The Limits of New Urbanism in Portland's Orenco Station

A decade ago, writing in the New York Times, Alan Ehrenhalt called the planned community of Orenco Station one of the most promising models of New Urbanism in the United States. The neighborhood has all the tools to merit the claim. It's social, with high-density, mixed-use buildings and loads of public space. It's walkable, with an extensive network of sidewalks that makes the town center never more than 20 minutes away. And it's transit friendly, located about a half hour west of Portland on the Westside light rail line. So much so, wrote Ehrenhalt, that's it's even possible to live there without a car.

Ten years later, Orenco Station has lived up to much of its urbanist hype, but certainly not this last hope. In a survey-driven review of Orenco's successes and failures, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Urbanism, sociologist Bruce Podobnik of Lewis and Clark College in Portland concludes that while the neighborhood has achieved a heightened sense of community and successfully encouraged walking, most residents still rely on the single-occupancy vehicle — not mass transit — as their primary mode of commute. (The following quotes and statistics are from a version of the research [PDF] presented at a professional meeting.)