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Portland is awash in dogs. We have . The North Park Blocks have . Four-footed things that go “woof” are everywhere.

While exact numbers about the canine population of Portland are hard to come by, we do know that Portland has . that Portland has 5.7 dog parks per every 100,000 residents, more per capita than any other American city. The green spaces and open spaces inside of cities are now being made with dogs in mind.

So what’s this mean? Well, it’s yet another indicator that Portland has historically been pretty good at urban development.

Dogs are an investment. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, depending on size of the animal. (And that is not counting the cost of the animal itself 鈥� ASPCA is solidly in favor of rescue animals, so it’s assuming that loving families are getting dogs for free. If someone does spring for the exotic purebred, though, that sends the cost of initial canine investment through the roof.)

While dogs certainly aren’t the animal equivalent of a sports car, they’re not cheap, either. To adequately care for an animal, the owner has to be, at the very least, pretty solidly middle-class, or at least non-destitute. The include Norfolk, Va., Madison, Wis., and San Francisco. All of them are reasonably affluent cities whose population demographics skew toward non-poverty.

Portland got that way on purpose. It’s not an accident that this is a city that’s now filled with pooch enthusiasts. Starting with the the city of Portland made an active effort to turn what had been a wasteland of parking lots into somewhere people actually wanted to go. Several campaigns of urban revitalization followed, and as stagnant as the current economy is, by and large Portland’s been on the upswing for the past few decades.

When you look at Portland’s staggering number of dog parks, don’t think of (please don’t), don’t think of the climate, and don’t think that there’s just something in the water here that makes people more amicable to having pooches. Rather, think of the large number of dogs as yet another indication of city planning pulling an affluent population from the periphery of the grid into the center. What’s more, the city has continued to actively cater and plan around the needs of that population, putting a non-insignificant amount of money, time and attention to planning and development that pretty much exclusively benefits dog-havers.

As someone who does not own any small furry mammals, part of my brain wants to scream in protest that my tax dollars are being used to benefit a niche demographic of which I am not a member. However, dog parks serve as social areas that facilitate interaction and can be something of a focus for a given urban district. Portland has striven to be a 鈥渢wenty-minute city,鈥� which conventionally means that drivers can get themselves to the CBD in less than, well, twenty minutes. The term has a more extensive meaning, though 鈥� it can also mean that district centers (like Hawthorne or downtown St. Johns) are easily accessible from residential areas.

As much as one might initially roll their eyes at Portland having so many dog parks (cue comments about hipsters and pugs), the dog park can serve as a component of a district center that draws people in just like a caf茅, pub or neighborhood restaurant does. Having lots of dog parks means that Portland is solidly in favor of public infrastructure that focuses as a pivot for active urban life.

by O World via Flickr