Against my better judgement, I just went and had a look... Almost all of the comments are in support of taller buildings. Even some of the usual suspects, that typically complain about everything, are saying that we need to build up... I'm surprised.
Unfortunately, I went through them and found too many that were soul crushing. I don't understand the depth of the animosity and borderline rage toward tall buildings. Portland is one of 483 municipalities in Maine. It is really the only of those 483 municipalities, where realistically tall(ish) buildings might be proposed in any quantity and they are limited to a tiny share of the city's land area. And the reality is, in the great scheme of things, these buildings are not particularly tall. But if tall(ish) buildings are so triggering to you, move to one of the 99.9% of places in Maine where you won't have a tall building in sight.
As a form of therapy, I'm going to rebut some of the comments...
Look at the data, then think it through. High buildings have a small footprint in square feet but leave a huge swarth of ugly where there once was beauty.
Beauty is subjective, but I promise you that if we "look at the data," we will find that a tall building of say 100 housing units is much much less harmful to the land, much less harmful to the natural environment than a sprawling neighborhood of 100 mcmansions.
F' growth. Will mean my property tax will increase in tandem with so-called growth.
Yes, brilliant. We need to be a city in decline. People need to move out to free us from the horrors of growth. Then we can demolish many of the buildings and have more sunlight! This will do wonders for our tax base.
High rises? go the to Bronx or Chicago and see what happened to "affordable housing gone high" . Crime. Depression, Poverty. Depression. Depression (no sun no fun).
There's really no coherent argument in this jumble of words which unfortunately lacks any semblance of sentence structure, but I do get a kick out of the individual words at the end followed by periods, the three references to 'depression' to really drive home the point, and the fun use of rhymes. It's like a poetry beat or song lyrics.
Great cities like Paris and Washington DC understand the value of human scale buildings that do not block out the sun, harm birds migrations, and turn streets into canyons like the Commercial Street.
Yes, Commercial Street is fucking hell. There are buildings against the street, pedestrians, and even a few buildings that are five stories (in a city)!!! This is not acceptable and it's killing the birds. Except I'm pretty sure that DC and Paris have buildings that are much taller than you'll find on Commercial Street.
A walkable city needs streets free of wind gusts. I suspect the author of this article doesn’t walk down Cumberland Ave much by Franklin Towers, where I once picked up an elderly woman and her walker blown down while trying to cross to the Cathedral. 201 Federal St. may make walking near by something to avoid due to both wind gusts and shadows.
The one weakness of this argument, i.e. tall buildings=wind/shadows=not walkable places, is that the most walkable places in the country tend to be clustered around tall buildings. The harbor is also windy but pedestrians can't seem to get enough of it. But clearly walking down the strip by the Maine Mall, where it's open and there's plenty of sun, is a much more pleasant and walkable experience than the terrors of Downtown, with it's tall buildings and shadows and evil wind.
YOU did NOT "discover us". WE are NOT a lost gem, to exploit. WE cherish our views and always have and have proatively worked to preserve and protect them, for ALL of us , not some of us. WE saw you coming an knew what we had. It is NOT an accident; It is a PLAN--LONG TERM PLAN. Long before you were even born in many cases . WE knew our value before you "discovered Us '. We are NOT country bumpkins and don't mistake us for it . WE control and manage our growth; NO ONE else. Always have. It is why we are NIMBY . It is in our nature This town is OURS .
Well, where to start, it's not the world's best grammar and the frequent use of words in all caps is distracting, but I think the central, and very angry, argument is -- We were here longer than you, GTFO. We own this place. We are proud NIMBYs. You are garbage. GTFO. Except, nobody owns Portland. And unless you hail from Native American ancestry, you probably weren't here first. You were welcomed by people in Portland when this Town was a little less hyperbolic about growth. We can have a great city and still make room for new people to enjoy it.
The height of a cathedral, church, Capitol building or City Hall, soaring conspicuously above all other structures used to signify the pre-eminence of God or of our government institutions in our lives. Now what is pre-eminently worshiped is capital, commerce and finance and that is reflected in how their structures now tower above everything else.
Two arguments here: 1.) The new people moving to Portland are evil Atheists; 2.) The timeless NIMBY argument that an evil developer will make a profit off of this development -- people how do you think the economy functions? I don't think there are many places left in the world without at least a somewhat capitalist approach to land development. Maybe North Korea? You might be more happy there.
A few of the 49 comments.
