You know that your city’s doing something right when the Mayor and other city officials give up their parking spaces so that the parking lot can be dug up and then planted with Swiss chard. This might sound like perfect fodder for the show Portlandia… after all, the city in question is Portland (but I bet that you could have guessed that already).
It’s true. Since the 70s, Portland first established Urban Growth Boundaries, setting the trends for all sorts of “radical” movements to come. The city has been concerned about land use for decades, and that’s one of the reasons that Portland is so successful. It’s successfully attracting America’s youth, and it’s successfully becoming more and more relevant with people who are concerned about the environment, the local movement, public transportation, farm to table, and all of the rest of the qualities of life that young people tend to gravitate towards.
To get a better sense about what Portland is doing right, check out this article the Washington Post that breaks it all down. It’s an interesting read about how the hipster migration to Portland is not slowing down, but gaining speed (here’s the article).
Thanks to BRO correspondant Lorne Opler in Toronto for sending us the link.