I think there's a difference between the vintage homes in the photo above and the, frankly, kind of crappy townhouses they're building now.

Portland has what they call an "Urban Growth Boundary", beyond that point, the city can't expand. So the way you build more housing is you tear out a single family home, and build these:

https://cdn.listingphotos.sierrastatic.com/pics2x/v1693008795/53/53_23042487_01.jpg

So now, you have a structure that's just as crappy as apartments, with no parking, and a bonus of being unaffordable. These are $850K per unit.