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Final Blog, Reflection Post

After wandering through the three designated neighborhoods, with each one picked from their respective section, I wandered for a few hours through each one of them. While there were new perspective that was discovered, for the most part, I have been discovering Portland City for a long time already. This project helped me convey more details to places that I see almost everyday, with the exception of South Waterfront.

Overall, each neighborhood has their own unique aspects. South Waterfront was a completely modernized neighborhood, with functional aspects being central and great layout for pedestrians. Pearl District was a mixed between modern and historical, with the center of the place feel more focus on business and less of it the further I go. Montavilla was a history rich place, but was not well maintenance, but it does seem to focus on its community the most.

A little background of my own before I end this blog. I was not born in United States, I was not exposed to these types of beautiful landscape until I was 10 years old, of which my home town has a strong shade of orange. From dirt streets to mud houses to brick houses, I didn’t have much of an idea about what would consider as acceptable in a neighborhood. as long as people were able to live in it, it is good enough, that was the mindset of the people in my town. While there were times I may have seem to criticize neighborhoods in the project for what they lack of, they still are great neighborhood, relative to the one I used to live in.

I learned a lot about Portland through this project, and about the communities that I am apart of. This project has allow me to open my mind more to understand how does each neighborhood around the world function. I do want to learn more about the neighborhoods that I have not yet been to. Although I do already wander the streets from times to times so eventually I will be able to discover them, but in a sense probably less in depth than that of what the project required me to do.

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Blog Post #2, Montavilla Neighborhood.

Montavilla is definitely the most underdeveloped neighborhood out of all the places I went through. Broken streets, run down buildings, this neighborhood does not look safe when I wander through it. There is one positive side to the neighborhood layout which is that it is easy to navigate around. The neighborhood layout in rectangular grids, with no one way street to make the place feel convoluted. Residential housings are everywhere, and businesses are often if not always owned by local. Even so, the barren feels throughout the streets with only car zipping by making it feel even worse to be hanging around.

Around the streets, there are no sign of motivating for the use of bike. Nearby, there is a max station to provide convenient travel to further places, and buses as a an alternative to cars. By going further through the neighborhood, the neighborhood is heavily gear toward car usage. No one seem to be bother with the potholes left on the ground as it has always been there every time I went by. Traffic jam is such a big issue, even during low traffic hours, traffic jam continue to occurs throughout corners of the main roads.

The most prominent public space have got to be the Montavilla Community Center. Although it is never packed with people, it does holds a few events for the community. The park for the community is also a sport field. The center has a pool for swimming and they also holds classes of varying activities. Although one could tell that it is never busy to the brim by the most excruciatingly tiny parking spaces. Surround the community center are variety of small businesses that doesn’t quite help the place feel anymore lively. Businesses and shops look empty, lots of people drove by only to go past. There are a university and an elementary school of which are only few blocks apart. With every community aspects so close together, I can’t help but be reminded of Lewis Mumford’s ideal. Community aspects are essential and first focus, with those in place, the community will fall into their respective places. Looking around, I feel pretty certain when I say that this community is pretty active thanks to fliers being place in many places.

From the look of the neighborhood, I would like to think that its history is still alive with it, alive but abandoned. With many places feel old and out of date, no construction of anything modernize and not many building or houses seem to have maintenance, the neighborhood feels like it need a new coat of paint to refresh. The few buildings that seem to look modernized are those of successful businesses, and they seem out of place surrounding by the old neighborhood.

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Blog Post #2, Pearl District.

Pearl District, a place with modernized buildings that preserved some of its historical past until this day. As I wander through the neighborhood, I can’t help getting a slight vibe of Le Corbusier like the South Waterfront District, although there are signs of residential houses further within the neighborhood, the most lively part of the neighborhood was where the designs were that of Le Corbusier. However its function is like that of South Waterfront, it differ in many different aspects.

Cars play a large portion of commuting. Bike lanes were few to be found, streets were winding, and the fact that buildings are more loosely pack did not help relief traffic during rush hours. Although this district also did have paid parking and garage parking lots to reduce traffic, streets that were still very busy during traffic hours in bigger streets and smaller streets next to them. There are some buses and even streetcars as an public transport alternative, but with streetcars destinations were only few blocks apart of each other, it was not as useful to getting around the district. Even bike lanes are not prominent throughout the district, with a few here and there, most notably one on Naito Pkwy. Many bridges connecting to North and Northeast were to relief any part possible of the flow of cars in and out of downtown.

While traffic might seem hectic and often slow, there were no short of people on the street either, that is if the street is next to the park. Parks are often populated by families having social time with their kids. With functions being the blurry focus of the district, one could point out a few things while wandering around. There are no symmetry to be seen anywhere, and also a lack of community/social destination. Shops are around the neighborhood, and oftentimes, but not always, have apartment complex on above floor. Big businesses and corporate can be identify easily throughout. Making up for the lack of community aspects were its parks. Its few parks are often surrounded by shops and apartments, while I could not see a single school around.

The rare part about this district was how it try to preserve its history for the people. There are few totems and arts laid at hidden corners of the neighborhood. Some parks even have information board about the history of the park and even the district itself. Old brick walls and even a very distinct water tower that I used to walk past everyday to work, with construction happening right below it can be seen.

In the end, I think that it was a vibrant neighborhood, with too many aspects it try to tackle all at once, yet it also forget the important aspects. It is beautiful where it count, and it also reminded people of its history. Not all history can be preserve and maintain, but I think the neighborhood had tried their best at it. I think that Flavio Biondo would’ve like the way this neighborhood is setup. History is presented where they used to be, with modernized aspect being shown as how the district has progressed, one could see it as a mapping of history to modern life.

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Blog Post #1, South Waterfront District.

Today, I wandered around the district of South Waterfront. Everywhere I goes, the city design screamed of modern design. This district’s layout reminds me of something from the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. With housing and apartments on higher up floors and businesses on the first floor. Buildings are tightly packed together in one place to make travelling between places less of a hassle and reduce the need for cars usage. In term of functions, this neighborhood hit the high marks. It is also worth noting that that parking lots are hard to be spot because there are garages below some building structures.

Turning the focus away from its function, this place does not have much of any remnant of its history. Modernized buildings, fresh and clean looking parks in between, even new building constructions can be seen around the neighborhood. The buildings that were already there were wonderfully designed up to standard of current architecture designs. One aspect I didn’t particularly like was that it seem the district seem to geared toward people with higher income ever so slightly. The businesses were both local and well known, and they were never seem to be short of people coming in. However, I do want to keep a doubt in my mind as I cannot possibly see the living condition of everyone around the neighborhood, but with one being so clean and tidy, it’s hard imagine a poor living condition here.

To improve the flow of the traffic, the narrow streets and priority roads were implemented. I did not see any sign of busy traffic except for the highway nearby. Streetcars and buses ran through often enough to accommodate for everyone’s daily commute, that is if they are not biking around using their reserved bike lanes. There are even aerial tram for people and guests to go on and get a great view of the city.

In general, when I was there, cars and traffic were not a problem. There was a single parking lot to be seen out in the open, but it’s hard to find a parking lot as I walk around. Combining with paid parking on every side of the streets helps reduce cars usage significantly. That along with everything being close to each other motivate people to commute using public transportation, walk, or bike.

As I finish up my hours long wandering, I thought about how he district was very beautiful. Parks I came across have plenty of trees and greenery. Although there was not very many people within that park. By wandering around for a few moment, no one could miss the great view behind all the tall buildings was the walkway next to the lake. The Ross Island Bridge and the Willamette River together created an amazing view. The only thing that they seem to had left behind was its history. The district was like a clean modern slate that hidden all its history behind, only to be seen within recollection of the people and photographs.