There was once a time where any physical record of the urban growth boundary could have been wiped out by an inadvertent spark.
That planning-world nightmare scenario was part of a conversation Friday morning among data researchers gathered to celebrate Metro's Research Center, which crunches the numbers for the planners at Portland's regional government.
The outline of the urban growth boundary didn't exist in code, nor on any central map, said Ethan Seltzer, an urban studies professor at Portland State University and one of three panelists at Friday morning's discussion.
Instead, Seltzer said, sectional maps were kept at Metro, and were updated with Wite-Out and pens. Seltzer was discussion the Regional Land Information System, a database that tracks information about properties around the Portland area.
Metro staff said more than 220 people attended the seminar, held at the Oregon Convention Center, as part of an open house for various data collection and distribution systems.
Much of the discussion from the panel, which also included Sheila Martin, director of PSU's Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies and Jennifer Dill, an urban studies professor at PSU, focused on many of the same talking points Metro has been pushing lately – accountability, transparency and perspective.
"Don't sell your model as the oracle," Martin said. "Models and data don't tell us what the right thing is to do."
Joe Cortright wasn't buying it. During a question-and-answer session, Cortright, an economist and frequent critic of Metro, said the region is ignoring data and wanted to know about accountability in using data appropriately.
"Where is the accountability to make sure the data is driving decisions, rather than decision makers forcing filtering of the data?" Cortright asked.
Seltzer said there's nothing that can force decisions based on good data.
"The last thing I want to do is replace the Metro Council with a row of laptop computers or random number generators," Seltzer said. "What do the decision makers need to do to better consume what we're telling them?"
Part of the presentation was about the Greater Portland Pulse, a recently-launched clearinghouse for information acquired across the Portland region.
One participant asked about keeping data consistent across state lines.
"It's a challenge," Martin said. "We actually had set a condition on the indicators we were going to use that they had to be available in the four-county region or we wouldn't use them. There were certain areas where that was just impossible."
Education, she said, was an example of that.
"It's just irresponsible to compare educational results on the Oregon side with the results on the Washington side, when data is collected in different ways," she said.
Note: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect department hosting the open house; it was hosted by Metro's Research Center. It also had an incorrect estimate on the number of attendees at the open house; according to Metro Research Center director Mike Hoglund, more than 220 people attended. This version has been corrected.