So I went on a bit of a rant on the NW Examiner site. Reposting here:
I take issue with the fact the fact that this was on the front page of the NW Examiner, without being flagged as being an opinion piece. Obviously the author doesn't like tall buildings, and she has a right to that opinion. I might however gently suggest that if she is so uncomfortable with tall buildings, then living in the central city of a 2.3 million people region might not be the best life choice. The vast majority of the land area in Portland (and its suburbs) is zoned exclusively for single family residences, with low height limits. It's also worth noting that Portland also some of the lowest height limits of any major US city.
I feel like I could go through this article line-by-line refuting it, but it being late at night, I'll stick to the worst lines:
"North of Lovejoy, development may be of unlimited height—in other words, higher than the Wells Fargo Center." Yes, this is true, however the author (deliberately?) neglects to mention that there are Floor-Area-Ratio limitations. i.e. the taller a building gets, the skinnier it is has to be. This creates an effective height limit.
"Thus, the tallest buildings tend to be luxury units, often for global investors." The Cosmopolitan (Block 15) is the first large condo building to be built in Portland since the recession. All the other buildings under construction are for rent, and thus not available for global investors. If one looks at tall buildings built before the recession, such as the Cyan or Indigo, they rent at rates that are in line with the prevailing rents for new buildings in downtown.
"Tall buildings inflate the price of adjacent land, thus making the protection of historic buildings and affordable housing less achievable. In this way, they increase inequality." How does a tall building inflate the price of adjacent land? Perhaps in the same way that luxury cars inflate the price of compact cars? This doesn't make any sense.
"This form of investment leads to speculation. Placing economic gains above livability also leads to housing bubbles." Whereas single family homes in Nevada and Florida never create bubbles?
"These global investors rarely visit their condos, reducing the local population actually living in the area. This jeopardizes the economic viability of grocery stores and other businesses dependent on a local residential population, further risking a neighborhood’s livability." The density of the Pearl has made it commercially viable for Whole Foods and Safeway to open. New Seasons is under construction at the Conway site. Is the author seriously suggesting that stores will be under threat of closing?
"Tall buildings may also decrease a community’s livability and street-level comfort (e.g., fewer ‘eyes-on-the-street,’" I've read Jane Jacobs too. How exactly does a taller building have fewer eyes on the street?
"Humans are social. Social isolation is one of the worst forms of punishment humans have devised." How does a tall building increase social isolation? Is someone who lives on the 20th floor less capable of interacting with people than someone who lives in a single family home in Happy Valley?
"Solitary elders often do not fare well in the upper floors of a high-rise. They may spend much of the day alone at home, and they cannot even see human beings from their window." Again, how is an old person who lives in a high rise less able to see other people than someone who lives in a low rise building? The Mirabella Senior Living in South Waterfront is a great example of how a tall building can actually benefit seniors - with short horizontal distance to travel due to the small floor plates, seniors with reduced mobility can still live with a large degree of independence.
“On average, towers consume 50 percent more energy per habitable square foot of floor space than do mid-rise structures.” I'm pretty skeptical of this statistic. How would a unit in a tall building consume more energy than one in a lower rise building? Of course, if the author's concern was really in reducing energy usage, she would be writing an article against old single family homes, which use massive amounts of energy due to larger facade areas, poor (or non-existing) insulation, and large travel-to-work distances. Never forget that America's most sustainable city is New York. People in Manhattan particularly use a fraction of the energy per person than the average American does.
"Moreover, high-rise buildings are constructed with materials (steel and glass) that require more energy in their manufacture." Over the lifespan of a building, the embodied energy of a building is dwarfed by the energy used to maintain it. Any difference in embodied energy created by additional structural requirements is irrelevant when measured over decades.
"The “greenest” building is the older mid-rise building readapted and reused for modern times." Have I missed that there is somewhere in Portland with a huge supply of vacant older buildings ready for adaptive reuse?
"High-rise buildings diminish the hospitality of the street in several ways." Is the author seriously making the case that there is a poor street environment at the Brewery Blocks, which has two 189' buildings? Or around the Indigo, which is 266'? I guess all those people crowding the streets in front of Anthropologie, West Elm, Henry's, Sur La Table, Lardo, Grassa and Blue Star Donuts just aren't sufficiently in touch with their primeval instincts.
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"Maybe to an architect, they might look suspicious, but to me, they just look like rocks"
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