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A Snowball’s Chance in Florida: Portland is changing, with or without you. by Tiffany Lee Brown Okay, so a sociologist named Richard Florida speculates that a group of people called the “Creative Class” gives cities an economic competitive advantage. His book on the subject goes apeshit-hogwild, selling like crazy and causing a stir among policy-makers and creative types. What does this have to do with you? Well, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re involved in Portland’s creative scene via music: you’re a fan, a musician, an engineer, a rock critic, part of a collective, a promoter, an inveterate scenester. Whether or not you’re aware of it, whether or not you like the idea, Florida and local policy-makers are now a part of your DIY world. The Mayor’s office is pushing a Cultural Economy Initiative to celebrate and expand upon the creative scene — or are they merely exploiting it and leading to its ruin, as some believe? The Portland Development Commission is investigating our whole little reality. PSU’s urban studies department recently hosted a panel on the subject. A bunch of us have attended roundtable discussions with Mayor Vera Katz and her consultants. Local media including The Oregonian, Willamette Week, Metroscape, and The Organ have approached the subject from various points of view. This thing is freakin’ snowballing, in other words. It could be great: this could be the first time in your life (and possibly the last) that anyone from the government actually wants to know what you think. They’re hungry to know who you are, what you like, and how to keep you in Portland. They know that Portland’s economy is in the toilet and our schools’ funding is the butt of jokes nationwide. You’re not here for the fabulous jobs and social services. So why are you here? How can the City help keep artists, musicians, and other creative people happy? Our concerns are far more likely than ever to be taken into consideration at the moment, because a bunch of important people are courting our opinions. Will they actually do anything about our suggestions? Hard to say, but it can’t hurt to try. Even if you think the best thing the City can do for Portland’s exploding arts and music scene is to leave it the hell alone, you need to tell them that. Yes, you, Joe Average Citizen who probably doesn’t even bother to think of himself as a citizen. And you, the suspicious anarchist, and you, the liberal who thinks the City is full of shit because of how its cops treat civilians. And you, too, cool musician or artist person who is simply too busy and self-absorbed to notice politics. All of you: you live here, and “here” is influenced heavily by a governing body. Thanks to the snowball effect of Richard Florida’s book, that governing body is making some decisions that could improve or destroy what you currently love about this place. So tell them what makes the city enticing for you. If you can think of specific ways that the City might help, or specific places where they should keep their hands off your creativity, tell ‘em that, too. Here are some items I’ve thought about, and that other people have discussed with me (thanks George, Llewyn, & Shibek): Ways The City Can Help Musicians and Artists in Portland: 1 - Remove the postering ban on utility poles (or accidentally fail to enforce it). 2 - Give musicians free car and van permits for loading & unloading gear, and/or ask the cops not to harass us in the street if we double-park for a couple minutes to unload gigantic pieces of gear. If such permits already exist, do some outreach so we actually know about ‘em. 3 - Lighten up on the live/work space permit rules, or at least on their enforcement.
4 - Despite the court ruling that commercial images (like billboards & ads) are protected free speech, find a creative way to allow murals and other publicly-visible artwork on privately-owned walls. 5 - Make a serious effort to reform the racist, trigger-happy police force. 6 - Ease up on loitering and anti-camping laws. Creative cities have free-flowing, active street life, which includes musicians, performers, and yes, even the (gasp!) homeless. Creative people tend to be frightened off by totalitarian over-regulation of public space. 7 - Put pressure on the OLCC to loosen its more irrelevant, uptight restrictions. For example, a 19-year-old is allowed to join the Army, go off to Iraq, and kill people, possibly even being killed in the process. Somehow, that same 19-year-old is considered too young to play drums in a nightclub that serves alcoholic beverages. 8 - Anti-nightclub activity sometimes closes down underaged clubs and/or hip-hop clubs. Not cool. Once again, our city looks racist, and ageist too. 9 - Avoid heading up massive redevelopment efforts that transform happening underground creative scenes into yuppie shopping malls (i.e., The Pearl). 10 - Protect us from our own gentrification, perhaps. Practice selective rent control. When Portland runs out of cheap houses and old industrial areas, the DIY creatives will move on. 11 - Help match up musicians and artists with existing resources that could help them. Make it a non-bureaucratic place where people can learn about city programs, private grants, and opportunities: a comfy café-office-bookstore on the eastside (or a corner in someone else’s café); a bookmobile-style van full of info that can hit different shows and neighbourhoods; a help line that’s advertised in accessible locations. Even just a staff person with a van, a table, and a bunch of info, who can hit various shows and openings. 12 - Look at the resources the City owns that it doesn’t use fully. Buildings with empty space, unused cars from fleets, computer projectors that City offices use by day but events producers could use by night — how can you broker these out for use by arts organizations? 13 - Promote policies that make life a little easier for poor people, because let’s face it, most artists and musicians are poor. We make use of free clinics and other social services. 14 - Develop an outreach plan so that the Cultural Economy Initiative serves more than just established artists and musicians, and the downtown/close-in hipster DIY indie scene. Make connections with people who live in far-off, unfashionable neighborhoods; provide a conduit for connections between creative people with different ethnic communities, lifestyles, socioeconomic backgrounds, physical abilities and disabilities, etc. 15 - Don’t over-yuppify Portland, period. A bit of reality, grit, and street life is necessary for creative urban centers. That’s just a starter list. I and several dozen random “creatives” will soon be going to another discussion thingy with the Mayor and her people, and I’m sure that hundreds of ideas will be aired. Feeling left out? Well, write a little something down and send it off to local politicians and media outlets. Make a couple phone calls and tell a city Commissioner or the Mayor what you think. Look, you don’t even have to do any research work — we’re putting a sidebar right here, with all the contact info in it. Because I write about the creative class issue, I hear a lot about it — and some people disagree with me. I frequently hear that politicians
Also, some folks seem to think that because I advocate getting off your alienated, whiny ass and participating in the discussion, I must also advocate all the potential policies voiced by City officials. Not so. I have been pleased with my personal dealings with a select number of individuals, such as Mayor Katz and her consultant, Rosie Williams. I’ve enjoyed talking with them and batting around ideas, and my tendency is to trust their motivations. I can’t imagine what kind of conspiracy they would undertake to put all this energy into meeting with emerging creative voices, if their ultimate goal was to destroy us. It’s not like they’re wresting state secrets from us at these meetings. Their vision of an ideal Portland may not be the same as mine, but we all want artists and musicians to be able to live here, sustain themselves, and create their work. If City policy chases the Creative Class snowball right into Florida’s theoretical pot of gold, things will change around here. Know what? Things are going to change anyway. That’s what happens when you live in a hip city that attracts interesting, creative people who move around a lot. That’s also what happens when, say, developers move in and turn a delightfully delapidated industrial neighborhood into cookie-cutter lofts and office/retail space. Change doesn’t have to be bad, though. Change simply is. We may as well try to shape the change, instead of letting it happen without our input. But that’s just my opinion. If you think a city-owned arts space or series of grants for artists is going to ruin this town, by all means, let your voice be heard. The worst thing that can happen is that no one will listen. Right now, I think someone will. All letters to the following commissioners can be sent to: Mayor Vera Katz Jim Francesconi Gary Blackmer Randy Leonard Dan Saltzman Erik Sten Send a Letter to the Editor: The Oregonian The Portland Mercury Portland Tribune Music Liberation Project 2 Gyrlz Quarterly/2GQ The Organ Review of Arts Tiffany Lee Brown is the editor of 2 Gyrlz Quarterly’s webzine of Northwest arts & culture, at www.2GQ.org. Her writing appears in Bust, Women Who Rock, Venus, The Utne Reader, Willamette Week, and various books and magazines. She sings and plays music under the name Passiflora, and has performed with such upstanding musical combos as Brainwarmer, Miss Murgatroid Trio, and Soriah. Miss Brown’s opinions do not reflect the views of 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts or 2GQ.org. Her article about Portland’s creative class for The Organ can be read online at www.musicliberationproject.com/tiffany.html. Check www.organarts.com to locate a free copy of The Organ arts paper. |
The fire department acts more like the Gestapo sometimes.
and this city’s government are so evil, and so likely to screw up our scene, that we shouldn’t “do business” with them or otherwise add legitimacy to their exploitation of Portland arts. To me that sounds like sticking your head in the sand. Portland policy makers are already dabbling in arts and culture, so you can either let a bunch of other people decide your fate, or you can voice your opinion. Voicing your opinion does not necessarily mean that you agree with how the City handles other issues, or even that you agree with the concept of government at all. It’s just letting people know what you think. Then you’ll at least have a good excuse to be pissed off if they institute policies you don’t like. But you never know: you may end up in a wider community dialogue that works out to the benefit of yourself and other artists — and the city, too.