Posts Tagged ‘portland’

November 17, 2013

Bike Moves: Small Scale Sustainability and Community at its Best

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I attended my first bike move today. You might be wondering what a bike move is. I had never heard about it either until my avid bike mover friend Marina (today was her 29th) was telling me about it a few months ago. So, people get together to help people move, which is wonderful but maybe isn’t so unusual. The amazing part is that they help people move by bike, meaning they take everything, and I mean everything – including beds, couches, refrigerators, you name it – on bikes and bike trailers. I was amazed when I heard about…

November 12, 2013

Livability 101: Portland’s Livable Street Problem – the Equity Gap

by: Hart Noecker

Tweet Today’s post is the second installment in the Livability 101 Series. Guest writer Hart Noecker tells us about the equity gap in Portland’s livability equation. Hart is a writer and filmmaker in Portland, Oregon originally from Lansing, Michigan. He publishes his take on tactical urbanism and the Right to the City movement at Rebel Metropolis. Portland, Oregon is known nationally as a bikeable, walkable, livable place to call home. For many wealthier upper middle-class neighborhoods, this is true. Venture a ways outside the city core to the working class communities east of 82nd avenue and the livability reputation doesn’t…

November 05, 2013

Livability 101: Going to the Clinic Without a Car

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Livability means being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car. – Former Secretary of State Ray LaHood You can claim your city is livable all day long, but the real livability test is on the ground, on a daily basis, when you need to get groceries, or a hammer and nails, or go to the movies, or go to a friend’s house party…

August 28, 2013

Why Portland’s Visionary Olmsted Park Plan of 1903 Yields Big Benefits Today

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet When you hear the name Olmsted, you typically think of Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York City. But another set of Olmsteds played a big part in the open space planning of Portland in the turn of the century – Frederick’s sons, John and Charles Olmsted. Between 1885 and 1915, Portland’s population grew by 300%. Due to concerns over this astronomic growth, and also because of the City Beautiful Movement of the time, the Olmsted brothers were commissioned to come up with a long range open space plan in the early 1900s. The City Beautiful…

August 26, 2013

Interview with Portland’s Museum Lady, Carye Bye

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Artist Carye Bye, or the Museum Lady as she’s known to many, has an indomitable curiosity. So she began Hidden Portland for the Curious, a platform to share all the hidden curiosities of Portland, which are all over the place Carye will tell you. As part of Hidden Portland for the Curious, Carye leads a variety of walking and bicycle tours around the city. Check out Hidden Portland’s For the Curious’s Facebook Page. This Friday, August 30, she’s leading a “City Treasures” tour with Know Your City. It will begin at 10am at Director Park and will end at 12:30pm….

June 18, 2013

Experience a 100 Years of Hawthorne on the 2013 Pedalpalooza Ride about the Urban Architecture of Hawthorne

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The history of Hawthorne Boulevard is a microcosm of the history of the entire city of Portland. It reflects the city’s early beginnings in agriculture, its economic booms and busts, it’s housing expansion, and it’s movement from horse and buggies to streetcars to buses to personal cars. This Thursday, June 20, 2013, I will be leading a Pedalpalooza bike ride about the Urban Architecture of Hawthorne Boulevard, focusing on a 100 years of history from 1850 to 1950. We’ll be meeting at Albina Press on 5012 SE Hawthorne Blvd. at 2:00pm, we’ll roll at 2:30pm…Click here or here for more…

May 15, 2013

The Dalai Lama Highlights the Spiritual Dimension of Saving the Planet at the Environmental Summit in Portland

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The earth is our home. There is no other place for us to go. We can’t settle on the moon. So we must take care of it, not only for this generation, but for future generations. – His Holiness the Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama is very down to earth, laughs easily, and makes jokes even when he is talking about the gravest things like global warming or humanity’s tendency to deviate from its natural benevolence. I count myself fortunate to have gotten to see the Dalai Lama speak at the Environmental Summit at the Rose Quarter last Saturday,…

April 01, 2013

In Search for the Perfect Coffee Shop in Portland: Stumptown on Division

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today marks two months since I moved to Portland. And I think I have come upon a favorite coffee shop in the southeast after some searching. Up until now, since I hadn’t found the one, I had set up a rotation of coffee shops to work from, one for each day of the week. I went to Crema on Monday, Heart Coffee Roasters on Tuesday, Townshend’s Tea House on Division on Wednesday, Heart again on Thursday, Stumptown on Belmont on Friday, Fresh Pot on Hawthorne on Saturday and Oblique on Sunday. All of these are either within walking or biking…

March 11, 2013

The Story of African Americans and Other Nonwhites in Portland, Part II

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Yesterday, I attended a wonderful museum bike tour where we visited the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center that displays the history of Japanese internment camps in Portland. And later we visited the Oregon Historical Society, and saw the All Aboard: Railroading and Portland’s Black Community exhibit, which is running through April 21st. As we looked through these exhibits of past acts of discrimination that Oregon committed, including institutionalized segregation, there was some discussion as to how it’s had a ripple effect to today. One person joked that it’s hard to tell that Oregon isn’t segregated today, as Portland is so…

December 31, 2012

A Year of Profound Change Leads to a Big Move

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet 2012 has been a year of profound change for me. I went through a divorce after being married for seven years. If you’ve ever been through a divorce, you know that it feels like the rug (actually, it feels more like the entire ground you walk on) has been pulled out from under you. Nothing looks or feels quite the same. Your old assumptions and your old paradigms don’t make sense anymore and you’re left with a blank canvas (whether you want one or not) on which you must build a new life with new assumptions and new paradigms….