From Portland to Seattle..culture and coffee :-)

Starting the day with a walk in the sun and coffee is never a bad thing I think. In Portland I misread my directions and headed in completely the wrong direction which made the walk quite a lot longer than anticipated. However,it meant I got to see a bit more and the coffee at the end was worth it!

The Random Order Coffee House on Alberta is a fabulous local cafe and meeting Katy and Mollie there was a treat - we had a fantastically inquisitive conversation that epitomised heart, and honesty, passion and curiosity too. a perfect match for good coffee!

http://portlandoregon.com/Random-Order-Coffeehouse-Bakery-Vernon-1

Let me tell you a bit about it: Katy coordinates the NE Neighbourhood Coalition and Mollie is interning there. The Coalition fits within the Portland Office of Neighbourhood Involvement (est. 1974! Good things take time!!) which promotes a culture of civic engagement. This has contributed to the local 'will do' cultures we are seeing around us I think. These cultures are not invisible to the locals either; conversations describe a mix of expectations, rights and responsibilities that influence how things happen as much as what happens. Things are expected to be done in participatory ways and that is often one of the key reasons people move here. Having a local government system that supports and possibly even relies on active citizen participation (they know their buck can go further and for longer this way as well as being more relevant and useful too) is also seen as one of the key things that facilitates and supports communities to actively lead their own development and change. And they do- it's a synergistic and enabling 2-way street that helps create neighbourhoods people want! And it makes a lot of sense... as these pics from the web show

http://www.ediblegardenproject.com/egp_blog/neighbourhood-to-nation-portland-food-policy-conference-part-1/  

http://eastpdxnews.com/general-news-features/east-portland-neighborhoods-throw-successful-%E2%80%98national-night-out%E2%80%99-events/

http://www.southeastuplift.org/content/neighborhood-small-grants-program

From what I can see, in Portland the participatory governance model looks a little like constellation governance, with ONI providing a range of "neighbourhood liveability services" through 6 Neighbourhood Centres. Public participation comes through 7 District Coalitions, 95 Neighbourhood Associations and 40 Business Associations through which many many volunteers work to improve land use and transportation issues, organise neighbourhood clean-ups and community celebrations, tackle crime prevention, business district marketing, and more. These seem to be driven by local issues and opportunities more than any priority from the city and there are some cool ways in which local action is supported, such as through access to small grants, for example. 


So here (and this may be being far too simplistic), place-based participatory local cultures and enabling governance are key to communities leading their own development, and that is often focused on improving the physical place. Urban planning meets community led development...this gets tricky, however, when community capacity is not high, when it is stretched and maybe also when what communities want and how they want to achieve it feels risky in some way as Katy, Mollie and I began to talk about... But I had to rush away to make the train to Seattle! Suffice to say a key aspect is building on that which went before, and honouring that too...

It turned out to be a mad mad dash for the train: Kevilina gave it her all with the driving and Dylan put on another burst of speed that I couldn't match as we dashed along the platform but we both got there with (literally) seconds to spare. Whew! While the trip from there was dull for Dylan (save for wifi!) I found it fascinating to absorb the landscape, the snatches of passing conversation, the food offerings...

But those are other stories, and now we are in Seattle and we see more and more fascinating things each day!!!

more soon, Denise