Transparency…
Friday, August 14th, 2009“Transparency is the future between the producer and the consumer,”
-Wendell Berry from Life is a Miracle
From 1972 to 1981, but for a year in Ireland, I lived in or near Portland, Oregon. It was the so-called Renaissance period. I was a part of the warp and woof of that particular place at that particular time and marveled at its success. In 2006, I returned to Portland to ask the following questions of my good friend, Bill Bulick:
- Why/how is Portland a great city? How did it become such a great city?
- When/how did it really begin?
- What were the conditions and factors that enabled it to evolve so productively?
- What were the assets that were present in the early 70’s? What were the challenges?
- How were the first sparks struck? What were the initiatives that got things going?
- Was there synergy among various initiatives and factors?
- What was the single most important factor?
- When/how did the broader public become engaged with community building?
- How are conditions for community building different now? What are the new challenges/critical issues? Opportunities?
- What advice would you give other cities in terms of both specific directions and process?
Bill arranged for two solid days of meetings with former city council members, a director of the Public Market, environmentalists, a former County Commissioner, the former Portland Director and Head of County Planning, the Director of Portland State University’s School of Urban Studies, prominent architects, historians, a former state legislator and city council member, the former Director of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, a member of the Design Commission, the former Director of the Portland Development Commission, the superintendent of Public Parks and the Director of the Housing Authority. (Thanks again, Bill!)
It was a heady and exhausting two days that revealed a footprint for a special city’s emergence and success. I returned to Cincinnati greatly enlightened, energized and full of hope for this burgh. I approached a former elected official with my information…and was told to sit on it. I always do what I’m told. I sat on it ’til now. My ass hurts. This city needs direction but, more importantly, an attitude adjustment. The following is an email sent after I returned by a man I was never able to meet but would certainly like to. His eloquent explanation I find particularly relevant for this place at this time.
Ed Carpenter, internationally prominent public artist; former member of Arts Commission, many non-profit boards
For me the single most important Portland quality is access. Portland has been progressive in the period you’re concerned with because, relative to other major cities, its leaders in a wide variety of fields have been open to discourse with and influence from individuals and groups from all levels of the social/cultural/business spectrum. In bigger, more prominent cities, leadership is frequently barricaded against aggressive self-interest. Portland seems to value the common good more than individual advancement, bullying careerism is frowned on, and leadership is able to be more relaxed, open and accessible. Access leads to inclusion, which leads to embrace of a greater percentage of creative initiatives than in cities where leadership is aloof. Portland has been just a little insecure, not yet arrogant, still aspiring, rather than smug. Of course it’s just a short step to complacency, a step we may already have taken in some areas.
In thinking of individuals who typify the attitude I’m describing, I am reminded of the openness of many generous folks who helped me get started–curators, journalists, architects, arts administrators, business people. They enjoyed hearing the ideas of young blood and stirring them into the Portland pot. They responded to my enthusiasm, drew me onto boards and listened to my ideas and helped me implement them, or they referred me to others who could assist professionally, and they didn’t seem to have so much at stake that they couldn’t take a chance on a half-baked but promising notion. Many cities are tougher, more suspicious, more hierarchical. At its best, Portland has a kind of relaxed transparency that contributes to multi-directional access, and a generosity and optimism that encourage initiative.
Beyond Beyond Organic :: Urban Ag
