Portlandia, Heaven on Earth? Maybe. . .

There is a new show in IFC which I have yet to watch entitled, "Portlandia." Starring SNL's Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater-Kinney and now of Wild Flag it takes an absurdist view of life in Portland, Oregon.

http://www.ifc.com/portlandia/

I must admit, if given unlimited resources and more of a predisposition to favor consistent rain over consistent sun, I too might live in Portland.

At first glance it's darn near Utopia. Especially from a planning perspective. It seems like everyone is in harmony, working towards the greater good while consuming only local organic food. There are no NIMBYs. (Not In My Back Yards) only peace and good will. (this is all, of course, on the surface and prone to great hyperbole for dramatic effect).

Oh yeah, and no one seems to mind that the "green belt" that was mandated in the 70s has artificially inflated real estate to levels that rival San Francisco. A green belt, in a nutshell, is a no-build barrier formed around a city, established at a certain geographic point to ensure that development does not infringe on nature. Unfortunately, this means that supply is limited while demand is ever-increasing. Therefore, since supply is constrained price increases. The same thing happens in New York City. Landlords can charge an arm and a leg because if you reallllly want to live in Manhattan proper, well, you have finite options where to lay your head.

One of the biggest causes of my despair was the announcement that Portland is actually dedicating revenues to bicycling! Bicycling the ultimate in utopian form of transportation. Citations of the leisurely activity conjure up images of beach cruisers, Amelie, and safe and happy children.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47086

And here is the Portlandia version-

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47880

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, my friends at the LA DOT (that's D-O-T, not DOT) work tirelessly on raising bike awareness and bike safety.

http://ladotbikeblog.wordpress.com

While our good Mayor of LA, out on a bike ride, breaks his elbow when a taxi pulls out in front of him!

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-mayor-villaraigosa-breaks-arm,0,318953.story

Trying to find bad stuff about Portland is like trying to find bad stuff written about Betty White. OK, both are a little overexposed (as of late), but to badmouth either of them is like saying you hate kittens and puppies and rainbows.

Joel Kotkin, of whom I possess little favor, bravely campaigns for the position of anti-Portland. He is also one of the most prolific members of the unofficial anti-anti-sprawl movement. (These are not necessarily pro-sprawl, but they don't bemoan it as the smart growth people do either). But here's his pot shot.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/18244

No one ever said that life in Portland is cheap. San Francisco is the farthest thing from cheap, but I'd still give my left arm to live there if guaranteed a well-paying job. Unfortunately, herein lies the problem- how to create nice, livable places people want to live in and interact with, but entry level isn't set at upper-yuppie levels?

Still, in a world of frustrations and backlashes at the smallest imagined slights, it's nice to know that somewhere (over the rainbow?) some one is experiencing a modicum of success.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/92

You Can't Go Home Again, and Yet You Can

Having spent almost an entire month under my parents' roof, despite being a full-fledged adult- with my health (thank you God) intact, has been surreal at best.

With the exception of a short-term return to the nest after I graduated from undergrad with an oh-so-useful (not) but passionately prized degree in art history I have been living entirely on my own.

But with graduation from graduate school looming on the horizon I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to spend some "quality time," a phrase I've never really understood, with my parents before I plunge back into the work world.

It's been fantastic doing free laundry, not having to scrounge for meals or gas money, and all of the other cliche (but very much appreciated) perks one has staying at Mom and Dad's.

It's also been a time of reflection. Regardless of how famous or how smart or how anything you are today, your past makes up a part of who you are. Even the hypothetical self-made millionaire who went from rags to riches is keenly aware of where s/he is- or isn't- from time to time. The uber-hipster from Missouri who's living the bo-ho glam life in Silverlake may still feel a tug at the holidays as s/he isn't having a white Christmas. And the hard-bitten but non-native New Yorker from Kentucky, who fled the rural countryside, may wish, in fleeting moments, that one didn't have to visit Central Park to see green space.

I'm a self-confessed city snob. But I also love the countryside, especially down South. And every once in a while I feel the tug of the suburbs and its single family houses- the bane of planners' desire for utopia. It's a symbol of my childhood and of my concept of home. As I never lived in an apartment as a child, the Playskool/Fisher-Price house is a part of my memory make-up.

One of my primary interests in planning is seeing where my generation winds up living- even on a semi-permanent basis.

We all know that the cities have been usurped by the safe appeal of the suburbs yadda yadda- territory I've tread many times in my blog and won't rehash for you.

And there have been many attempts to try to "reinvent," "rebrand" the city- to highlight its cultural sophistication, to glamorize the bohemian appeal of it, even to try to turn it into a hipper version of the suburbs. Some attempts have worked in some parts of the country. Others are embarrassing attempts.

Joel Kotkin has an interesting take on this in his article for "the New Geography"-

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001657-the-myth-back-city-migration

And Christopher Leinberger has an equally provocative rebuttal-

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0709_walkable_spaces_leinberger.aspx?rssid=transportation&utm_source=feedburner&utm_mediu

Here are the Vimeo links-

http://vimeo.com/16431631

http://vimeo.com/16431824

http://vimeo.com/16432364

FYI- if you walk around the halls of my school, USC's School of Policy, Planning, and Development- you'll see the same thing physically. For the most part the urban planning people are the equivalent of the Steve Jobs computer geeks- not unattractive, but a little scruffy around the edges. While the real estate folks look so youthfully preserved you wonder if they bathe in the blood of virgin unicorns. Though if anyone asks, my school has the best looking faculty, period. :) (Except for UPenn's Witold Rybczynski, who I wish taught at my school. But I have Bill Fulton so ehhhhh)

One of the most interesting things about twenty-somethings that I've observed, especially those desperate to throw off the shackles of their bourgeois suburban upbringing, is that they move to a city either during or after college. But once they have kids, they move back to the suburbs. Understandably a child's education is much better in the suburbs where the tax base is higher so the quality of education is proportionate to taxpayer income, an unfortunate but nevertheless true real-life ratio. But it doesn't make it any less amusing for those of us who don't have to get in our SUVs to "return" to the city on the weekend. Cuz we're already there. Observing the hordes of yuppies drive in through our hipper-than-thou oversized sunglasses from the 80s with a barely concealed look of derision and scorn.

Even Arcade Fire wrote their latest (as of this writing) album about the suburbs. They even called it "the Suburbs." You can take a kid out of the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the kid?

I've noticed that a lot of people in my generation, who I personally count from 1983-1988, have gotten married young and some have even started families young. Many more so than our predecessors, Gen X, who bore more of the brunt of their parents' freedom from the stigma of divorce, but didn't escape the effects divorce has on the children. Some Gen X'ers have gotten married, but others have opted for live-in situations, sometimes proceeding with legal formalities later on.

If pressed, the general consensus between myself and my peers my age (27-28 years old, again, as of this writing) is that there is a new generation every year. iPods and cell phones have a different frame of reference for myself compared to my brother who is four years younger than me and bought both items well before me. Another, more historic example- I vaguely remember the Persian Gulf War, I don't think my brother does at all.

Beloit College puts out its yearly "mindset" list citing pop culture touchstones that the incoming class has always known or has no idea what you are talking about.

In the spirit of democracy, I am also including this link from the WSJ critiquing said list. Though points are subtracted for journalists showing off their smarts and citing "Hecuba" for no good reason at all.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575433783887009678.html

I also thought that this was an interesting complement to the concept-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/beloit-college-mindset-li_0_n_684308.html

I officially feel old now, but my closing point is that people will go where they want to go. And I'm curious as to who goes where and for how long. Time will tell. Until then, wristwatch? What's that? ;)