Portland: what’s not to love?
Since I started dreaming of moving to Portland, Oregon and settling into a little studio apartment of my own, with Basho, and connecting with the local Zen center there as a “lay practitioner,” I’ve received heaps of emails and several phone calls from friends saying, “Oh yes! Much better plan!” It turns out my idea of living in a Zen center was a source of nattering worry to those who care about me but are kind enough to hold their tongues and let me do whatever the hell it is that I’m going to do. This is not to say that I won’t still do the worrying thing. Green Gulch Farm is probably the single most beautiful place in this country. Upaya Zen Center also occupies some gorgeous land and does good work. I’m still going spend a week at each of those centers, doing whatever they ask me to do. But this Portland idea is growing on me.
Portland actually does promise a rose garden. It has, in addition to green walking trails all over the city, a decent art museum, libraries that claim to have over two million volumes, the brick and mortar home of Powell’s Bookstore, a GLBT magazine and a thriving queer community, an occasional glimpse of Mt. Hood, and it’s one of the few cities in the US celebrated on CarfreeUSA, a blog that explores alternatives to living with cars. Car Free Times had this to say about Portland back in 1997:
Pedestrians’ Progress in Portland
Portland, Oregon, has made major strides in furthering the interests of the pedestrian. Portland demolished a 4-lane freeway that once ran along the banks of the Willamette River. The freeway has been replaced by a two-mile park, and it is now quiet enough that the Portland Symphony gives concerts in the park. Free transit is provided in the 13 by 26 block downtown.
“Pedestrian’s Progress” John McKinney, LA Times
(quoted in a news group).
The issue date is probably mid-April 1997.
Portland has been in the forefront of American progress in taming the automobile. The pattern of constructing freeways along urban rivers was very common in the 50s and 60s and led to wholesale slaughter of previously beautiful waterfronts. It was done because it was the only cheap way to acquire rights-of-way for urban freeways.
Speaking of the Portland Symphony, it looks pretty good, and then there’s the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, a Lesbian Choir, art galleries out the wazoo, and a bustling progressive political community with so much going on that I can’t even pick links to include here.
There’s a web site devoted to Multicultural Portland, and there’s a Gay and Gay-friendly business association. Every elected official is some kind of Democrat or is left of the Democratic Party. So what’s not to love?
I’ve now listed myself on FIVE waiting lists for housing in Portland in complexes where a person 62 years old or older can pay 30% of their income for an apartment (all utilities paid), no matter what their income is; where they can take their cat or dog; where there’s a computer center for residents, so it isn’t necessary to own one; and where there is easy access to all the riches the city offers.
Meanwhile I’m still here in the present, in Sugar Land; moving this coming Friday to Houston; and the truth is that Houston has many of these civilizational wonders (in the area of the arts, anyway; it’s hard to find progressive politics here), but I don’t avail myself of them more often than once every month or two. Part of the reason for that is my job; part of it is inertia; part of it is that I’ve always felt a little alienated from Texas. Maybe it’s the cowboy image. Maybe it’s the visibility, materialism, and corruption of conservative politicians like Tom Delay. Maybe it’s the concentration of Bible-thumping evangelicals. Maybe it’s the flat, swampy geography and the intense heat and humidity of the Houston area. It’s up to each of us to make a life as rich as we can, wherever we are. But sometimes a geographical cure does work. Sometimes it’s right to give the Goldmund in us range to head out on another quest; sometimes it’s helpful not to practice the acceptance and the inward focus of the Narcissus in us. The trick is knowing when it’s time for each one.
Tags: Portland OR, Where to plant myself
Kendall
I agree with you on the geographical cure, and also on bringing home with us wherever we go. : ) (for better or worse!)
Portland (P-Town as some call it) is indeed a wonderful city Kendall. I’ve grown to truly enjoy it, and I live about an hour south of it, and am but a transplant from the East Coast. It is green, it is progressive, it is not too big, not too small, with varied and interesting neighborhoods, it is close to the coast, close to the mountains, and more and more diverse and valuing of that diversity. It feels like an oasis from some other parts of the state which are much more reactionary. Still plenty of cars and driving (lots of bridges), but its support for biking, and the ethos of the people in the city is very enviro-friendly and ecologically-conscious. None of that is to say that it does not have its downs, its poverty, its crime, or other big city issues, but in my estimation, having lived in New York City, and Washington DC, and visited L.A., and Miami, Portland is indeed a world apart from such places.
We just spent a wonderful day at Washington Park in Portland, visited the Rose Garden, had a picnic, walked, went to the playground, then to Powells, to Nob Hill for a Gelato, and went on a photowalk, and had a blast. In the Summer we take the kids to the water fountains in the city. Recently visited Sauvie Island, went berry picking (that is the thing to do), and saw the “clothing optional” beach there. I have to admit, for an East Coast transplant I have been quite impressed by three West Coast cities: San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. I know Portland best of all those, and my knowledge of it is infinitesimal so tons more to learn.
Let me know if you come to visit!
Best,
N
Never mind the Gay Men’s Chorus etc, I’d be off like a shot to anywhere that even attempted to do something about that curse of modern life and the worst thing ever invented, the automobile ….
If you do decide to move to Portland, keep me posted – send me an email. I’ll be happy to help out any way I can. I live just fifteen minutes away from town. I love Portland.