{"id":4039,"date":"2016-08-12T16:42:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T20:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/?p=4039"},"modified":"2016-08-25T08:20:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T12:20:41","slug":"portlandness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/2016\/08\/12\/portlandness-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Portlandness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portlandness<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Portland I.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geographic \u201cplace\u201d is the intersection of one\u2019s subjective interpretation of a location (past experiences, comfort) with the location\u2019s objective, physical characteristics. I\u2019m working at a Boy Scout camp called Raven Knob this summer. It\u2019s in a valley in western North Carolina, near Mt. Airy. There is a lake, a dining hall, program areas for each area of scouting, many wooded trails, a disc golf course, and several mountains. For a week, it is the entirety of 700 boys\u2019 lives, and then a different set of boys, and then it fades away until the next summer. I don\u2019t love this place, but it feels natural to be here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I expected a focus on the \u201cPortlandia\u201d side of Portland, including hipsters, microbreweries, and young people. I also associated the city with environmentalism, although not as the \u201cecotopia\u201d described in the atlas. I didn\u2019t know the geography of Portland, so I didn\u2019t associate it with the Willamette and Columbia rivers. I didn\u2019t know there were such distinctive neighborhoods within the city, each with their own distinct populations and color palettes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The authors present seven separate definitions of Cascadia to emphasize the point that a city can\u2019t be defined by just one explanation. None of the definitions of Cascadia are incorrect, and they all represent a different part of Portland as a place, whether as part of an economic region or as an ecotopia. A \u00a0Cascadian city is green (both environmentally and physically), on the West coast, progressive, and independent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The essence of Portlandness is the way the city\u2019s people feel about it. The authors make the point that culture and place are not rigid; they change with people\u2019s changing thoughts and opinions. Maps are useful because they are \u201crepresentations of how people see places\u201d (9), and so they can show both the concentrations of what is currently defined as Portlandness (liberal, green, bike-friendly) and the changes over time as people\u2019s definition of Portlandness changes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Urban Landscapes<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    An Urban Landscape is all of the manmade parts of a city that make it more inorganic. It is arranged much like a forest in a natural landscape. The skyscrapers and industrial buildings in the Central Eastside Industrial District are the large trees. The smaller buildings, individual shops, sidewalks, and strip clubs that make the city unique are the undergrowth that supports the urban ecosystem. It isn\u2019t stagnant; it changes with its people and with changing architectural and landscaping views.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    I chose the Ruins of Taylor Electric. To me, it demonstrates the conflict between the citizens\u2019 desire to \u201ckeep Portland weird\u201d by expressing themselves through graffiti and the government\u2019s desire to maintain order. When the Doug was described, the atlas quoted Martin Patail as saying, \u201cPolitical nonexistence might be Cascadia\u2019s greatest asset.\u201d There seems to be a conflict between the graffiti artists and eco-geeks, who stand for independence and expression, and the government, which is supposedly representing that same population. It\u2019s interesting how a government should do its job when the people for whom it\u2019s established are against the order that governments exist in part to maintain.<\/p>\n

    With the Taylor Electric building in mind, I would map what has happened in the last 15 years to buildings that have been vacated- whether they\u2019ve been bought, repurposed, torn down to leave an empty lot, or replaced by another building (and what purpose a new building or company serves). This would show the path of development in places where there are buildings either old enough to be vacated or unprosperous enough to be sold\/abandoned. I would call the map Old Ends and New Beginnings.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    III. Wildness<\/strong><\/p>\n

    This section focuses on the intersection between the natural and urban environments of Portland. Some perspectives, such as \u201cStumptown\u201d, \u201cOaks Bottom\u201d, and \u201cThe City Chicken and the County Cayote\u201d, reveal how Portland has encouraged, or at least accepted, wildness within its borders. The Oaks Bottom section again shows the conflict between Portland\u2019s government and its citizens. Others, such as<\/p>\n

    \u201cHeterotopia\u201d and \u201cLost waters and Phantom Streams\u201d, demonstrate the ways in which the city has altered and reduced the wild landscape in order to urbanize. The dystopian side of Portland described in the Heterotopia perspective acknowledges the environmental and racial consequences of making the city perfect for some at the expense of other people and landscapes.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In the Stumptown perspective, the more progressive neighborhoods of Portland have embraced wildness within an urban setting by planting trees. These neighborhoods have gone as far toward the urban side of the spectrum as they\u2019re willing to go, and are now moving away from it. It\u2019s interesting and encouraging that after a community has sufficiently developed, it wants to transition back towards wildness instead of becoming more and more urban. Portland is embracing wildlife and the Cascadian scenery that surrounds it. However, the tree cover is far from uniform across the city. I wish the atlas mentioned if there was a correlation between tree cover and affluence of a neighborhood, and if tree cover changed as a neighborhood became gentrified or impoverished.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    This concept is what I would map in order to witness a change as neighborhoods change. It might even turn out that encouraging the planting of flora is a strategy to improve an area socially and make it more safe\/welcoming.<\/p>\n

    V. Social Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

    This section has three main topics- the amount of video surveillance in Portland, the complexity of the city\u2019s \u201cgreen\u201d moniker, and the city\u2019s past and present relation to poverty and homelessness. Depending on one\u2019s interpretation, all the streetlights and surveillance cameras could be seen as a welcome safety measure or an intrusive and unwelcome method of spying. The other two sections are in part cautionary tales about what the dangerous influence of money. LEED certification is also a certification of a company\u2019s willingness to pay for it. When the minority populations of Portland were redlined and displaced, the culture of neighborhoods like Boise was hurt, along with the lives of its residents. While Portland preaches inclusion and diversity, the potential revenue of a stadium or an area experiencing \u201curban renewal\u201d pushes its government and well-off citizens to ignore their neighbors.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    It\u2019s both important to remember and easy to forget the poor and homeless when helping is not required. The Invisibility of Homelessness perspective was interesting. The Right 2 Dream Too settlement makes homelessness salient while still focusing on helping the homeless rather than focusing on that salience. The social relations of this community contrast with those of the gentrifying and redlining community by solving a problem rather than moving or removing it. It\u2019s also a reminder that in a city with Platinum LEED certified buildings and bioswales, there are still basic needs that have not been met.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The perspective noted that although many opposed the central location of Right 2 Dream Too, the community is in an ideal place to form a support network and have walking access to the infrastructure that allows people to stop being homeless. With this in mind, I would map the low-income communities of Portland based on their access to a list of amenities such as medical clinics, washing and showering facilities, and quality food. This map would show the ease of access to help and to the infrastructure necessary to create a successful community.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Portlandness Portland I. Geographic \u201cplace\u201d is the intersection of one\u2019s subjective interpretation of a location (past experiences, comfort) with the location\u2019s objective, physical characteristics. I\u2019m working at a Boy Scout camp called Raven Knob this summer. It\u2019s in a valley … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2963,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18921],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portlandness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2963"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}