Portland's Conscious Evolution

Now that Portlandia has aired its final episode, Oregon’s culture capital is ready for a new narrative.

- Hannah Wallace

Every year in late June, 10,000 naked cyclists bike through my neighborhood. A man who lives nearby regularly walks his goat down Hawthorne Boulevard, stopping at the waffle window to order breakfast. My friend Laura runs a library for the homeless, powered by a trike.

Yes, I live in Portland.

Although Portlandia put my home city on the map—and held up its offbeat DIY, locavore, cycling- and coffeeobsessed culture for all the world to see—some of the city’s inhabitants are eager to move beyond the hipster caricature and forge a more cosmopolitan identity.

Portland, population 639,000, is Oregon’s biggest city and getting bigger every day, with 1,000 new arrivals each month. Coming with them are high-rise apartments, opulent spas, and ambitious high-end hotels from brands like the U.K.-based Hoxton. Satellite offices of tech com panies such as Airbnb, Amazon.com, Google, New Relic, and SurveyMonkey have been inspired to move here thanks, in part, to the city’s relatively cheap real estate and dynamic restaurant scene.

In the midst of rapid gentrification and a serious citywide housing crisis, longtime locals are trying their damnedest to preserve community, affordability, and the quirky vibe that makes Portland unique. Last year developer Kevin Cavenaugh, whose Zipper and Ocean food halls are popular in the tree-lined Inner Southeast neighborhood, built an angular structure with a psychedelic facade designed by Los Angeles artist James Jean on one of the most visible corners in the city. He then filled it with homegrown businesses and risk- taking creative companies and called it the Fair-Haired Dumbbell.