"If there was one event that has defined Portland in the last 25 years, it was killing the Mt. Hood Freeway. It gave us strong neighborhoods, proud schools and MAX—it not only saved 1,750 households in Southeast Portland from the wrecking ball, it also established Portland's philosophy of urban livability--the idea that cities are for people, not just for commerce and cars."-Willamette Week

Our History-Making Waves in SE Portland since 1968

Imagine that a six-mile long, eight-lane highway dissected Southeast Portland, connecting the Marquam Bridge to Gresham. The story of how this highway was prevented is also the story of how Southeast Uplift began and is one of the events that inspired the creation of Portland's neighborhood association system.

Southeast Uplift was created in 1968 as a program designed to help cities deal with inner-city problems. However the true passion that brought together SE neighbors began in 1969 when two citizens, Al and Kayda Clark, a couple in their mid-thirties organized with other SE neighbors to resist against a freeway that was proposed to be built through mostly residential SE Portland. "The area slated for paving was labeled a "poverty pocket" by the federal government: 68 percent of the families had annual incomes of less than $10,000". (WW)

Between 1969 and 1974, the Clarks joined with SE neighbors to work tirelessly to halt the Mt. Hood Freeway, a project that would have cost $500 million in federal funding. The Clarks worked to form the Southeast Legal Defense Fund and took the matter to court, claiming that proper procedures had not been used to select the project. The suit took 4 years to wind its way through the court system until 1974 when the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the citizens.

Stopping the Mt. Hood freeway also halted the development of a complex grid of connecting freeways that would have cut across the Portland Metro Area. "But the legacy of the stillborn freeway would prove to be psychological as much as political. It showed that a city could save its neighborhoods, even inner-city neighborhoods, from the ravages of the internal combustion engine. It showed that Portland was a city with an open political system, not controlled by huge businesses like Boeing or General Motors. And it signaled that citizens could stand up to seemingly inevitable social forces if they simply decided to do something about it." (WW)

However, the 500 million slated for the freeway did not simply fall out of Portland's pocket. Neighborhood activists found a way for this money be used for alternative transportation projects across the Portland Metro area. "The freeway was officially dead, but its remains would prove powerful fertilizer. The federal money originally earmarked for it would go to build the transit mall, eastside MAX and a host of neighborhood and suburban transportation projects, such as Eastman Parkway in Gresham and Cornell Road in Hillsboro. "(WW)

Successful opposition to the proposed Mt. Hood Freeway in southeast Portland, along with similar projects around Portland inspired citizens to organize Neighborhood Associations, so that citizens have more of a voice in policy and planning deliberation. The Neighborhood Association system was developed in 1974. Southeast Uplift then became a district coalition office for Neighborhood Associations in SE Portland.

Information for this article was adapted from

^{1) Steve Johnson's research on Civic Life in Portland. For more information visit homepage.mac.com/stevenreedjohnson}

^{2) WW: "Highway to Hell: Nothing shaped Portland so much as the murder of the Mt. Hood Freeway," Bob Young, Willamette Week 25th Anniversary Issue}