LEAVING HIPSTER PORTLAND

Who leaves Portland for Brooklyn? Why would you? via pinterest

When You Leave Hipster Portland What Do You See In The Rear View Mirror?

It rained yesterday; it was supposed to rain. Not mudslide, bury your car, knock you house off its foundation rain, but still wet.

That’s news, right? Rain in Portland? To cover all the bases, it got dark last night, too.

You see things in the damp darkness that fade in the light of day, especially on Division St. Especially when the best part of SE Portland is leaving town.

Saying goodbye is never easy when you care. And Portland is big about caring. You may not care about things important to Portland, but so many do.

Were those caring Portland people hanging from the St. John’s Bridge trying to block an arctic oil exploration ship? Was that Portland in the kayaks?

It seemed like Portland when neighbors decided they didn’t want to see some big trees cut down.

Portland stepped up when people bought houses they planned to tear down for their new house.

That and more circled around SE Division recently, like last night.

Here’s what you’re missing if leave SE, or if you’ve never been there:

If you show up with a plan to make your new neighborhood better, you leave on a high note. You stayed local, incorporated the fun quirks and twists of hipster Portland into your day.

One thing you changed was adding a new address where an empty lot once stood, a lot used for the things empty lots in a city are used for.

Now it’s the pride of the street and the new owners will embrace the neighborhood. The right house has that power.

A walking neighborhood means one thing: be ready to walk. Even if you drive, park the car and walk once you get there. That’s how you do it in hipster Portland. You might even park a few blocks off your destination so no one sees your ride.

Leave SE Portland today and you’ll see a thriving food and art scene on the way out of town.

You’ll also see the beginning of the end. Look at the projected density, the sort of apartments going up, and the parking.

The new apartments are small and expensive, which means lots of neighbors in the neighborhood. If there’s no parking, does that mean no cars? Or over crowded parking? Ask residents of the new light rail line to Milwaukie.

Memo to commuters: Someone’s front yard isn’t your new parking space.

So there I was on standing on SE Division. Squat bungalows on the high side of the street under dark trees, my car blocked a driveway while I waited for my crew to come back with pie. A half hour later they showed up.

Was the pie shop a mile away? Nope, it was in the middle of the block. And it’s the future. Young people moving to Portland for a little apartment and no car love standing in line for pie. Call it a metaphor.

They love standing in line for dinner and busing their own table, too. What else are they doing, staring out their apartment window at a street that looked like the one they used to live on?

For all the change Portland has had, and all the change hipster Portland is making still, the biggest change agents are millennials. The planners, young baby boomers, know how to show up and dig in. They’ve done it before.

Hipster Portland is working blind. They’ve got the lifestyle and money to finance it, but no plan. Remember when boomers when through the Yuppie stage?

Millennials have enough room, enough time, to see what works and what doesn’t. Build enough momentum to work a plan once you can finance it? Good idea. Or dive in blind and pretend you’re not wasting money. Not sustainable.

Leaving hipster Portland doesn’t mean shedding your skin. Remember, you’re not a snake, you are stylin’. Add to style by keeping some elements of Portland and letting others go. This is the part you keep:

More than anything while I stood on SE Division, I felt a part of the place. That’s the Portland secret. Park your car and walk a few blocks and you’ll get it, too.

While old timers complain about the the new people, the formerly new people become old timers.

Portland loves them all. New blood is the riches of the city, and so on. How can they all come together and show the love back to Portland?

Will it come from elder Portland? From Boomer Portland, GenX Portland, Millennial Portland?

Or will the new, new generation take the challenge? What about you?