The Portland Diaries, Part II: Shining City On The Hill

This is part II of my series of trying to convince Winnipeggers that we need to look to Portland, Oregon as a model for our future. Part I is here.

I am no synaesthete, but when I think of Portland, the word is green.

Oregon looks like what I imagine the Cretaceous looked like: huge and deep and dense with life, but somehow just a touch unfinished. Like some cosmic painter decided to go big or go home, but then — when the job was nearly done — packed up his paintbrush and hit the pub instead.

At least he left behind his palette.

From near the middle of the steep slopes of Washington Park, the world is green. The hills roll with emerald and deep pine and now, in the dying days of November, bright flashes of orange and gold.

To the east, in the heart of Oregon, lies a desert. But here in the Willamette Valley — and south, along the coast, through the mountains and the vineyards that nestle in their laps — the land blossoms and the city shines, watched o’er by the crowning volcanic glory of a single snow-capped peak.

Portland is one of the most  beautiful cities you will see in this hemisphere, and the geography plays no small part. On the slopes of Mt. Tabor, another old volcano, the windows of houses and condos glitter; the city slides graciously towards the Willamette River, its crisp waters ringed by a park of the greenest green.

Oh, to live in those houses on the hill. To wake up to this bounty every day.

Okay, I’ll be honest: for all the placid beauty of the prairies, we can’t compete with this biznatch. That’s okay. Because what makes Portland truly beautiful is less the work of God, than man.

Mark my words: you will never see a cleaner major city than Portland. Here, check out these scenes from the heart of the city. Try and see if you can find anything on the ground that isn’t a golden maple leaf.

The crisp and shining streets help make Portland walkable — and form a perfect canvas for the city’s public art. Sculpture looms everywhere in Portland, shapes of men and women and animals cavorting along the edge of streets.

 

 

How could you not want to explore this city? To wander its streets and consume its delights?

Make no mistake: this type of city does not happen by accident.

Portland survives, thrives and grows more lovely not because of its many natural gifts, but because it is ultimately governed by laws and people that are committed to a largely shared vision of what the city could be, and should be.

It has not been thrown up piecemeal, in fits of stucco and concrete (cough cough), but tended like a garden.

And we’ll get more into that in my next Portland Diary.