波特兰和“精英城市”

THE city most comparable to Portland might be Vancouver in Canada, reckons Sam Adams, Portland’s mayor, although “we look to Amsterdam, Helsinki and Stockholm” for ideas. Ethan Seltzer, a professor of urban planning in Portland, thinks little Freiburg, in Germany, is the best comparison, with its similar obsessions about recycling, sustainability, public transit and bicycling. Others pick Zurich, which, like Portland, has a view of snow-capped mountains, orderly (bordering on staid) streets with trams, even the same peculiar fondness for direct democracy and tolerance of assisted suicide.

波特兰市长萨姆·亚当斯认为和波特兰最具可比性的城市是加拿大温哥华，然而“我们吸取阿姆斯特丹、赫尔辛基和斯德哥尔摩”这类城市的理念。波特兰市政规划专家伊森·塞尔泽则认为德国小城弗莱堡是最好的样板，同样都对循环利用，可持续发展，公共交通和普及自行车情有独钟。其他人选择苏黎世作为样板，和波特兰具有相同的雪山景致，有轨电车运行在齐整而古板的街道上，甚至都具有偏好直接民主和对安乐死持宽容态度的特征。

This might seem odd for a city on the American West Coast that once was the terminus of the Oregon Trail and has a cowboys-and-rodeos heritage. The locals, in fact, enjoy feeling odd: “Keep Portland weird”, say bumper stickers on the city’s cars, which all seem to be hybrid-electric vehicles. “Keep Portland sanctimonious,” mumble a few contrarians, while others savour the irony that Portland had to steal the slogan from Austin, Texas. But on the whole, Portlanders not only love their city but believe that it is, and ought to be, a model for the rest of America.

这在曾经作为俄勒冈小路终点站并且具有西部牛仔传统的美国西海岸地区显得不同寻常。实际上当地人以与众不同为乐：那些保险杠上贴着“让波特兰继续古怪吧”贴纸的汽车看起来都像是混合动力车。据说波特兰是从得克萨斯州奥斯汀市剽窃来的这个标语，少数反对者嘟囔着：“让波特兰假崇高吧”，其他人却很享受这种感觉。但总的来说，波特兰人不仅热爱他们的城市，而且深信波特兰应该成为而且必将成为美国城市的典范。

Mr Adams has personally contributed by becoming the first (though no longer the only) openly gay mayor of a big American city, and even surviving a recall attempt after a sex scandal (he is now confronting another). Mr Adams has a vision of progressive urbanism: a city where most people cycle or ride the streetcar, recycle what they consume, exist in harmony with nature and live in communities rather than the suburban sprawl of cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix or Atlanta.

亚当斯成为美国大城市中第一个公开同性恋身份的市长（当然现在已经不是唯一一个了），甚至能从一起性丑闻事件引起的罢免案中全身而退（他现在又惹上另一起性丑闻），这位市长为波特兰市的与众不同做出了自己的贡献。亚当斯主张一种先进的城市生活理念：大多数人骑自行车或乘坐有轨电车，循环利用日用消费品，与大自然和谐相处，一起生活在社区中，而不是像洛杉矶、休斯顿、菲尼克斯和亚特兰大的市民那样分散居住在广阔的郊区。

Nature, in fact, is the main draw for the mostly young and single newcomers to this city, almost the fastest-growing on the West Coast, says Joe Cortright, a Portland economist: the ocean to the west; the Cascade mountains to the east; and the high desert beyond them. The vineyards of pinot noir and chardonnay along the Willamette Valley are all within a manageable drive. In Portland, “business casual” means wearing a fleece. The area’s main industrial cluster is “activewear”, led by Nike and Columbia Sportswear and including thousands of smaller companies.

波特兰经济学者乔·科特瑞特说，作为西海岸人口增长最快的城市，实际上吸引大多数单身年轻人移居波特兰的主要因素是自然环境：西面临海，东面是层峦叠嶂的大山，高原戈壁远在山的另一边。开车就可以很方便的到达沿威廉梅特山谷分布的种植黑比诺和霞多丽的葡萄园。在波特兰，“商务休闲装”就是绒衣。这个地区的主要产业集群是“运动装”，以耐克和哥伦比亚运动装为首，还包括数千家规模较小的公司。

The environment is also the main theme of public policy. The biggest force in local politics is not a party (Democrats in effect rule without opposition) but cyclists. The bike lanes are impressive and getting even better now as streets get “bioswales”, patches of turf and shrub that capture and filter storm water and simultaneously calm traffic and separate pedestrians and cyclists from the Priuses. Those who can’t bike are encouraged to use public transport, which is free downtown.

环境问题也是公共政策的主题。当地政坛最主要的力量不是某个政党（民主党实际掌控，在本地没有对手），而是骑自行车的人们。本来就让人印象深刻的自行车专用道，在街道设置了“生态调节沟”（详见文后说明）以后又有了很大改善，“生态调节沟”里的杂草和灌木可以净化涵养雨水并避免暴雨造成的水土流失，同时还起到了平静司机心情，并把行人和自行车同普锐斯分开。为鼓励不方便骑自行车的人乘坐公交车，市区的公交车全部免费。

Mr Adams says Portland’s success is “totally replicable”. But much of it seems to be an unintended consequence of land-use policies dating back to 1973. Back then, Oregon adopted “urban-growth boundaries” (UGBs) to preserve the farmlands that were then the mainstay of Oregon’s economy. Over time the rationale for UGBs changed to “don’t Californicate Oregon”—ie, don’t become Los Angeles, a freeway sprawl with no centre. The result has been unusually compact living, which is in turn easily served by public transport.

亚当斯说波特兰的成功是可以“完全复制”的，但这很大程度上是1973年土地使用政策无心插柳的结果。当时，俄勒冈州实行“城市扩张界限”（UGBs）政策来保护耕地，因为农业当时是俄勒冈州的经济支柱。时过境迁，UGBs存在的理由逐渐变成了“避免俄勒冈州加利福尼亚化”——即不要变成洛杉矶那样，遍布高速公路而没有市中心。结果就是市民居住非常集中，有助于提供公共交通服务。

But cities with sprawling, California-style layouts will find it harder to make people use public transport. Phoenix, for example, has an excellent light-rail system, but it is often empty. And it may be even harder for such cities to get their residents to live more closely together.

但加利福尼亚那种分散型的城市就很难让居民使用公共交通工具。比如菲尼克斯拥有非常好的轻轨系统，但经常空驶。这使得这类城市更难说服居民集中居住。

Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles-based demographer and author, thinks that places like Portland, San Francisco and Boston have become “elite cities”, attractive to the young and single, especially those with trust funds, but beyond the reach of middle-class families who want a house with a lawn. Indeed Portland, for all its history of Western grit, is remarkably white, young and childless. Most Americans will therefore continue to migrate to the more affordable “cities of aspiration” such as Houston, Atlanta or Phoenix, thinks Mr Kotkin. As they do so, they may turn decentralised sprawl into quilts of energetic suburbs with a community feeling.

洛杉矶的人口学家兼作家乔尔·科特金认为波特兰、旧金山和波士顿这样的城市已经成为“精英城市”，对单身年轻人具有吸引力，特别是对那些拥有信托基金，但远没有达到那些拥有带草坪的房子的中产阶级的年轻人而言。拥有西部开拓史的波特兰的确是以白种无子女的年轻人为标志。科特金认为大多数美国人会因此继续向那些负担得起的“梦想城市”移民，比如休斯顿、亚特兰大和菲尼克斯。当他们移民后，可能会慢慢将分散蔓延的居民聚集成为充满活力和社区氛围的城郊生活带。

That is not to belittle Portland’s vision. It is a sophisticated and forward-looking place. Which other city can boast that its main attraction is a bustling independent book store (Powell’s) and that medical students can go from one part of their campus to another by gondola, taking their bikes with them? Other cities will see much to emulate. Minneapolis, for example, this month displaced Portland as Bicycling magazine’s most bike-friendly city (“they got extra points for biking in the snow,” grumble Mr Adams’s staff). Adam Davis of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, a Portland polling firm, says that Oregonians like to consider themselves leaders but also exceptions. They are likely to remain both.

这并不是贬低波特兰模式，波特兰是一个先进的并着眼于未来的地方。而其他城市引以为荣的吸引力是一个生意兴隆的独立书店（鲍威尔连锁书店），还是医学系学生能带着自行车乘坐“贡多拉”（威尼斯的小船）往来于各个校区？其它城市还会有很多效仿，比如明尼阿波利斯，这个月取代波特兰成为《自行车》杂志评选的“自行车最友好城市”（亚当斯的幕僚抱怨“他们在雪地骑车上面获得了加分”）。就职于波特兰的一家民意调查公司Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall的亚当·戴维斯说俄勒冈人喜欢以既是领先者又是特例自我标榜，他们乐于二者兼具。

关于Oregon Trail A historical overland route to the western United States extending from various cities on the Missouri River to the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory. The trail was opened in 1842, and by 1845 more than 3,000 migrants had made the arduous journey. After the coming of the railroad, the trail fell into disuse and was finally abandoned in the 1870s.

关于Bioswales
Bioswales are landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides (less than six percent) and filled with vegetation, compost and/or riprap. The water"s flow path, along with the wide and shallow ditch, are designed to maximize the time water spends in the swale, which aids the trapping of pollutants and silt. Depending upon the geometry of land available, a bioswale may have a meandering or almost straight channel alignment. Biological factors also contribute to the breakdown of certain pollutants.

A common application is around parking lots, where substantial automotive pollution is collected by the paving and then flushed by rain. The bioswale, or other type of biofilter, wraps around the parking lot and treats the runoff before releasing it to the watershed or storm sewer.

Two early examples of scientifically designed bioswales for large scale applications are found in the western United States. In 1996 for Willamette River Park in Portland, Oregon a total of 2330 lineal feet of bioswale was designed and installed to capture pollutant runoff from entering the Willamette River. Intermittent check dams were installed to further abet silt capture, with the outcome of reducing 50 percent of all suspended solids entering the river system (France, 2002).更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

A second example of a large scale designed bioswale is at the Carneros Business Park, Sonoma County, California. Starting in 1997 the project design team worked with the California Department of Fish and Game and County of Sonoma to produce a detailed design to channel surface runoff at the perimeter of a large parking area. Surface runoff consists of building roof runoff, parking lot runoff and overland flow from properties to the north of the project site. A total of two lineal miles of bioswale was designed into the project. The purpose of the bioswale was to minimize runoff contaminants from entering Sonoma Creek. The designed bioswale channel is grass-lined, but almost linear in form. Downslope gradient is approximately four percent and cross-slope gradient is approximately six percent.