ABSTRACT
Values change over time, but respect for the natural environment has remained a strong theme in Portland, influencing how we plan and design the built environment. Priorities have been to safeguard farm and forest land. In the 1970s, landmark planning legislation broadcast to the nation that Oregon was a place where environmental values are vigorously upheld and are further championed by civic organizations. Livability values shared by many Portlanders relate in some way to the forests, mountains, and rivers that define the natural environment around them. Diversity has become a politically laden word meaning demographically mixed, but in a larger context it is about range of choices in everything imaginable. In that case, health and diversity are complementary; a healthy city can become so only if it offers a diversity of opportunities and choices, enabling many paths to physical, fiscal, and social health and well-being.
