Your "...Reimagining..." commentary has some important perspectives on our crisis of deadly streets.
Yet beyond inadequate infrastructure or vehicle safety, seeing PDX-area decay as connected to a nearly unprecedented rise in vandalism & neglect of our critical public facilities reveals a broader crisis -- which is not just structural but also CULTURAL. And it poses a challenge to The Street Trust vision -- and that of many engaged community members -- as we may need to consider more varied urban theories & policies. On one hand, especially since 2020 we've indeed seen the top-down negligence & abuse by authorities with misplaced enforcement or overpolicing -- which in many ways came from excessive application of the Broken Windows model of social control/policing.
But on the other hand, recently rampant mob-like assaults on our basic public infrastructure -- such as defacing/destroying Speed Limit, Do Not Enter, & Stop signs -- suggests a level of widespread antisocial nihilism that not only threatens the City of Roses' basic fabric but also corrosively undermines our legitimate grassroots community resistance to the abuses of top-down policing noted above.
To stem this decay -- from the bottom up as well as the top down -- we must collaborate to deftly and strategically deploy a culture of 'caring community resistance'. Such community reclamation & rebuilding requires collective 'eyes-on-the-streets' to call out not just the breaches of public trust by authorities from police to moneyed interests. It also demands an unflinching willingness to call out & confront the profoundly destructive & antisocial conduct seen in unprecedented levels of vandalism, uncontrolled waste disposal/ dumping & mob-style occupation of public spaces -- to the extent that DISABILITY advocates must file class action lawsuits to reclaim our access to public rights-of-way that have been repeatedly blocked by 'campers' who in many cases are running open air narcotics markets, from meth to fentanyl.
As a Portlander since 1972, I know that many factors on the cultural side can converge & set the stage to enable a downward spiral in our streets, sidewalks & public spaces. Beyond the well known (& often misunderstood) cycles of addiction &/or mental illness, two distinctly antisocial behavior patterns common to America, and now widespread in post-2019 PDX, include: 1) the aggressive, 'toxic masculinities' often seen among street subcultures, & 2) the recently proliferating, face-glued-to-the-screen, instant gratification of the technophile generations, who often seem quite blase about the cruelest of abuses & public harms -- as long as these don't impair their Uber Eats app, game downloading bandwidth & screen resolution.
Confronting such anti-social and self-destructive collective behaviors & cultures/subcultures will require broad coalitions & leadership. From the NGO community like Street Trust & neighborhood associations, to public schools, churches & regional governments, we must expressly unite under a shared 'eyes-on-the-top' as well as 'eyes-on-the-bottom' vision of caring community resistance.
As such, I hope we can look forward to future words & actions from Street Trust to advance a community-centered vision like the great Jane Jacobs. In recognizing that our eyes-on-the-street are a powerful social force, Jacobs demonstrated how we can & must insist on 'decent behavior' by powerholders 'on top' as well as by the powerless 'on the bottom'.
An afterword: Having just returned from 4 weeks in France, the UK & Iceland (my latest of around 3 years total living/traveling/working in diverse locales outside the U.S.), I have experienced many examples of a functioning culture-meets-structure -- which thrives largely by the dispersed power of community members' eyes-on-the-streets.
Yes, let's work together.
Your "...Reimagining..." commentary has some important perspectives on our crisis of deadly streets.
Yet beyond inadequate infrastructure or vehicle safety, seeing PDX-area decay as connected to a nearly unprecedented rise in vandalism & neglect of our critical public facilities reveals a broader crisis -- which is not just structural but also CULTURAL. And it poses a challenge to The Street Trust vision -- and that of many engaged community members -- as we may need to consider more varied urban theories & policies. On one hand, especially since 2020 we've indeed seen the top-down negligence & abuse by authorities with misplaced enforcement or overpolicing -- which in many ways came from excessive application of the Broken Windows model of social control/policing.
But on the other hand, recently rampant mob-like assaults on our basic public infrastructure -- such as defacing/destroying Speed Limit, Do Not Enter, & Stop signs -- suggests a level of widespread antisocial nihilism that not only threatens the City of Roses' basic fabric but also corrosively undermines our legitimate grassroots community resistance to the abuses of top-down policing noted above.
To stem this decay -- from the bottom up as well as the top down -- we must collaborate to deftly and strategically deploy a culture of 'caring community resistance'. Such community reclamation & rebuilding requires collective 'eyes-on-the-streets' to call out not just the breaches of public trust by authorities from police to moneyed interests. It also demands an unflinching willingness to call out & confront the profoundly destructive & antisocial conduct seen in unprecedented levels of vandalism, uncontrolled waste disposal/ dumping & mob-style occupation of public spaces -- to the extent that DISABILITY advocates must file class action lawsuits to reclaim our access to public rights-of-way that have been repeatedly blocked by 'campers' who in many cases are running open air narcotics markets, from meth to fentanyl.
As a Portlander since 1972, I know that many factors on the cultural side can converge & set the stage to enable a downward spiral in our streets, sidewalks & public spaces. Beyond the well known (& often misunderstood) cycles of addiction &/or mental illness, two distinctly antisocial behavior patterns common to America, and now widespread in post-2019 PDX, include: 1) the aggressive, 'toxic masculinities' often seen among street subcultures, & 2) the recently proliferating, face-glued-to-the-screen, instant gratification of the technophile generations, who often seem quite blase about the cruelest of abuses & public harms -- as long as these don't impair their Uber Eats app, game downloading bandwidth & screen resolution.
Confronting such anti-social and self-destructive collective behaviors & cultures/subcultures will require broad coalitions & leadership. From the NGO community like Street Trust & neighborhood associations, to public schools, churches & regional governments, we must expressly unite under a shared 'eyes-on-the-top' as well as 'eyes-on-the-bottom' vision of caring community resistance.
As such, I hope we can look forward to future words & actions from Street Trust to advance a community-centered vision like the great Jane Jacobs. In recognizing that our eyes-on-the-street are a powerful social force, Jacobs demonstrated how we can & must insist on 'decent behavior' by powerholders 'on top' as well as by the powerless 'on the bottom'.
An afterword: Having just returned from 4 weeks in France, the UK & Iceland (my latest of around 3 years total living/traveling/working in diverse locales outside the U.S.), I have experienced many examples of a functioning culture-meets-structure -- which thrives largely by the dispersed power of community members' eyes-on-the-streets.
So let's work together & renew PDX!