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As I’ve mentioned before, the city of Portland is currently engaged in the most important planning work for any community: preparing a new comprehensive plan. The last time this was done in Portland was 1980. Parts of the city have had updates over the years, but this is still way too long for a city not to have looked at the big picture and determine its future direction. So this is the time for us to imagine what we want our city to be like in 20 years.

Of course, that process has been under way for awhile now, and there are several major initiatives that planners generally agree need to be key elements of the plan. First is to continue to focus development in . This has been a city priority for the last 40 years, but it needs a more sophisticated implementation approach to ultimately be successful in all parts of the city.

The logic here is straightforward – develop the highest intensity uses where you have the most efficient transportation services. This has worked well in central Portland where you have downtown, the focus of the region’s transportation network, and the inner neighborhoods that were developed around streetcar lines. Commercial services and higher-density housing developed along these lines within walking distance of the surrounding neighborhoods, which has turned out to be a very efficient form of urbanization.

But in southwest and east Portland the development pattern is more spread out, with a few major auto-dominated commercial streets and few logical locations for uses that serve the neighborhoods. This has proven to be the biggest challenge for Portland’s planners – how to create walkable, safe, well-served communities in these very suburban places – and needs to be the most important element of the new Comprehensive Plan.

There are a few other key elements for the Comprehensive Plan, and I’ll get to those next time.