Environmental Injustice in Portland City Housing

Portland's reputation as a city is well known, definitely in part due to the show Portlandia which satirizes the city's 'quirky' aspects. The thought of Portland evokes ideas of liberalism, the center of political correctness, every business having the same "in our America..." sign (shown above) posted in their window. On the cover, Portland has a face of inclusivity that has undoubtedly attracted a specific young, white, liberal population. However, I mention that this reputation is only the face value of Portland. Behind this front of liberalism is an insidious history that provides a clear context as to why the population of the city, despite its supposed inclusivity, is the whitest city in America.

 Portlanders have developed an unusual reputation – one that everyone admires – from their love for craft beer, good coffee, wild doughnuts, eclectic eats and cycling to advocating for rights, the environment, or freedom of expression no matter its form. (Wulf, 2017)

Why is it that Portland to this day has such a small Black population despite its reputation as a progressive and liberal city? To answer this question I will briefly examine the historical context of the city's racial demographics by laying out the racist history that goes all the way back to the inception of the city. Moving through this timeline I will also lay out the specific policies that made the area an inhospitable place for current Black residents as well as discourage Black community growth. I will then focus on a way in which this racist history has continued to impact Black communities to this day within an environmental injustice framework.

Portland as we know it was founded by William Overton and Asa Lovejoy in 1843 when the two business partners filed a land claim on the west bank of the Willamette river. This location offered access to a major river and very quickly became a major port city. However, what  pdxhistory.com   fails to mention is the inherent exclusion that was built into the city's systems. The beginning of this being in 1844 when Oregon passed a law banning slavery in conjunction with requiring every Black citizen in the provisional territory to leave. This was followed up by a state constitution in 1857 that banned Black people from coming to, residing within, or owning property in the state.

This was overturned by national federal law when the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment was ratified. Although, obviously despite these amendments Oregon was incredibly inhospitable to Black residents. And so while the city grew from a measly population of 800 residents in 1850 to over 250,000 residents in 1920 only 2000 Black residents resided in the entire state of Oregon in the same year (Semuels, 2016).

The year 1924 marks the approval of the city's first zoning code made of four zones

1. Single Family
2. Multi Family
3. Business Manufacturing
4. Unrestricted

 "Most residential areas were designated Zone II, except for 15 neighborhoods considered the 'highest quality' that were designated Zone I. These 15 original single-family zones were created by request of property owners in the area" (Hughes et al. 2019)

These Zone 1 neighborhoods are modern day:

• Hillsdale
• Homestead
• Southwest Hills
• Arlington-Heights
• Hillside
• Arbor Lodge
• University Park
• Irvington
• Alameda
• Beaumont-Wilshire
• Kenton
• Piedmont
• Concordia
• Sabin
• Hosford-Abernathy
• Richmond
• Laurelhurst
• Mt. Tabor
• Eastmoreland

In addition to city zoning, private developers embedded restrictive covenants on their properties restricting, " who could own or live on the property based on race" (Hughes et al. 2019). This came hand in hand with racially discriminatory practices within the Real Estate Industry. The real estate code of ethics instated blatant discriminatory practices, for example adopting this ruling in 1919, ""the Realty Board of Portland had approved a Code of Ethics forbidding realtors and bankers from selling or giving loans to minorities for properties located in white neighborhoods” (Semuels, 2016).

"In the 1930s and 40s, Portland City Council rezoned large areas of multi-family zoning, including neighborhoods in North Portland and adjacent to Mt Tabor, to single-family zoning. This was done to protect real estate values of single-family homes and make it easier for homeowners to obtain Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans in those areas" (Hughes et al. 2016)

FHA insured loans only cemented housing inaccessibility as the Home Owner Loan Corporation determined neighborhood desirability and financial security by designating colors to areas from green being most desirable to red being least desirable. This practice is aptly referred to as redlining.

During WWII, Portland and many other West Coast cities experienced Black population growth due to labor migration following the promise of employment within Portland's shipyards. However, this sudden growth of population was met with limited housing opportunities as there were minimal neighborhoods that realtors would allow Black homeowners. Additionally, for many migrant laborers homeownership was not a possibility especially without the support of FHA loan insurance programs. In response, Portland begrudgingly built Vanport city as temporary defense housing. In fact Vanport quickly became the largest wartime development in the country. However, once the war had ended Portland quickly denounced Vanport and made it clear that Black laborers were no longer welcomed. The city considered the dismantling of the city before it was flooded in 1948 displacing over 5,000 families. Residents seeking housing were devoid of opportunities beyond the already redlined Albina district which quickly grew and became the central neighborhood of Black community within Portland.

 "HAP (Housing Authority of Portland) and city officials were eager to dismantle the town, calling it 'troublesome' and 'blighted' because of the racially mixed population and “crackerbox” housing construction" (Gibson, 2007)

The consideration to dismantle Vanport was not an isolated situation, but instead aligned with the trend of urban renewal from the late 40's through the 50's. Urban renewal projects were fueled by the "degradation" of neighborhoods that were historically divested from. The Albina district specifically was a target of urban renewal projects due to its quick racial turnover resulted in loss of property value. First, the approval to construct the Memorial Coliseum in 1956 destroyed over 400 homes over half of which houses Black families. In the same year, the city approved Highway 99 and Interstate 5 which quite literally cut Albina in half, displacing even more residents. The gentrification and Black displacement of the Albina districts only continues.

"The urban-renewal efforts made it difficult for black residents to maintain a close-knit community; the institutions that they frequented kept getting displaced. In Portland, according to Gibson, a generation of black people had grown up hearing about the “wicked white people who took away their neighborhoods.” In the meantime, displaced African Americans couldn’t acquire new property or land. Redlining, the process of denying loans to people who lived in certain areas, flourished in Portland in the 1970s and 1980s" (Samuels 2016)

This brief history of racial exclusion within Portland is certainly not exhaustive. The subject can be, and is, the central topic of its own dissertation, which shows that the barriers of housing and community is not a simple issue. Discriminatory housing is not only incredibly expansive but continues to build atop itself using the foundation of historical exclusion to only build more and more obstacles. However, my emphasis is not solely on the effects of racial exclusion within housing but also how this history of exclusion affects the neighborhoods Black communities have been relegated to.

Considering Portland's history, even only briefly, one can clearly see the cause and effect cascade of housing policies. As these policies build on each other, racism is only cemented into how the city is developed and planned in many obvious ways, such as the displacement of Black communities through urban renewal, but also in insidious undertones that deeply affect residents. One outcome of housing inequality is one that we had barely touched on throughout the semester and I found is only recently being discussed in housing discourse is the ways in which racist housing practices impact environmental health disproportionally within cities.

One clear example of housing and city planning affecting environmental health are urban heat islands (UHI). UHIs are where urban environments experience different, usually warmer, temperatures compared to surrounding rural environments. The UHI effect is a result of urban land use and development. Certain factors can contribute to the concentration such as, "building density and building height to width ratio, roads and traffic density, building and surface materials whose thermal properties differ from the surrounding rural environment, the use of green space, and sky view factor" (Hart and Sailor, 2008). The most commonly understood example of heat islands is the way in which asphalt absorbs heat and can retain it for long periods of time.

However, urban spaces do not experience heat islands homogeneously. All the factors that contribute to heat retention can also be manipulated through urban development to mitigate the heat island effect. A prominent way to mitigate heat is the use of green spaces. Green spaces are environments such as parks or golf courses where the land use of that area is characterized by vegetation rather than built structures. I argue that access to green spaces is dictated by historical investment, or lack thereof, influenced by legacies of redlining and the policies built on redlining's effects. Communities of color have been historically divested from by the city meaning the residents of these neighborhoods were the primary actors in constructing community. However, building community is restricted by access to land control and resources, since greenspaces are determined by either the city or private landownership the ability to create greenspaces is severely obstructed.

As I mentioned previously, there are a number of factors that contribute to the UHI effect but I chose greenspaces due to its connection with both housing value as well as environmental racism. Here I choose to define greenspaces as two options, (1) local parks provided as a public good (2) privately owned open spaces such as golf courses or private school grounds. I focus specifically on parks being provided by the city as a public good.

There are two ways greenspaces relate to historical housing inequity. The first being that greenspaces that are offered by the city as a public good were specifically placed in desirable areas and or contributed to making the area more desirable and thereby inaccessible to Black residents. What is often unnoticed is the economic impact that parks bring to a community which complicated their definition as a public good i.e. a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society. While the park itself is not constructed for the purpose of profit it does, however, offer indirect value in terms of increasing surrounding property value.

People are prepared to pay more to live close to natural park areas. The enhanced value of these properties results in their owners paying higher property taxes to governments (Crompton, 2000).

Despite parks providing indirect profit in terms of property value, the initial development of parks still correlates with them being a public good as they still require a form of investment from the city. As we saw throughout Portland's history, Black communities have been continually divested from or in the case of urban renewal, suddenly invested in prompting Black displacement. Because of this divestment, investment in public goods such as parks were prioritized in 'desirable' neighborhoods that were always designated as zone 1 and green graded areas. This can result in a positive feedback loop in which 'desirable areas' are invested in ways such as public parks which leads to an increase in property value leading to more investment. Below I provide a map displaying HOLC redlining grades in comparison to greenspaces, through this you can see the higher concentrations of greenspaces are placed in higher graded areas.

This brings us to the question of whether or not, greenspaces, heat islands, and racial demographics are correlating. The short answer is: yes, see below

Voelkel, Hellman, Sakuma, and Shandas offer a comprehensive analysis of socio-demographic status and its correlation to urban heat vulnerability in which their research shows:

significant relationships between heat exposure and populations that are low-income, non-white, minimally-educated, or poor English speakers; all of these socio-demographic groups, as well as those living in affordable housing, experience higher temperatures than their wealthy, white, educated, English-speaking counterparts (Voelkel et al., 2018)

Briefly, these researchers examined three things in relation to socio-demographic status: exposure to urban heat, amount of central air conditioning units, and access by foot to heat refuges. Firstly, the researchers provide numbers showing level of exposure to urban heat within the context of an urban heat event specifically, "60,000 temperature readings during one day of an extreme heat event on 25 August 2014"(Voelkel et al., 2018). They then compare exposure to heat change with demographic factors, here it is shown that White and elderly residents are experiencing lower temperatures during the heat wave whereas POC (people of color) experienced a higher temperature exposure during the same day. Secondly, its is shown that White populations have the highest relationship with the amount of air conditioning units per area. Meaning that in the event of a heat wave or temperature changes, White residents are more likely to have access to AC whereas POC residents are not. Finally they assess the ability to access heat refuges, which is surprisingly the only time in which Black residents have a strong correlation. However one chooses to, even selectively, process this information, it is undeniable that heat islands disproportionally affect neighborhoods that were given undesirable grades. While Black residents have the highest positive correlation to access, by foot, to heat refuge, this does not negate nor outweigh the previous data that shows that POC residents still disproportionally experience higher temperatures within their neighborhoods. Access to heat refuge is not a lasting solution to this endemic issues of heat islands.

This study reveals the strong correlation between Black residents exposure to higher temperatures, which when considered with the history of Portland planning shows that this correlation is not a matter of coincidence. As I have shown throughout this piece, housing and city planning policies maintain a foundation of racist legacy rooted in its first zoning laws and redlining policies. However, this inequity is most definitely not a relic of the past but instead shows itself in a number of ways in present day. While environmental activists acknowledge and work against injustice, I argue that it is most important to understand that these cases of environmental racism are not isolated circumstances but instead are a small piece of an incredible large and complex infrastructure that is deeply rooted into the ways in which we live and interact with our lived environment. The ways in which consequences of this infrastructure show themselves can be vividly apparent or unassuming especially to those that come from a place of privilege. I use this case study of UHIs in Portland to not only expose an often under-investigated form of racism but also to bring to light the ways in which these events are a result of generations of layered injustice that requires analysis and dismantling in order to create a lasting change.