My election day began with a meeting of a group I was recently asked to join, the NE STEM/STEAM coalition in Portland, Oregon. The group’s mission (I paraphrase) is to help students from communities of color gain access to careers and education in science, technology, and the arts.Continue Reading On Nov 8th Morn…I Experienced Everything Great about America
Jane Jacobs wasn’t bullish on urban parks. She preferred active sidewalks. In her classic urban planning (sociology?) book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she noted that parks created “borders,” that often result in blighting or “slumming” along their edges. She attributed this circumstance to a lack of diversity of uses, a lack of density, and many other factors, and how they interrelated (her “organized complexity”). Continue Reading Are cities building too many parks and plazas in their downtowns? The experts weigh in . . .
Portland is a planner’s mecca. Or is it? Visitors to the city are treated to postcard worthy scenes of light rail trains, streetcars and even an aerial tram gliding past renovated brick warehouses and gleaming glass towers. But at the regional level the picture is not so perfect.Continue Reading The Commons Concept – A Strategy to Restore Balance to the Portland Region
Working away in a coffee shop one day (I know, how very Portland of me), I couldn’t help but overhear the phone conversation of the young woman sitting to my left. (Why are cell conversations in coffee shops always so loud? #unavoidableeavesdropping)
Anyway, she was chatting with someone about how long it had been since they had seen each other, and that she couldn’t wait until they were reunited at the coffee shop.
(I know, you may be wondering, “What the heck does this have to do with one-way streets?” Be patient, it’s coming!)Continue Reading One-Way Streets, A Coffee Shop, and a Reunion
City parks are more than pretty outdoor spaces — research shows they can also be critical to improving a community’s health. In fact, from the earliest days of their implementation, parks have been tools for boosting air quality, encouraging safe physical recreation, reducing disease and discouraging crime, according to the George Wright Forum.Continue Reading How City Park Design Contributes to Resident Health
Do you like to travel and explore different cities? I definitely do! While I travel mostly for pleasure (rather than business), the planner in me cannot help but observe, study, and evaluate the places I visit. Continue Reading Exploring and Observing: Fun City Tours
The Local Choice Produce Market is now open in the Pearl District, at the SE corner of NW 9th & Everett. A true labor of love – the owners, Don & Georganne Sader, live in the neighborhood only a few blocks away.Continue Reading Local Choice Produce Market Now Open in Pearl District
At the edge of the Pearl District, a mixed-use development at the corner of NW Everett Street and Park Avenue is poised to bring new energy into the North Park Blocks. Continue Reading Lemon Hotel to infuse new life in the North Park Blocks
Portland is offering a new tax amnesty program designed to help businesses delinquent in paying what they owe catch up.Continue Reading Portland Unveils New Tax Amnesty Program for Businesses
A few months later…as promised (not). My usual repertoire, which has caused a struggle I have found writing within my profession, is that I write from my heart about things which inspire me. Not that my profession does not inspire me…it does, it just hasn’t been my mode of written expression . It was my desire and intention to write a weekly or b
iweekly dialogue about experiencing architecture in Portland – and beyond – from an experiential place. How does it feel? How does it move me…or not. And then the ‘or not’ part started to bother me. Would I offend people or even worse…hurt them. Oh the spiritual new age bugaboo!! Continue Reading Hallelujah!
