look at the Pearl. Tanner
SEE NATURE, page 11