Portland Parks & Recreation (what old-timers call the "Parks Bureau") has proposed a master plan for the twelve South Park Blocks, the strip of greenery that stretches from Jackson Street north to Salmon Street, where the Mausoleum Club stops further northward progress. The plan calls for replacing the stately elm trees that now define the Park Blocks with a mix of other trees.
Critics (and there are many, including former Parks Commissioner Mike Lindberg, and Professor Bogdanski) differ on whether the Bureau wants to replace the elms over the next several decades as they age out, or intends to cut them down in short order and then replant. The Bureau says that "many of them are reaching the end of their designed lifespans" (Master Plan, page 9), and it proposes a new design for the Park Blocks that it says "improves the park's resiliency to impacts of climate change; adds art, design elements, and planting treatments that reflect more diverse cultural histories and identities; addresses existing accessibility challenges; creates more flexible, safe, and inclusive spaces; and converts underused street space for park users." (Master Plan, page 11).
The plan has drawn most of its fire for its proposal to remove many of the elms, whether by normal aging or with mechanical assistance. The plan has two other failings, either of which will justify the City Council in sending the plan back to the Parks Bureau with an earnest plea to do better.
The first failing is that under the guise of addressing "existing accessibility challenges" to what is, after all, a collection of flat and nearly level parks (the average grade from north to south is only 3%), all wheelchair-accessible, the Bureau proposes to add hardscape and reduce the earthen area. The second failing, related to the first, is that the Bureau proposes to add clutter to the blocks. I'm using "clutter" broadly to mean things that aren't related to any function of a greenspace park. For example, the Bureau wants to add an interpretive display about Vanport (the temporary wartime city that occupied a site near Delta Park until the Vanport Flood of 1948) to the Park Blocks because Portland State University began in 1946 as the Vanport Extension Center in Vanport, moving to the former Lincoln High School building in 1952. It's history worth commemorating, and Portland State University has done so on campus, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Park Blocks.
The Bureau estimates the project to cost $2 million to $4 million per block. Consider whether the Bureau could do more to make greenery accessible to Portland, and resolve some equity issues that have festered for decades, if it devoted the money for even one block to adding street trees in the least-shaded and most neglected areas of Portland, for example, in St. Johns and outer Northeast. If the Parks Bureau wants to be woke, it should start in the areas that need its help the most.