Can Portland Avoid Repeating San Francisco’s Mistakes?
As a long-time Portland resident I&#x27;ve seen how the city has grown.  It&#x27;s said Portland is a &quot;hot destination&quot;, inspiring a continuing influx of new residents.  In any case, we knew increased density was inevitable given state-wide stringent constraints on sprawl via urban growth boundaries.  A building boom has been going on for some years now with little sign of abating.<p>Despite the construction happening all around, housing prices have been rising, quite a hot topic here now. There&#x27;s a political problem insofar as many are convinced that elected officials didn&#x27;t force developers to create the number of lower cost housing units as promised when the building projects were proposed to the city.<p>Furthermore many citizens believe that overall the governing bodies have also not looked after the interests of the community, for one thing, allowing real estate developers to do what they want regardless of effects on neighborhoods.  There is also dissatisfaction with deterioration of infrastructure, massive increase in traffic congestion, demolition of historic structures, loss of small businesses and overall reduced quality of life.<p>Whether this replicates San Francisco or Seattle or not, when growth-related problems are greater than necessary there&#x27;s something wrong with the process.  FWIW it is an election year, I suspect the views of the electorate will be clearly rendered and overdue changes made.<p>Edit: grammar