Cycling Portland!

Pedalling the city here was soo much nicer than in Auckland! While there is certainly still a car culture, there is also this thing called courtesy to both pedestrians and cyclists. I felt quite safe even on really busy roads, except when I inadvertently rode on the wrong side of the road... hope I get to grips with that before I drive in Toronto!

After fresh raspberries on my breakfast cereal eaten in the sun at Arif and Kevlina's house (see above :-)), I headed across and down a few blocks (from 5606 to 1823) to meet Albert Kaufman for coffee. Albert is a man not short of an idea who is currently promoting his 'farm my yard' initiative- where urban land owners encourage those who want to grow food but who don't have space to do so to farm their yards. In the spirit of many of those I have met so far its about doing it and doing it together locally, not just talking about it or doing it on the quiet.


There are loads of things going on like this it seems. There are many signs in front yards announcing what is going on and a culture of claiming public space, such leaving portable basket ball hoops permanently by the roadside for children's street basketball:

It's taken quite some time to get to this point though, Portland in the 1980s was quite a different scene I am told. The current city culture started back then though, as Mark Lakeman said later in the afternoon today "everything is built on what has gone before, and everything that has gone before is necessary for what is today and yet to come". As much as people here understand 'doing', they also have a very good sense of  the organic way things evolve, and local place is one of the key anchors or identity and drivers of change it seems.


It may have been the adoption of an urban growth boundary in 1979 that catalysed the city into what it is today but the way one thing led to another has also been very much about who the city has attracted, and how they have developed their local culture themselves. This is not universal, of course. In some streets there are manicured lawns on one side and and wild flower or vege gardens on the other.

Juxtaposition again. And heart too - there is a lot of caring and sharing here (in the parts we visited at least). For example, I am told that most adults living here were not born here. Kasandra Griffen (one of the co-founders of Depave) said today that people come here deliberately to live life in different ways that connect them with the place and the other people who share it. Like has attracted like and this sort of motivation has been critical, it would seem, for Portland's development as both a series of interconnected local places and as a series of interconnected cultures. In this context people have come up with all sorts of complementary ideas and actions relevant to their area and way of life and they have got on and made them come true! See this in action in one of Depave's early projects here. 


To at least some degree, it has also meant that the city systems have been able to move with these efforts, although sometimes not without some respectful rule-breaking! (see City Repair for an example of a City Hall ordinance that allows intersections to be painted for example)


Apparently Portland is a relatively inexpensive place to live too, which allows people to live differently and and that attracts people who like to live a little outside the box. This may well be another reason why people stay too - price was a key reason families left San Francisco we were told. Even so, as we saw yesterday, Portland's neighbourhoods are gentrifying which means some people will be being pushed out. What happens next is anyone's guess. But it's a safe bet that it will be creative!


As Albert said this morning, "it's early days yet".


Denise