This week's briefing from City Observatory cuts through the noise of urban policy to expose a startling reality: we are paying hundreds of millions to design bridges we will likely never build, while blaming individual residents for systemic housing failures. Joe Cortright doesn't just list the facts; he reframes the entire conversation around civic waste and the true mechanics of neighborhood change, offering a sharp corrective to the moral panic often directed at new residents.
The Billion-Dollar Bridge That Isn't There
Cortright opens with a damning accounting of the Interstate Bridge project, a multi-decade saga of expenditure without delivery. He writes, "Over the past 20 years, the states of Oregon and Washington have spent nearly half a billion dollars on consultants to design a bridge and freeway expansion across the Columbia River that it increasingly looks like they will never build." This is not merely a story of bureaucratic inefficiency; it is a case study in how public funds can be siphoned off by the planning process itself.
The author highlights a disturbing concentration of power, noting that "More than 40 percent of that money has gone to a single firm, WSP." Furthermore, the leadership of the project has been deeply intertwined with this contractor, as the initiative "has been run by a former WSP employee, Greg Johnson—who has recently announced he is resigning from the post at the end of this year." The financial opacity is equally concerning, with "more than ten percent of the total cost of the project" funneled into communications and public relations firms to "help sell the mega-project." Critics might argue that complex infrastructure requires extensive planning and public buy-in, but the sheer scale of the spending relative to the lack of construction suggests a system that rewards the process of planning over the act of building.
"Over the past 20 years, the states of Oregon and Washington have spent nearly half a billion dollars on consultants to design a bridge and freeway expansion across the Columbia River that it increasingly looks like they will never build."
Reframing Gentrification as Policy Failure
Shifting to the ethics of neighborhood change, Cortright engages with a recent New York Times piece by ethicist Kwame Anthony Appiah to dismantle the idea that individual homebuyers are the villains of gentrification. He writes, "Philosophers have the sometimes-annoying habit of asking what words mean. And 'gentrification' is a big one... It's diagnosis disguised as description." This distinction is crucial. By treating gentrification as a symptom rather than a cause, the narrative shifts from personal morality to structural economics.
Cortright points out that "Rising property values do raise rents and insecurity for tenants; longtime owners gain equity but may struggle with higher taxes." Yet, the data suggests a more nuanced reality: "studies in Philadelphia and elsewhere found that low-income residents of appreciating neighborhoods weren't more likely to move than those elsewhere, and when they did, they didn't necessarily end up in poorer or more distant areas." The author argues that we are misdiagnosing the problem, noting that "Increasingly, researchers see 'gentrification' less as a cause than a symptom of housing scarcity and the lag between wages and housing costs." This framing is powerful because it relieves the burden of guilt from individuals while placing the onus squarely on the administration and policymakers who fail to address the underlying shortage. A counterargument worth considering is that even if displacement rates are lower than assumed, the cultural erasure of a neighborhood remains a valid concern for long-term residents, regardless of the economic mechanics.
The Economics of Density and Zoning
On the solution front, Cortright highlights Michael Wiebe's proposal to reform inclusionary zoning, moving away from unfunded mandates that stifle construction. He explains that current programs "act as de facto tax on new construction, and there is strong evidence that they reduce housing starts, constrain housing supply and tend to drive up rents, which worsens affordability problems." The proposed fix is elegant in its logic: "when IZ is funded by a property tax exemption (with no density bonus), we have to give up tax revenue to get subsidized homes. But when we allow more density, we actually benefit from higher market-rate supply and lower prices (and more property tax revenue)."
Cortright emphasizes the core insight that "Housing is a benefit, not a cost." The argument posits that "through density bonuses we can get both: lower market-rate prices and more subsidized housing (funded by surplus land value)." This challenges the zero-sum game mentality that dominates urban planning. However, the author concedes a significant limitation: "The density bonus has value only because the existing zoning artificially constrains supply." If zoning were already optimal, the leverage of a density bonus would vanish. This admission underscores that the real enemy is restrictive land-use policy, not the developers themselves.
"There's no tradeoff, relative to the baseline of suboptimal restrictive zoning."
Civic Renewal and the Power of Assembly
Finally, the piece turns to the human element of urban life, drawing on the reflections of former Congressman Earl Blumenauer regarding Portland's resilience. Cortright notes that Blumenauer highlighted the importance of "citizen participation and the civic commons, especially in light of the recent Trump Administration efforts to brand Portland as 'war-ravaged.'" The administration's narrative of chaos is directly contradicted by the reality of community action. As Blumenauer observes, "You just saw some 40,000 people show up in downtown Portland, and it was in a lighthearted but determined effort." The author captures the spirit of this movement: "Frog suits and naked bike rides notwithstanding, my community demonstrated an interest in showing solidarity, being cooperative, and encouraging one another." This section serves as a reminder that the vitality of a city is not found in its infrastructure projects or zoning codes alone, but in the willingness of its citizens to reclaim public space. The argument here is that "Demonstrations that bring people back downtown in huge numbers are a key part of revitalizing our center cities and capitalizing on the traditional role of urban streets as civic spaces where democracy shows itself."
Bottom Line
Cortright's strongest contribution is his relentless focus on the structural over the personal, exposing how policy failures in zoning and infrastructure planning create the very crises we blame on individuals. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its reliance on second-best solutions like density bonuses, which, while pragmatic, may struggle against entrenched political opposition to changing zoning codes. Readers should watch for how local governments respond to the data on inclusionary zoning, as the shift toward funded, density-based models could redefine the next decade of urban development.