Written by Jim Walker for Indianapolis Star:
The following are thoughts I had when looking at the two cities. My experience with Portland was, for the most part, limited to downtown. And I didn’t have a chance to dig into Portland’s public education system — something I’d like to further research.
Sprawl
Portland has a regional growth boundary that has kept sprawl from destroying the countryside and the city core as we’ve seen happen in Indianapolis. Residential and commercial development — as well as road building and repair — are huge economic forces in Central Indiana. And the sprawl they cause has effectively gutted our near-Downtown neighborhoods full of high-quality homes near authentic city experiences. These older homes on the city grid also have built-in access to existing public transportation and offer easy alternatives to driving such as cycling and walking.
While the economy has slowed the sprawl that decimated our city’s core, the process will certainly continue as our urban township neighborhoods and schools begin to face many of the same challenges that were once mostly Center Township’s problems.
Can anything be done to stop more development — commercial and residential — in the outlying counties? We are well past time for a regional growth boundary in Indianapolis. But it could still help. We could also further incentivize in-fill development in the core of the city. Is there any politician on the state level who would take this on as a step toward saving our city?
Vibrant and livable downtown
Increasing population density in our central city will give us more of what Portland has. It will bring a more prevalent bike culture, get more people walking, support thriving neighborhood commercial districts, keep people interested in supporting public schools as they slowly improve.
In Portland, Powell’s Books is an anchor in the thriving Pearl District. This huge bookstore has lots of events with authors and is open late every night. Stores stay open late because people are out there spending money.
What keeps businesses like Powell’s — or Whole Foods (also doing well in downtown Portland) — out of our Downtown? Too few people living and shopping in the neighborhood to make the numbers work. As a city, we should invest in affordable and attractive housing — focusing on apartments — for people who’ll live Downtown, spend money and make the area a more vibrant place.
Powell’s Books in downtown Portland is a hub for late-night events that draw a lot of people, many of whom live within walking distance. / Photo provided by Powell’s Books / travelportland
Beyond pushing for housing, Indianapolis could subsidize — at least in the short term –a Downtown location for Half Price Books. Unlike the recently closed Borders (which offered little to make Downtown a better place because of its limited hours and amenities), this store would need to have a quirky and authentic feel, be open late, and offer a good coffee shop with WiFi access to become a real hub like Powell’s in Portland.
Improved public transportation
In Indianapolis, we have the cart before the horse with the idea of adding mass transit to help people get in from the suburbs without driving. We shouldn’t be worried about them right away. They can deal with $4-a-gallon gas and don’t seem to be in any hurry to stop driving.
We certainly do need to improve our public transportation, starting with central city trolleys and a line to the airport from Downtown, which make things so nice in Portland. Run the first one from Cumberland on the Far Eastside along Washington Street to the airport. Then run one up College Avenue to Broad Ripple. Take another — with a connection to the College Avenue line — west on 38th Street, from the Fairgrounds past the Indianapolis Museum of Art to Lafayette Square Mall and out to Speedway.
Suddenly, we’ve connected our city’s best and most authentic assets for residents and for visitors. This would encourage people to live in the neighborhoods along east and west Washington Street, along College Avenue north of Fall Creek Place and would support commercial revitalization in key areas.
Once people begin to see the benefits of these central city trolleys, the next phase would be to link to the suburbs as Portland has done.
Walking and cycling
While Portland is known worldwide as a great city for cycling, it is equally excellent for walking. And some amenities that make it this way — like functioning crosswalk lights that don’t allow cars to turn during the walk sign and clearly designated crosswalks (just takes a little paint and some improved signage) — are a no-brainer for Indianapolis. But the bigger issue is changing the culture of drivers in areas where people walk.
In Portland, drivers almost always stop when they see people walking toward an intersection — even when they don’t have a red light. They patiently wait for all to pass. In Indianapolis, drivers often honk at or drive into walkers crossing with walk signs. Those pedestrian-crossing hash marks painted on the roads mean next to nothing in our city.
What do we do? We have the Cultural Trail and the Monon already in place. So that really helps. But to catch up with Portland in terms of walkability, we should market walking as a great thing to do and as an important part of life. We should encourage people to stop driving short distances, choosing instead to walk or cycle. We should raise awareness of laws concerning pedestrian right of way. And we should have police walk a Downtown beat, busting people for failure to yield and for endangering pedestrians and cyclists. Some of this might take an advocacy organization — like we’ve seen with IndyCog for cycling –that steps up to make our city more walkable.
As far as cycling, Indianapolis is on the right path. Sure, more bike lanes — including more that cross the city east to west — would be nice. But, just as with walking, the problems are awareness and attitude. In Portland, nearly a third of the residents bike regularly. Even when they are driving, they are thinking about cyclists and watching out for them. They are OK with giving up roads for bike lanes or bike boulevards.
In Indianapolis, cyclists don’t enjoy the same kind of respect on the road. Again, this situation could be improved with an awareness campaign for drivers, police enforcement of safe driving around cyclists and bike lanes, and a further push to bring more Indianapolis residents to cycling as a way of life.
Indy’s strengths
Where is Indianapolis ahead of Portland? Our art scene — galleries, museums and art centers — holds up very well. The Portland Museum of Art pales in comparison to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its 100 Acres Art and Nature Park. Private galleries aren’t as prevalent there either. And nonprofit galleries or small museums aren’t a big part of things in Portland. For instance, Portland doesn’t have a contemporary art museum with a physical space. It also doesn’t have the kind of vibrant art center hubs in downtown that we enjoy at Harrison Center for the Arts, Earth House or the Murphy Art Center — places Indianapolis needs to further support and value as year-round cultural destinations.
In Indianapolis, we also have the Cultural Trail, a truly wonderful amenity that sets us apart from cities all over the world and makes our Downtown much easier to navigate by bike than Portland’s.
People, especially kids with college degrees, want to move to Portland. It doesn’t matter if they have jobs lined up. They like the idea of living in a place with all that Portland offers. Indianapolis will never have mountains. We can’t make our river any bigger. But we can do just about everything else to help our city become a place anyone would love to call home.
