The 12-mile Southwest Corridor light rail extension represents a major investment in transportation reliability and safety in the Portland region. Oregon Metro, the City of Portland, and the City of Tigard want to ensure that the corridor remains affordable to current residents and businesses. Metro has relied on MapCraft Labs to help develop a corridor-specific equitable development strategy (SWEDS) to promote housing affordability and economic development.
An important part of SWEDS is developing a robust system for comparing and monitoring key equitable development indicators. The project team used MapCraft Labs to analyze and visualize data on more than 50 individual metrics for 180 subareas along the corridor. The SWEDS Lab was used to develop the methodology for calculating subarea indexes for gentrification, affordable housing, access to opportunity, mobility, and health and security. The resulting SWEDS Index tool allows Oregon Metro to geographically target equitable development tools that are appropriate for the diverse conditions along the corridor.
The final SWEDS Action Plan is nearing completion and will be published in 2019. Moving forward, Metro plans to use the Lab to inform a variety of strategy decisions, from where to invest in new development to how to best mitigate displacement.