#right2root

‪#‎Right2Root‬ is seeking a team of COMMITTED like-hearted, like-minded folks to help steward the next phase through May, including:

videography & production infographics & curriculum development community outreach & education

Right 2 Root PORTLAND, OREGON, USA

For Albina, the district which included the city's traditionally African American neighborhoods, 1956 represents the height of home ownership, business success and tightly-bound family connections.

It was a watershed year for other reasons as well: Terry Doyle Schrunk won election to mayor on an urban renewal platform, firmly laying the track for creation of the Portland Development Commission two years later – the arm of city government which carried out wide-scale demolition of neighborhoods for decades to come.

It was the year voters approved construction of Memorial Coliseum in the Eliot neighborhood, ensuring the tear-down of more than 450 homes and businesses.

It was also the year federal officials approved highway construction funds that would pave Interstates 5 and 99 right through hundreds of homes and storefronts, destroying more than 1,100 housing units in South Albina.

By 1962, the PDC's "Central Albina Study" earmarked the area as "beyond rehabilitation." The city document "History of Portland's African American Community (1805-to the Present)," quotes the study:

"Clearly, urban renewal, largely clearance, appears to be the only solution to, not only blight that presently exists in central Albina, but also to avoid the spread of that blight to other surrounding areas."

When the PDC, city of Portland officials and the federal Model Cities program rolled out the endgame on tearing down Albina homes and businesses for Emanuel's expansion in 1971, many local residents did not realize the plans had been laid years before, according to "History of Portland's African American Community."

The Emanuel Displaced Person's Association was founded by Mrs. Leo Warren in 1970 after locals "were abruptly confronted with the expansion plans." The city required residents to move out within 90 days, offering homeowners a maximum $15,000 payment and renters a maximum $4,000.

A much-hyped agreement signed by the hospital, the PDC and the Housing Authority of Portland mandated they would use "maximum energy and enthusiasm" in replacing the lost housing within the Eliot neighborhood – none of which happened, according to "History."

Mrs. Warren is quoted in the history document from an interview with the Portland Observer:

"Didn't they have a long-range plan? After all, if your life's investment was smashed to splinters by a bulldozer to make room for a hospital, you could at least feel decent and perhaps tolerable about it; but to have it all done for nothing? Well, what is there to feel?"

Urban Planning Now

Albina resident Lisa Manning was also quoted in "Bleeding Albina."

"It used to be that living 'far out' was 15th and Fremont. Now it's 185th and Fremont. A lot of people leave the neighborhood mystery blockbecause they feel they're leaving something that's not theirs anymore anyway. It will never be that way again. There's a lot of sadness. For a lot of us, it's just too hard to stay and watch your history erased progressively over time. There are just too many ghosts," Manning said.

Gibson says anyone weighing in on the current citizens' advisory process for North Williams Avenue transportation safety should take a moment and look at past plans. She singled out the 1993 Albina Community Plan drafted under the leadership of then-Portland Planning Bureau Commissioner-in-charge Charlie Hales, who is now running for mayor.

"African Americans were heavily involved in the Albina plan," she said. "The Planning Bureau should probably provide us with an update.

"There have been other plans, but for me the key for any of the plans is how well are they carried out? We should evaluate how well some of those plans play out in the end."

Portland, Or., Gentrification Map:The North Williams Avenue That Was -- 1956

Professor Karen Gibson specializes in the subjects of housing and community development, black urban history, and economic inequality. Her courses include urban housing and development, concepts of community development, poverty in the urban community, and community economic development.

Bleeding Albina: A History of Community Disinvestment, 1940-2000

Portland, Oregon, is celebrated in the planning literature as one of the nation’s most livable cities, yet there is very little scholarship on its small Black community. Using census data, oral histories, archival documents, and newspaper accounts, this study analyzes residential segregation and neighborhood disinvestment over a 60-year period. Without access to capital, housing conditions worsened to the point that abandonment became a major problem. By 1980, many of the conditions typically associated with large cities were present: high unemployment, poor schooling, and an underground economy that evolved into crack cocaine, gangs, and crime. Yet some neighborhood activists argued that the redlining, predatory lending, and housing speculation were worse threats to community viability. In the early 1990s, the combination of low property values, renewed access to capital, and neighborhood reinvestment resulted in gentrification, displacement, and racial transition. Portland is an exemplar of an urban real estate phenomenon impacting Black communities across the nation.

Building strength - infrastructure and support - to bring #Right2Root back to the community at the end of May... honored and humbled to be able to participate in this catalyzing opportunity with support from the Kresge Foundation, EcoDistricts and ZGF Architects

Right 2 Root PORTLAND, OREGON, USA