Reimagining the Portland Story, the Japanese Way.

GUD appreciates the opportunity to participate during the 2025 City of Possibility events, including Reimagine Portland and Waterfront of Possibility panels, in Portland Oregon. At the behest of local business and City partners, GUD presented a concept centered on making improvements to the Portland Waterfront that had the greatest potential to stimulate activity downtown and increase access to housing. The approach introduces and celebrates the influence of Japanese urban designers who have repurposed the Portland Story to support economic development and social uplift in the revitalization of communities in Japan. This Japanese Way was applied to evaluate Portland's Waterfront in order to start a conversation that would form unusual partners who may take action to reactivate downtown Portland. It is part of a conversation which sets the stage for a new downtown story that gives the community a pathway to the greatest potential for success.

Waterfront of Possibility Video Presentation (8 min) 

Reimagining the “Portland Story”.

The "Portland Story" term is used to describe downtown Portland’s recovery from the multiple economic and ecological disasters that beset the City in the 1960’s.  A story that urbanists from many countries come to Portland to learn, appreciate, and find meaningful ideas for use in their communities.  The story begins in the 1970’s and explains how urban design and community stewardship were used to help Portland recover from economic malaise and ecological disasters. Its success is due to a transformative statewide program for land use planning to preserve farmland and intensifying development in urban areas, See 1973 Senate Bill 100.  This new goal-based planning and development approval system was designed to improve livability for all Oregonians and became the foundation for Portland's 1972 downtown plan.

The Portland Story describes how Economic Disaster and Ecological Disaster were addressed through urban design and community stewardship. This was memorialized the Downtown Plan and The Storm Water Master Plan as well as other coordinated local, state, and federal actions which guided development over the last 50 years.

In this new context, city leaders approved a new concept for downtown development that improved livability in order to counter act economic malaise and ecological degradation. To accomplish this in the 1972 plan, Portland’s downtown neighborhood areas were assigned new roles with a mix of uses. The city’s streets and open spaces formed new connections between these revitalized neighborhoods across the city.  This included building and connecting to a residential community downtown. Great care was taken to promote a continuity of services, seasonal programs, and vital spaces that transformed what one experienced when they walked through the city.

Over 50 years, these policies and physical improvements in the Portland Story delivered on a building a precedent green city. It extended the continuity of experiences and economic vitality across downtown along tree lined streets.  It achieved exemplary per capita carbon emission reductions due compact development, pervasive multi-modal access, low impact community lifestyles, pervasive use of plant material, and relatively clean power grid. The city tested innovative storm water best management practices with trees, green roofs, and swales to reduce sewer overflows. The neighborhoods West End, Pearl District, Slab Town, South Waterfront demonstrate how sustainability and livability that can be achieved through coordinated planning and development in urban design. The process and framework for delivering such sustainable development was recorded in the EcoDistrict Framework. By 2012, this Portland Story became a model for urban design in other countries and cities around the world. It has been adapted to a restorative development planning process in the United States through Just Communities Protocol. The community stewardship and regulatory system inherent to the Portland Story became a planning prerequisite for LEED for Cities and Communities.

Following the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011, insights gained from the Portland Story were used to help Japanese communities recover from their economic malaise, population decline, and super aging by regenerating neighborhood economies in their cities.  This retold “Portland Story” focuses on economic and social uplift in harmony with nature at the neighborhood scale.  In Japan, such an integrated urban design strategy connected businesses and residents in the public spaces to form resilience to economic malaise, super aging, and population decline in their society.  An idea that is relevant to the challenges second tier cities in Japan and US where population growth is in decline.

City of Possibility: Downtown Portland’s Waterfront

Building a community around new ideas for Downtown’s Waterfront during the 2025 City of Possibilities community events.

Like today's downtown Portland, the downtowns in Japan with exclusively commercial uses have been the hardest areas to reactivate.  For such areas, Japan has used an approach to stimulate mixed use development (or simply connect a residential and commercial areas that have been separated along streets).  The regeneration of economic and social vitality in Japan's urban spaces focuses on using urban design and community stewardship to reset the geospatial economy along the streets and open spaces between buildings. The geospatial economy includes ground level business and public spaces that provide a setting for business innovation through social interaction. The regeneration of this economy acknowledges that the use and activities within the space between buildings are a vital element of any urban economy.  It is a space that connects businesses and residents to an ecosystem of services that supports economic development and social mobility.  

Waterfront of Possibility Presentation

The presentation tests a concept centered on making improvement to the Portland Waterfront that stimulated activity downtown and increased access to housing. The concept was based on the retelling of the "Portland Story" to help Japanese communities recover from economic malaise, population decline, and super aging by regenerating the economy in neighborhoods along active and vital streets connecting neighborhoods. This Japanese Way of regenerating of economic and social stability used the following principles of the "Portland Story" to transform:

1. The character of places so they reflect the community’s values and aspirations in the design and use of the neighborhood,

2. The streets as public spaces that can promote connectivity between places in neighborhoods, and

3. The continuity of experience between places along the streets can make accessible the services and activities that promote livability within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.

The Character, Connectivity, and Continuity approach is an economic and social uplift concept to invigorate communities between neighborhoods across a city.

The use of these principles in Japan have regenerated countless neighborhood economies. Their application induced resilience and community cohesion around neighborhood investments that promote livability, in harmony with nature.  It is found in the Japanese communities, that took lessons in Portland and applied them in their communities such as the Ecodistrict Plan for Maebashi City in Gunma Prefecture. See such communities in the blog post, Tokyo Placemaking.

A New Story for Downtown Portland

Connect the vital and active neighborhoods in the west to the Waterfront Edge and Waterfront in the east.

An urban design concept centered on Portland’s Waterfront Park and Waterfront Edge has the potential to improve access to housing to the west and revitalize areas across downtown. This can be accomplished by resetting the character, connectivity, and continuity of experience along key streets that form a vital ground level, business supportive economy.  This concept is intended to activate waterfront park, reinvigorate the adjacent downtown areas, and increase access to affordable housing.

A concept for Portland’s Waterfront that cultivates activity along the Waterfront Edge to complement and supplement the use of the Waterfront Park. These areas are then connected along Show Case Corridors to other vital areas near downtown.

Through a new vision for this Waterfront Edge, to allow new uses in this area, it is possible to connect a new vital Waterfront Edge and Waterfront to the active and vital housing districts to the west, across downtown.  It is possible to shine a light on the continuity of experience along these connecting corridors to “show case” our values and improvements on a temporary and permanent basis.  Along these show case corridors, we can explore the discretion we need to change how we use streets and how the ground floor of buildings reinforces character and the vitality along those streets.  

Give ourselves the discretion to close some streets, pop up activities, and help ground floor uses expand into the public realm along a few Show Case Corridors.

The character created on the Waterfront Edge can be reimagined as a place with co-living and working uses as well as with public space improvements that extend the presence and experience of the Waterfront, up to Second Avenue.  This revitalized area can be connected to vital housing districts to the west and improve the continuity of the experience when walking through downtown along showcase corridors.

Give ourselves the discretion to repurpose existing buildings, build new buildings, and add temporary structures that support vitality along streets connected to the waterfront.

Perhaps we give ourselves the discretion to convert commercial buildings into co-living and co-working spaces along the waterfront edge. Example cited, Zoku Amsterdam.

The Waterfront Edge can be imagined to be a new place.  One that shows the commitment we share as a community to sustain the vitality and engage partners we need to make a place we desire.  We then secure faith in the needed planning and cooperation that Japan uses to revitalize its communities using the Portland Story to accelerate the reactivation of Portland’s Downtown and direct priority improvements for the Waterfront. 

We can make a waterfront that provides better access to the river, provide a few key services. and stage festivals in spaces that promotes health and wellbeing for the residents and workers downtown.

Postscript

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We can draw inspiration from the connectivity, continuity, and character that underlies the urban design with the reactivation of Seattle's Waterfront.