Portland’s Bungalow Belt

Certainly, downtown Portland has always been a center of metropolitan political and economic power, but policy makers and political movers-and-shakers must not forget that the true center of politics in Portland does not lie in glass office buildings. Instead, it lies in the inner neighborhoods that developed in the early 20th century along the streetcar routes, the areas that my friend Dan Haneckow likes to call “Portland’s Bungalow Belt.”

The Bunaglow Belt is the heart of Portland identity. It is here that we have the wide straight boulevards lined with quirky shops and eateries. It is here that the funky, authentic pulse of the city is felt on a daily basis. This is the urban and urbane, walkable, transit oriented city. Here are the small, early 20th century houses on 50-by-100 lots, the shaggy lawns, the broad shade trees, the parallel parking, the retro-cool or grungetastical bikes, the smells of brewing coffee and craft beer. The office towers of downtown make a pretty sight, especially at night from the inner east side, but those office towers could be anywhere. They say little that isn’t said in every other urban areas of 2 million or so. It is in the streets of the Bungalow Belt that the human pulse of Portland is real and ever present.

And the power is political, not just cultural. When the residents of Portland fought and defeated the construction of the Mount Hood Freeway in the 1970s, it was the Bungalow Belt that it would have ran through that lead the charge. It was out of the Bungalow Belt movement that the long influential reign of Councilor, Mayor, Transportation Secretary, and later Governor Niel Goldschmidt began. The power of these areas is directly tied to all those qualitative aspects of culture; identity is one of the greatest powers there are, especially chosen self identity.

Today, the power of the Bungalow Belt can be seen regularly. The Bungalow Belt put major obstacles in the path of hispanic activists who sought to rename Interstate Avenue — a key Bungalow Belt artery — after labor leader Cesar Chavez in 2007. The Bungalow Belt was also very active in the debate over the future of the Portland Streetcar, engaging directly in the process that helped to shape the Streetcar System Plan. PDC proposals to create greater density along public transit caused serious opposition to emerge from the Bungalow Belt, especially from (again) Interstate Avenue, where the proposal of 4 story apartment blocks sent shivers down the collective spine of single and dual story home owners.

Over the last few years, the battles have not been going thee way of the Bungalow Belt. Although Intestate was not renamed, 39th — which is also a Bungalow Belt artery — was, over local objections. The streetcar, if it is expanded as planned, will bring development to many older Bungalow Belt neighborhoods, development that is not always in keeping with the style, scale, or culture of those areas. Lastly, the increasing density of the region — part market economics, part public policy — will increase the pressure for infill and increased heights, much of it right in the heart of those old Bungalow Belt communities.

Great care should be taken. Pile on too much stress, make the Bungalow Belt feel under appreciated and unrepsected, and a sleeping political giant may be awoken. The last time this happened, Goldschmidt was swept into office at the city, the spearhead of an entirely new wave of political thought and political leaders who reshaped the course of the city for the next three decades. Civic leaders in Portland ignore the Bungalow Belt to their peril.