Portland's Green Dividend

What if you could add $2.6 billion annually to your local economy?

That's what Portland has effectively done by getting its citizens to drive just 4 fewer miles a day, according to a briefing paper by our colleague Joe Cortright called Portland’s Green Dividend. What Joe found has big implications for urban leaders across the country.

As a result of enacting a growth boundary, increased density, mixed land uses, and investments in public transportation, walking and biking, Portlanders are saving time and money on transportation that gets funneled back into the local economy.

Critics have long characterized Portlanders as “depriving themselves in the name of saving the environment.” Some have argued that “planning, policies and regulations that restrict use or access to resources impede growth and lower household income.”

But the new study found that assumption is simply not true. There is, in fact, a Green Dividend that accrues to cities willing to make certain choices about urban form and transportation.

Click here to download the full paper.

  

Bob Armstrong, July 24, 2007

I've seen a lot which makes this rosy green picture questionable , But , most graphically , please explain this $28M vacant Cascades Parkway . Looks out in the Boondoggles to me .

Link: http://CoSy.com

Tom Knipe, September 20, 2007

Hardly empty, Bob. The site is home to a massive Ikea store and about 1/2 a dozen other large retail box stores. It's at the intersection of the Interstate Bridge (I-205), I-84 and the MAX light rail. Coincidentally, Ikea is offering $10 off of home delivery if you show them your validated MAX fair. You took the time to look this as up some odd attempt at a counterargument, but didn't take the time to actually consider that it was built expressly for a well planned (albeit still car-centric) retail development. Google changes satellite images once a year or so I believe... Have you even been to Portland?

Geoffrey, October 11, 2007

Combining entrepreneurship and environmentalism, check out this new innovative company www.ecoshuttle.net

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