BusinessWeek: Portland Is A Magnet for Youth and Creativity
Posted by: kmikeym
BusinessWeek's article Portland: A Magnet for Youth and Creativity mentions the Burnside Skatepark and the Zoo Bombers as the first two examples of our city's arts, affordability, and friendliness drawing 25- to 34-year-olds to Portland.
(My favorite coffee place near my work gets a nice mention, "... comes up with design-trend ideas while flipping through magazines and sipping 12-ounce lattes at nearby Cafe Allora.")
I love that BusinessWeek, a magazine that caters to the men and women of the corporate world (they call them "BDMs", Business Decision Makers, in the Media Kit), is basically saying that keeping Portland weird is what makes it awesome as a place to do business.
#1 For Dogs
Posted by: kmikeym
I like dogs. I don't love them, but I like them. So it's with a little less enthusiasm than usual that I point out that "Dog Fancy magazine's October issue ranks Portland at No. 1 as the best all-around city for dogs in America." (Bizjournals.com)
Bizjournals.com adds, "According to Dog Fancy, there are 136,332 dogs living in Portland, which has a human population of 554,130. With Forest Park and 33 city-maintained parks with off-leash areas, Portland is 'one giant dog paradise.'"
And I don't need to look too far to find the proof. My brother's dog enjoys room service and single malts and dancing.
Portland, Oregon: Zine Capital of the Universe!
Posted by: kmikeym
Republished from Reading Frenzy with permission.
Over the years I've been asked on numerous occasions why I thought Portland was such a zine mecca. I honestly couldn't answer that question, because for one thing, I've never lived anywhere else! Zines and independent media in general have become part of the air I breathe, and I had no perspective on what made Portland special or even if it was. But now thanks to Google Trends I can clearly see that Portland is smitten with self-publishing.
I'm not so humble after nearly a dozen years of zine peddling that I won't accept some of the blame for this phenomenon, however I also have to give credit where credit is due. When I was a wee lass I frequented the old Rich's Cigar Shop, Powell's Books, 2nd Avenue Records and The Ooze to get my fix. In the early 90s Vanessa Renwick helped create the awesome Small Press section at Powell's, and around the same time, Heather Heatley and friends unleashed the Howling Frog, a coffee shop/art gallery/bookstore -- a formula that may be de rigueur now, but was way ahead of it's time (and sadly, located on the bus mall, which is a now proven kiss of death).
When Reading Frenzy opened its doors on September 1st, 1994 it roughly coincided with the closure of the beloved X-Ray Cafe, which was a launching pad for umpteen creative projects and cultural experiments, as well as a round-about inspiration for the store. At the time Factsheet 5 was an indespensible tool of the trade that enabled me to reach out to the far corners of zinedom. From day one we've had a no-strings/open door consignment policy, entitling any local publisher to place their title on our shelves. I haven't always loved what's walked through the door, but I wanted the store to be what the community made of it to some degree, and I think it remains a vital part of the project (even if some people grumble about the humilation of having to consign their masterpiece).
Before the IPRC got off the ground, we hosted regular zine potlucks, awkward little affairs that usually promised some kind of delicious, albeit vegan, desserts. My friends and I would daydream about starting our own zine conference, ala APE, but luckily some other folks took it upon themselves to create one of the best gatherings around -- The Portland Zine Symposium (now in its 6th year!), and in recent years the Stumptown Comics Fest was launched, so we really have our bases covered! Of course outfits like Microcosm Publishing and Tugboat Press have only added to the reputation exponentially, and now that the Portland Public Library has created a zine collection, our efforts -- and perhaps someday our archive -- will be consigned to posterity.
Over the past 12 years we've hosted nearly 250 art and literary events, and been the conduit for tens of thousands of independently produced titles. Despite the hardships, I consider this project a great success -- we've helped make zine a household word (at least in Portland) and had a lot of fun while we were at it!
Thanks for Reading!
Your Faithful Proprietress,
Chloe
Recently Awesome...
Posted by: kmikeym
The European Institute for Urban Affairs considers Portland to be one of the world's most successful cities! We're the only American city to make the team!
A BBC article on Portland says, "car use is growing at the slowest rate anywhere in the United States."
And finally, every trip out to the airport is a chance to seeing the IKEA getting closer to completion.
Top Three Eco-Projects In Development
Posted by: kmikeym
Portland's Green Buildings are not only growing in number, but they are also becoming more awesome. PortlandOnline has an overview of six projects that have been given grants by the Green Investment Fund. Of these six, I declare the following three to be the most awesome:
By far the most awesome of the upcoming eco-projects is the plan to build a mini soccer field on the roof of a southeast warehouse! It's a winery, and people will be playing soccer on the roof. I sort of have a hard time imagining a better project than this.
In the "only second to a rooftop soccer field" category is a the Tomahawk Floating Home Community. It's going to have "a micro-hydro system that capitalizes on the steady flow of the Columbia River"! I want to live in a floating home community!
And thirdly, while it may lack the bells and whistles of the first two projects, it does involve the greatest coffee on the planet. Stumptown Coffee Roasters is working on designing an "integrated energy system" for their new roasting location. Not many specifics yet, but they are making coffee!
The Green Investment Fund has certainly established itself as a core element of Portland's Future Awesome.
(Special thanks to Jessica, who has been sending me the coolest links to stuff on PortlandOnline)
Portland's Kitchen
Posted by: kmikeym
City projects take a long time to happen. This is an unfortunate fact of government. The initial call for a riverfront park was sparked by an Oregonian editorial in 1964, and while Tom McCall Waterfront Park development started in late 1971 it wasn't until 1994 that City Council approved a "$40 million park plan for the east bank: a series of piers and docks, a public market, a community center, restaurants, a marsh and even a beach on the narrow strip of riverfront land."
12 years and many city projects later, we're still waiting for our public market. The popularity of the many Farmer's Markets seems to prove the concept, but the politicking about the location continues.
The current Portland Public Market concept was envisioned by former restaurateur Ron Paul, who was one-time Chief of Staff to former City Commissioner Charlie Hales, and is now an official with the city's Bureau of Planning. Ron started championing the project in 1999, and it's hard to find a proposed completion goal but I think the year 2009 has been mentioned.
Frequently referred to as "Portland's Kitchen", the idea is a year round venue showcasing regional food and creating opportunities for local food-related businesses. Ron Paul and the other people behind the public market know that the first question you'll ask is "Why build a Public Market?" especially when we have such terrific farmer's market opportunities. They do a great job answering these questions and laying out the vision on PortlandPublicMarket.com. They include a history of Portland's public markets, mentioning that while we haven't had one in two generations, they have been a fixture of Portland life since the dawn of the city.
Portland's future would certainly be more awesome with the addition of the Public Market, and it's too bad one of the few actions Mayor Tom Potter has taken (other than his "vision quest") is canceling the long-planned relocation of the Central Fire Station. The Central Fire Station, located next to Skidmore Fountain, was going to be moved a few blocks north to a new site, allowing an opportunity for the Public Market to exist in a permanent central location with easy transit access (there was even talk of moving the under-Burnside MAX stop in front of the Public Market). The Central Fire Station location seemed like a done-deal that would spark new development in that whole somewhat-sketchy area, but now other possible locations will have to evaluated and the revitalization of the neighborhood will be no doubt slowed.
An editorial piece in the Oregonian on July 31st about 'the city's kitchen' mentions that Mayor Tom Potter "pulled the plug on the long-planned relocation of the Central Fire Station" which was the perfect location for the Portland Public Market. The editorial goes on to attempt to shame Tom Potter to be the political champion for the Portland Public Market. I'm not sure how effective that tactic will be, especially seeing as Tom Potter doesn't seem to be "champion" material.
The Bizjournal quoted Ron Paul saying "The tipping point for hundreds of millions of dollars in economic growth swings on moving the fire station, and we're at the political crossroads of that decision." Paul also said the fire station decision "is being affected by what I call 'post Tram-atic syndrome'" in that the city is skittish about funding increased public-private project costs similar to the Oregon Health & Science University aerial tram undertaking.
While Tom Potter's ix-nay of the Fire Station relocation is a setback in the Public Market plan, it does have the added benefit of drawing a lot of attention to the plan for the Public Market. As more people hear about the plan, the idea will should gain more traction and snowball into an inevitability as long as it is continually pushed by the people of Portland. The Oregonian's editorial should just be the start of calling on our political leaders to stand up and lead the way to a better Portland. The vision is clear.
To volunteer to help Portland Public Market contact Dale Thomas, to send an encouraging word to Mayor Tom Potter use his website, and to help Tom Potter's visionPDX to include plans for the Public Market you can use this contact form.
Portland's Future Needs All Ages Venue
Posted by: kmikeym
(This was written by Mark Baumgarten for Localcut.com, but I wanted to repost it here as it seems very PFA. -Mikey)
Guv Announces $1.1M in Non-Pop Culture Grants
by Mark Baumgarten
Yesterday Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced 54 statewide grants being awarded through the Oregon Cultural Trust. Huzzah! Yay for culture and all that. But where is the support for the tennis-shoe wearing music community. Of all the recipients, shown below, only the Friends of Chamber Music, Portland Youth Philharmonic Association and Portland Taiko are wholly involved with music … and those, I think I can safely say, involve the music of a very specific audience. Namely older and capital-C Cultured.
Part of the problem is likely that no organization representing more popular and accessible musical culture has applied for a grant, or even been formed. And some might say that that is because businesses based on more popular forms of music can survive without public assistance. Which is correct for many parts of popular music culture escept one: The all-ages music club.
Small and large clubs for kids to partake in a larger culture scrap to get by and die over and over again in this town. And by club, I mean a club, like what Todd Fadel was trying to create with Meow Meow before he handed it over to new ownership that transformed it from a hangout to the rental hall now called Loveland. It is becoming clear that we need some public help to create a place that parents can trust, bands can get paid at and parents can trust. Funding can come from grants like those listed below, through state legislation (which is how the Oregon Cultural Trust was created) or through appeals to municipal government.
We have a fantastic example of a youth center for music right to our north in Seattle where the Vera Project, an all-ages cultural mecca for kids, has changed the face of that city’s musical culture. Check out the website, below, and somebody make a place for kids, like those that will crowd Loveland for this weekend’s PDX Pop Now! Festical, to experience their own culture in Portland. Seriously. Do this. There are links to the state leg and the vera project as well. First, look at whose getting the cash this year:
Full List on Local Cut Article
Interestingly, today on localcut there is a post on Satyricon to Reopen as All Ages Club.
