Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction novel, “The Heart Goes Last” (2015) explores the notion of planned cities after an economic collapse. It’s a quick read and shows, once again, Utopias are impossible.
Portland Oregon, where I live, has been planned to death with bike lanes , reduced parking and lots of public transportation options. The idea is the inconvenience will be solved by taking public transportation.
However Portland is already a 15 minute city. Even with traffic. Even Lake Oswego is a 15 minute drive to downtown Portland. I’m in North and can reach any other part of town in about the same amount of time. The bus, max and street car are mostly used by the usual suspects (I ride infrequently but enough to confirm this). And since we don’t have any large employers* left in downtown Portland (most are in the suburban counties) all this planning is moot and hasn’t improved anything.
Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction novel, “The Heart Goes Last” (2015) explores the notion of planned cities after an economic collapse. It’s a quick read and shows, once again, Utopias are impossible.
Portland Oregon, where I live, has been planned to death with bike lanes , reduced parking and lots of public transportation options. The idea is the inconvenience will be solved by taking public transportation.
However Portland is already a 15 minute city. Even with traffic. Even Lake Oswego is a 15 minute drive to downtown Portland. I’m in North and can reach any other part of town in about the same amount of time. The bus, max and street car are mostly used by the usual suspects (I ride infrequently but enough to confirm this). And since we don’t have any large employers* left in downtown Portland (most are in the suburban counties) all this planning is moot and hasn’t improved anything.