Portland, Oregon
Economy
Demographics
Race and Ethnicity
Education, Households, and Income
Homelessness
Government
Municipal Government
The government of the City of Portland consists of an elected City Council which consists of the Mayor, four Commissioners, and an auditor. Each of these officials is elected city-wide for a four-year term. The Commissioners, who are elected city-wide, oversee portfolios, termed bureaus, which can consist of City departments and programs, assigned to them by the Mayor. As of this writing, the next Portland municipal election is scheduled for May 15, 2018.
Additionally, Portland is organized into 95 officially recognized neighborhoods. These neighborhoods and the city government as linked via Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement and the (volunteer) City-funded neighborhood associations of each of the neighborhoods.
The neighborhood associations are further collected into seven geographically-grouped district coalitions (with some exceptions) through which the City's funding flows.
Regional Government
The Greater Portland area (including the City proper) is further administered as a region by Metro, the United States' only directly elected metropolitan planning organization. Metro is a chartered organization that was put in place via state-wide ballot measure in the late 1970s. Metro's structure includes a council-president elected region-wide, an auditor (also elected region-wide) and six councilors elected by district. Portland is represented by four of Metro's districts/councilors (the organization serves twenty-five municipalities in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas Counties): Districts 1, 2, 5 and 6.
Metro's mandate covers mapping, coordinating urban development, transportation, and land use planning, managing natural resources, and solid waste management. Metro owns and operates the Portland Center for Performing Arts, the Oregon Zoo, the Oregon Convention Center, and the Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center (aka the Portland Expo Center).
Metro oversees a regional masterplan (the 2040 Growth Concept) that as of this writing (2017) can be characterized as focused on increased density, transit-oriented development.
County Government
Multnomah County, in which Portland sits and is the county seat, manages many of Portland's services. Washington and Clackamas counties also form part of the Greater Portland metropolitan area.
Much of the legislation that relates to housing, transportation, development and land use in Portland is determined at the state level, in the state legislature in Oregon's capital, Salem.