Public outreach is something that — especially in the Portland region — we talk a good game about, but rarely do we do it well. Sure, we make lots of pretty brochures and web sites, but when it comes time to go out and do some face-to-face with the public time, we tend to become [...]

Industrial parks have fascinated me for a long time. They are largely an artifact of the 20th century, but with their arrangement of small-to-medium industrial buildings and extensive rail infrastructure, in many ways they were the last expression of 19th century economics, philosophically obsolete from the moment they were built. A visit to the average [...]

Sometimes the terminology of public participation professions is a complicated word stew. Public involvement, public outreach, public relations, public affairs, community affairs, community relations, community outreach… what the heck are all these terms? Do they all really mean the same thing, or are they all different? if the latter, how can someone make sense of [...]

Last week, the Metro Council endorsed the High Capacity Transit System Plan. This plan identifies a series of corridors throughout the region as the next logical routes for high capacity transit. Despite the fact that the plan does not specifically identify modes for each corridor, many of these routes are spoken of as potential MAX [...]

The newspaper is dying. Here, in the Portland, Oregon region, our major daily paper — the Oregonian — has been cadaverously thinner and thinner by the day. Alternative biweekly Portland Tribune recently ceased publishing its Tuesday edition, boasting that their content could now be found on Fridays at the newsstand, and constantly on the web, [...]