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Portland is facing important trends and changes
in the coming years, and visioning can help us build
a cohesive plan to help us succeed. Communities
are often focused on day-to-day problems and challenges.
Without a vision to guide them, a community’s individual
actions may not add up to a unified whole.
The forecasted trends predict that the Portland
region will grow by an additional million people
in the next 25 years. Those people will likely be
more diverse and older on average than those here
today. The industries that once drove our economy
– forest products and transportation – are playing
a smaller role, while high-tech and service jobs
have been employing more of our workers. Global
issues like climate change will impact our region.
How can we ensure that we maintain the aspects of
this city that we hold dear while planning for the
future?
Community visioning is a powerful tool for managing
change. Its primary purpose is to unite the community
around common goals. Through the act of visioning,
whole communities identify what they love most about
their cities, so that those elements can be preserved
and enjoyed by future generations. Visioning can
also help communities reach agreement on their biggest
challenges, how the choices we make might affect
our future, and how we can balance these pressures
in the face of change. Visioning projects give local
government leaders direction on where the community
wants to be in the future. Oregon cities have been
at the forefront of a growing trend towards using
visioning to set priorities for a community. Cities
like Gresham, Corvallis, Hillsboro and Bend have
completed visioning projects over the past decade,
and the impacts on their communities have been far-reaching.
Over 15 years have passed since Portland’s government
and our community last engaged in a “big picture”
look at the future of our city, 1991’s Portland
Future Focus. Since then, Portland has experienced
significant demographic shifts, a rise in housing
costs and continued growth. Many new Portlanders
were not living here when our community last envisioned
its future. Portland is ripe for a reevaluation
of its values and direction.
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