Portland Bucks National Trend, Integrates Income Groups

"The residential mingling of haves and have-nots can be traced to a state land-use rule put in place nearly a quarter-century ago, local developers and planners say. Called the metropolitan housing rule, it required every suburban city and county to zone for a lot of apartments. When those apartments went up fast in the 1990s, it enabled moderate- and low-income people to live practically all over, not only in Portland or the most bedraggled suburbs. That sets Portland apart from most metropolitan areas, says Myron Orfield, author of 'American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality.'"