[EastPDX]

urbanpdx, I would say this: Lack of good paying jobs. The only higher paying positions are doctors and lawyers. Not a very good and diverse job market. Look at Downtown PDX, you have many higher paying positions. People like living close to their employment. Washington County has a good high tech base and people in high tech just like the service sector Downtown see advantages to being closer to the job location.

Higher paying employment regions are where the highest land values are in PDX. Kruse Way is another example.

So, in Gresham, we have an area of land (called Springwater) that I had citizen input on. It is designated as an employment district by Metro, the state, and the city. Hopefully it will not fill up in the next twenty years with warehouses (there are warehouses going up in the Columbia River Corridor like crazy). We did alot of visioning on the district for many reasons: protection of the forest land, stream beds, hills, and character. It will, in my opinion, be an amazing place once its built out as planned. But it has one major issue that the City of Gresham can't fix without State, County, and neighbors help.

Downtown PDX has had good access for over one century (focal point for overnment and commerce). People forget that the Silicon Forest and the investments that Hillsboro did back in the 1980s didn't truly pencil t until the new century. The plots stood vacant for a decade. But Washington County has US26 going right by the plots that have been waiting.

Gresham and Springwater will need a connector from US-26 to I-84 and also the Sunrise Corridor would need to be connecting to US-26. No major bio-tech, nano-tech, or other manufacturing/research corporation or public/private entity is going to come to Springwater without this connector and/or light rail type investment.

The planner and the team members of the Springwater team heard this from me and others.

So my answer to you is this: Without public investment in access assets (streetcars, highways, light rail, bike lanes) you don't see higher paying jobs and thus higher land values. The Gateway District was already developing long before the I-205 corridor was paid for and build (the corridor sat there for what ten years as the construction moved North). The 102nd Avenue shopping malls (Gateway mainly) developed for families like my parents on SE 148th back in the 50s/60s as the car-centered developers raced East.

The County, City, and State never thought about employment centers then like they started to back in the 1970s and 1980s. East County developed before regional planning and Metro. Once you understand the timeline, you understand why East County hasn't been able to break out of the zoning and development concepts pre-SB1 and Oregons smarter land use laws of the 1970s.

I know you don't like to hear this but it is the truth and the process and timeline I just described to you are there for anyone who wishes to see them and the streets and the subdivisions of East County don't lie.

It will take many years and some critical access investments (my guess is a major employment corridor from Troutdale down to Damascus with light rail being extended to Mt Hood CC and a solution for freight movement from US-26 to I-84) to improve what wasn't done before.

EP