Downtown Eugene: Brainstorming Solutions

 

Screenshot from the October 25, 2022 Downtown Priorities and Projects brainstorm session.

At the invitation of the City of Eugene, I participated last month in a group conversation intended to brainstorm solutions to some of downtown Eugene’s most vexing challenges. The conversation was part of an ongoing effort to develop a list of priorities to guide future improvements in the city center. The Eugene city council will consider this list and identify the most pressing among them. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a practicable strategy and implement impactful projects to address the myriad problems afflicting downtown.
 
A council work session back in June kicked off the Downtown Priorities and Projects process. Since then, city staff conducted a series of interviews with a representative cross-section of downtown stakeholders, before proceeding with online and in-person focus group brainstorming sessions (I opted for the online meeting). Next is a public open-house event scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 15 from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, at the Farmers Market Pavilion. This will be an opportunity for all community members to help inform the prioritization process. The City of Eugene also intends to launch an online survey to collect additional input.
 
Downtown Eugene’s problems have proven intractable; if anything, they have worsened in recent years despite the City’s best efforts to make the area more attractive and accessible to all Eugene residents. The vision has always been a downtown that is safe, clean, vibrant, diverse, and filled with activity 24/7. The problem is people perceive it as unsafe, dirty, and largely deserted. Those who do visit often fail to see a reason to go back, as what they find too readily affirms their negative preconceptions and biases. News of downtown shooting incidents, the visibility of the tragically indigent, the unpredictable behavior of individuals in need of mental health care, and vacant storefronts reinforce their prejudices. The pandemic did not help things as it further reduced downtown foot traffic, prompting the shuttering of some businesses (most recently, Sizzle Pie closed its doors in September and Crumb Together called it quits just last week).
 
The City of Eugene wants downtown to become the community gathering place it once was many years ago. Toward this objective, it has commissioned numerous studies over the years and adopted successive plans. Unfortunately, the scope of the numerous challenges facing downtown exceeds the ability of local government to address alone. The plight of the homeless—exacerbated by the affordable housing crisis—is a case in point.
 
The City can only do so much to tackle the problem of homelessness as a means to cure the extent to which it ails downtown. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has promoted, and some local governments (including Lane County) have mandated, a “Housing First” policy. This policy seeks to immediately house anyone without preconditions (such as sobriety). Advocates argue providing housing first arms people with the best odds to successfully attend to their serious physical or mental health conditions, battle their additions, or find steady employment because they are not simultaneously dealing with homelessness.
 
Critics of Housing First contend such programs have largely failed to reduce drug addiction, address mental illness, and improve general well-being, and have not reduced overall rates of homelessness. They instead exclusively favor a “Continuum of Care” approach, wherein there is a communitywide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness by promoting access to a coordinated series of services intended to help individuals address their unique needs.
 
Both purely Housing First and Continuum of Care models have their downsides, including their relative effectiveness at increasing housing stability and cost.
 
Downtown Eugene’s problems are complex. Many of these problems are rooted in issues that are fundamentally global in nature, such as the impact of remote working, the commodification of housing, rising inflation, demographic trends, and political gridlock. As I said, there is only so much a municipal government can do. Additionally, we should be wary of relying too heavily upon imperfect planning tools shaped by imperfect, albeit well-intentioned, human beings. The dynamics of development and the factors that contribute to achieving a vibrant downtown citizens will point to with pride are multifaceted and systemic in nature.
 
Eugene has too often lacked popular consensus on what its downtown should be. Investing intellectual and monetary capital in downtown Eugene is crucial, but how the city expends that capital will be critical. When it comes to prioritizing issues and identifying a set of projects in response to them, I believe incentivizing the type of development we want for our downtown—as opposed to doing nothing at all—is one means to achieve the best possible outcomes. The key will be identifying exactly what this development should be.
 
I plan to attend the November 15 open house at the Farmers Market Pavilion and further offer my input. If you are a Eugene resident and care about your downtown, I hope you will do the same.