Melanie’s question generated a fairly good mumber of responses, but a slight majority of them displayed a trend that is troubling to me. I respondee in the comments section on the original post on Prattlenog, but I want to expand on it here.

A number of instructors responding to Melanie voiced concerns that connecting with students on social media crossed some sort of personal/professional dividing line. Some even suggested that they only wished to connect with students through a second, “professional” profile, keeping their personal profile to themselves. I highly disagree with both stances.

First, this stance is based on the conflation of “social,” “personal,” and “private.”  Education, it should be remembered, can be defined as a form of socialization within a discipline of knowledge. To be social, then, is not necessarily the same thing as being personal — unless one believes that every classroom is the instructor’s personal space. Even, however, when being social is being personal, to be personal is not necessarily to be private. 

This notion of privacy on the Internet is a legacy of the early years of the Internet, when the myth of online anonymity was born. Somehow the belief (despite IP logging and the use of cookies) that the Internet allowed anonymity meant that it was inherently predisposed to privacy. In other words, because it was possible to pretend to be anyone and therefore protect their identity, then the Internet both was and should be a place where a user could say anything without any consequences in the non-online world.

Privacy on the Internet, then, became the privacy of being able to shout before a global audience with the protection from consequences. It was the privacy of identity, not the privacy of action. This lack of personal responsibility on the Internet has become its most dangerous and most destructive quality. 

So when faculty members at colleges and universities say that they want to avoid social media connections with students, the position they are taking is untenable. Although they likely do not realize it, what they are saying is that they want the liberty of behaving in a way that is publicly inappropriate without their students witnessing it.

Choosing a second identity for students to connect with is just another extension of this logic. Essentially one identity — the personal profile — is the genuine identity, while the second identity — the professional identity — is a blind, a mask from behind which the instructor presents his-or-herself to students.

This is fundementally inauthentic. I feel this is a deeply disturbing and frankly unethical position to take. It is also fundementally inauthentic, during an era when the search for authenticity on the Internet is rising .   

The Internet is a public place, like a town square or a city park or a sidewalk. If what a faculty memebr is doing online is inappropriate for a student to see or know, then why is it appropriate for anyone to see it? Or to put it another way, just as with the those other physical public places, don’t act inappropriately on Social Media and it won’t matter if students connect with you there.

In short, I say this to my fellow instructors in the world of academia: be genuine, be you, but be responsible for what you say and do on social media, and being connected to students will not be an issue of concern. Authenticity trumps all.

Over the last year or so — and especially lately — there’s been a lot of rhetoric tossed around over TriMet. Between a bad editorial, a near-miss on a labor action, and lots of Internet drama, I think it’s time for some cooler heads to prevail.

1.) The Oregonian’s editorial against measure 26-119. As of today, I don’t know how I’ll vote on measure 26-119, which would fund $125 million worth of improvements for TriMet’s transit system. Chief among the items that would be bought with the proceeds of this bond measure are numerous busses to replace aging vehicles and improvements for pedestrians, elderly, and handicapped citizens.

I can however tell you that the Oregonian’s editorial against the measure in yesterday’s paper is a load of bunk.

First, the paper states that the bond measure will cost taxpayers “$30 to $43 more in taxes each year.” That’s dead wrong. 26-119 replaces an existing TriMet bond that is expiring. It’s cost will be the same as the old bond. In short, this is a renewal, and its passage will result in the same tax bill as homeowners get now. The editorial board for the paper had to know this was a renewal. I cannot believe they would be so incompetent as to not check the facts on this. So that means they ignored the truth and chose to intentionally portray this as a tax hike rather than a renewal.

Second was this gem:

Approving a bond measure is like buying something with a credit card. It may look appealing, but it multiplies the cost of a purchase by adding interest. That doesn’t seem like a smart way to go.

So if this is correct, the Oregonian just dismissed all funding of public projects via bonds as irresponsible credit-card-like spending. This is an insane notion. Bonding is one of the oldest, most respected, most stable ways of funding the purchase of new equipment or the construction of new projects. This is an intellectually dishonest position, unless of course the paper will now oppose all public bonds from this point forward.

Third, the paper suggests that TriMet should have been setting aside money for these things all along, and that because they haven’t set aside enough in the past, they shouldn’t get any now. This Monday-morning-quarterbacking must make the Oregonian’s editorial board feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but it contributes absolutely nothing to solving our problems. The reality is that we start from today, with what we can affect today, and navel gazing with coulda-shoulda-wouldas about the past will not result in one improved stop, one replaced aging bus, or one additional LIFT service for our elderly and disabled citizens.

In short, the Oregonian’s editorial is both dishonest and dead wrong.

2.) Bus vs. rail budget rhetoric. Over the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of noise about how TriMet’s service cuts would not have been made if it hadn’t been building a rail system over the last three decades. A lot of noise is put out there — including by angry bus drivers — that MAX is only built at the expense of the bus network. There’s even transit equity activists out there now, trying to lobby for the agency to increase bus funding at the expense of light rail.

None of this is true and it’s time to knock it off.

Way, way, way back in 1969, an editorial in the now-defunct Oregon Journal noted that there could be no “taxation without transportation.” In this, the founding year of TriMet, there was concern that if the entire tri-county region was to pay to support the new agency, then the entire area needed service. In short, they argued in favor of transit equity, just as organizations like OPAL are doing today.

The irony: the Journal was warning about concentrating only on urban routes. “Already the idea is getting around that Tri-Met is to be operated primarily for the benefit of central Portland,” the editorial notes:

…the heaviest travel both on downtown streets and outlying roads comes during the morning and evening rush hours. Those drivers… are workers who earn their paychecks in Portland and take a large part of them out to the suburbs to spend. Both city and suburb will benefit by a smooth flow of traffic; neither can get along without the other.

What the Journal had recognized even in 1969 was that Tri-Met served two very distinct geographic markets: an urban, less affluent market, and a suburban and more affluent market. Despite the growth of high dollar urban living in Portland, this dynamic is still prevalent. To serve this mix, Tri-Met needed, in the Journal’s words, “truly metropolitan thinking.”

MAX light rail is part of that metropolitan thinking — in fact “MAX” stands for Metropolitan Area eXpress. Light rail is a key cornerstone to uniting diverse transit rider populations in one, cohesive system. Maybe in this era of tight budget constraints we’ve all forgotten that a little.

Just as importantly, light rail is a key cornerstone of our land-use system, our way of dealing with growth, and our very cultural fabric, as I’ve written about before. We as a region are not about to sacrifice our values or our long term goals because of short-term budget stresses. Our wallets are thinner, but what we believe in and stand for has not changed.

So let’s face it: we’re building the Orange Line to Milwaukie. And after that? Probably Southwest Portland, Tigard, and Sherwood, and maybe (if it’s ever built) a short stretch over the new Columbia River Crossing into Clark County. As a series of projects stretching over multiple decades, any delay we face creates a ripple forward that affects every project’s timeline.

So do you have to wait another 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes for your bus in order to ensure that the community won’t have to wait another year, five years, or a decade for high quality transit to be built? Yes. And if the people at OPAL really support good transit, then they need to drop their rallying cry of “bus riders unite” and replace it with “transit riders unite.”

Lastly, remember that all those pro-bus libertarians aren’t pro-transit at all. They just know that the only way to sell their opposition to (what they see as) the socialism of light rail is to support the (slightly less odious to them) bus system in opposition to it. This unholy alliance of pro-enviro justice groups and anti-light-rail libertarians has got to stop. Don’t kid yourself. If the latter ever got their way and axed MAX, the busses would be next on the chopping block.

3.) Bus driver / anti bus driver rage. These last few years have been tough for everybody, and nerves are fraying at the edge. A number of incidents have occurred over this time period wherein bus drivers have been involved in accidents, sometimes fatal. With press coverage of these incidents, the riding public has become more alert — perhaps downright paranoid — about their drivers following the transit agency’s rules. Some citizens have appointed themselves honorary TriMet supervisors, recording bus driver behavior on cameras and lodging complaints with TriMet about employees who talk about their work on the web. Two bus drivers who blog about their work ended up in hot water, with at least one of them yanking their TriMet related blog. The agency seems to be disciplining and firing drivers at higher rates than usual, and facing pressure from tight budgets has begun to question paying some of the cushiest medical benefits for transit workers in the nation.

It should come as no surprise that tensions are running a little… high.

The reality is that TriMet drivers have some of the hardest, most thankless jobs in the region. Think about it. When you drive the area’s major arterials, do you feel happy? For many of us, just 15, 20, or 30 minutes on the freeways and highways of the region at the beginning and end of day are enough to make us start yelling at other drivers and wanting to move to the wilds of Montana, never to see another soul again. Now imagine driving in that all day. Fun, huh?

Most bus riders probably know how stressful the job is because most bus riders probably have seen the same things I’ve seen: crazy drivers, accidents waiting to happen, the odd stray bicyclist not paying attention, the pedestrian stepping into a crosswalk against their light. But there are a few bus riders out there who have appointed themselves Captain Safety, their cell phone cameras at the ready.

You’re not helping things.

And to the drivers, forget that annoying, self-righteous moron who is stalking you on the bus hoping to send in their video to TriMet HQ and the local FOX affiliate. He or she is not representative of the rest of us, your riders, who you take care of every day.

As for the drivers themselves, I’m thankful that you didn’t stage a sick-out this morning. A soft strike such as a sickout will only serve to make the commutes of TriMet riders longer, slower, and more painful, and that anger won’t get turned against an agency that is trying to reduce what most perceive as over-inflated benefits packages for drivers. No, that anger will turn towards the drivers who called in sick, and in turn to all drivers. So it was a good strategic move not to call in sick.

But moving forward, we’re all having to deal with reductions to survive these times. Everyone. So by all means, fight for keeping the most benefits you can — that’s in your interest — but accept that they are on the table. Negotiate. Work towards a deal. What we all want — what we all want — is to have a functioning transit system that benefits the most people across the entire region. We all do have common ground to start from.

What makes up the cultural DNA of Portland? This is a question that, as a student of cities, I constantly ask myself. It is the reason I have travelled to other cities in the region, spanning from Vancouver, B.C. to San Francisco. It is the reason I have a passion for history, a passion for photography, a passion for local food. All of these things help me to form perspective on what makes this place, this urban region, so unique.

A number of weeks ago, friend and fellow Portland blogger Dan Haneckow lead a history tour around his neighborhood, the Overlook area of Portland. Taking place on a fine, sunny, but breezy afternoon, the walk attracted around fifty people of all ages and backgrounds. Dan lead us through the streets north of the old town of Albina, as far east as Interstate 5, and as far north as Killingsworth. Along the way we learned about the filling of ravines, secret basement speakeasy bars, Polish enclaves, victims of the Japanese internment, and all sorts of other historic scraps.

At about 7 p.m., the tour wound down, and about eight of us stuck around (Dan and myself included) to have dinner and a beer at the Lucky Lab and talk history. A gaze around the table was fascinating. Old mixed with young, newcomers mixed with natives, blue collar mixed with white. And what was this diverse crowd doing over beers, in the blue-hour light, on a random Summer sunday evening?

We were discussing where, of all things, the Piggly Wiggly used to be.

Of all the things, this strange mix of backgrounds, ages, occupations, and origins all had one thing in common, and that was an intense interest — perhaps love — of place. By place I don’t mean the grandness of the bridge-hemmed river, the cast iron Gilded Age remnants of Old Town, or the postcard-stock rose gardens and parks. I mean instead the most intimate levels of location. Building by building, block by block, the finest grain of urbanity. These were people who cared who owned the house before them as well as who came before them, and before them, and so on back to the builders. These were people who wanted to know just what used to be in the coffee shop, just why the building on the corner is rounded, just why there’s a tall, odd, green metal pole that stands orphan beside the road.

This love of place is a kind of historic hyper-localism, or as Lost Oregon’s John Chilson recently described it to me, “micro-history.” I hesitate to say whether this trait is unique to Portland, but there is no question to me that this sensitivity to the most intimate levels of historical narrative is a definite part of the Portland DNA, a common element of culture that crosses generational, economic, and social lines.

Naturally, in filling in the answers about the Portland DNA, I unearth yet more questions. Is this hyper-local historicism something that only reveals itself to a person after living in a place for a certain amount of time? Is it accessible only to the native or the local, of importance and available not to the visitor? And, therefore, is it rampant everywhere, but simply unavailable to me without living in those other places? Or, conversely, is it a unique quality or character of being of or from this region that we call Portland? Do we, here, breed and mold a culture of historicism? There has, after all, always been a reflective, contemplative, and inward turning tendency here. Maybe, just maybe, we’re all just a little geeky for what came before. Not a surprise, perhaps, for the city that reintroduced the world to the streetcar.

Transportation politics — especially bike and transit politics — can be fascinating stuff, especially to a transportation geek such as myself, but for most people it’s just all so much hot air. At the end of a day, to an average commuter, biker, walker, etcetera, does it really matter that so-and-so said such-and-such to so-and-so at such-and-such meeting? Does it matter to the average citizen what Fred Hansen (or now Neil McFarlane), David Bragdon, or Sam Adams has said? Doesn’t this all miss the point that, for most, transportation is about getting around, not about being a blood-sport to watch while eating popcorn?

Thinking about mostly non-auto transportation this way — as a consumer issue not a political one — is something that Michael Andersen thinks is an important but rarely undertaken endeavor. So after almost a year of toying with the idea, Andersen quit his job as a journalist at The Columbian this spring to concentrate on launching a new “10-minute newsmagazine” dedicated to the “bus, bikes, and low-car life.” Called Portland Afoot , the magazine put out its first issue this month.

Quitting a solid day job to stake it all on an untried niche publication? Some might question Andersen’s sanity, and when prompted he freely admits that they may be right. “I’m definitely crazy. But there aren’t enough crazy people in this business any more to come up with the ideas that’ll keep it alive. And I’ll be working like a dog all year to prove this crazy idea can work.”

Crazy perhaps, but Andersen has a method to his madness. In Andersen’s view, there is an increasing market in cities such as Portland for niche publications. “Regular newspapers are optimized for the 1950s distribution, with a very little [amount] of everything,” he explains. At the time, people weren’t paying for the news, they were paying for the aggregation of it in one place. The Internet has largely supplanted that role, meaning that the media have to concentrate more on producing valuable content people are actually willing to pay directly for.

Thus was born Portland Afoot, and Andersen isn’t kidding when he says it’s a “10-minute newsmagazine.” The publication feels like a small, high-quality newsletter, but unlike most of that breed it is not a haphazard collection of causes and events struggling for your attention. Instead, it’s a very graphically pleasing and efficient pub with more practical approaches to stories. A news brief about whether or not MAX will get to Clark County via the planned Columbia River Crossing, for example, includes a (thankfully shortened!) link at the end to additional information on the Portland Afoot web site about the related upcoming Metro president race. The primary feature for the inaugural issue is a ranking of TriMet’s bus lines for on-time performance, number of chair lifts, number of stops (a characteristic Andersen labels as “most hectic”), and so forth. In short, the magazine is a gem for those dependent on the non-auto transportation system, or those who are just plain transportation geeks. Subscriptions to the magazine are $14 for a year — thats about a buck per issue — and are well worth it.

Some may ask why Andersen is producing a paper publication in the age of the iPad. Andersen lists a number of reasons, including the ease of reading a paper publication, making the publication available to an audience that is both “rich and poor, young and old,” and the fact that paper publications are still a hallmark of credibility. There’s also a less tangible, more emotional appeal to a paper publication: pleasure. Says Andersen, “Getting a magazine in the mail makes me think somebody likes me. Getting an email newsletter makes me think I have something to do.”

Andersen has many ambitious plans, including filling out the Portland Afoot web site (which is a wiki) with more detailed, slightly “more wonky” content. The next issue is currently in the works, and will include an interview with famous bus driver and blogger Dan Christensen and an article on the best and worst places to sit on a MAX train. Andersen is working on stories that he hopes to break as well, noting that originating stories that matter is important to the publication.

To learn more about Portland Afoot, visit their web site, or subscribe here.

Last month, a really cool video on the impacts of social media got updated. I’m referring to this video, produced by Eric Qualman at Socialnomics:

I’m a big fan of the video, and often use it as a good, tight primer on how social media is changing our societies. And I say societies because it really is a global phenomenon, not just one for Western Civilization.

There is, however, one argument that Qualman lays out in the video that I’d like to take exception to. At one point, he shows a picture of Dale Carnegie and then a still of the character Don Draper from the AMC show Mad Men. The video then states that the future of marketing and corporate-citizen communications will required “acting[ing] more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men.”

For those of you who do not know the show, Mad Men follows the lives of a handful of men and women in the advertising industry in Mid-Century New York. Frequently the plot delves into the messy machinations of advertising campaigns, as the employees of the firm try to figure out how to get into the heads (and wallets) of consumers.

There is no doubt that social media is leveling the power playing field between corporations and citizens. In some cases, it has turned them into virtual “caged tigers”, prowling and pawing and ready to tear a company to shreds if it makes the wrong move. However, the kind of faith in grass-roots based communication that the Socialnomics video makes is rather naive, and also rather dismissive of one of the most powerful streaks of human existence, the narrative.

Humanity is a story-telling creature. We are constantly evolving narratives to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the world, to socially construct mutual understanding, and to cement our individual places in society. When Mad Men’s lead advertising man Don Draper spins a story around a product — casting, for example, the Kodak slide projector as a time machine taking us backwards and forwards on a carousel of memories — he’s telling us a story. He’s using all the great and awful arts of rhetoric and narrative to connect us to that product.

What social media has done has guaranteed the public a place in the narrative. Now, the average citizen has the ability to talk back, to exchange, to discuss the stories being placed before them. In so doing, however, all it really has done has placed the citizen back into their role as audience to a play — it should be remembered that an essential element of drama is that the audience plays a part as well.

The power of narrative — the power of what is on that stage before the audience — is the power of initiative and creation, and has not gone away. I hope that we will continue to see social media evolve and I hope that it will continue to foster a more democratic society throughout the world. We should not, however, invest in it the notion that it reduces, even one iota, the power of rhetoric and narrative.

Among my many interests are food and culture, and as a result I often follow blogs and online discussion forums with culinary themes, sites like Good Stuff Northwest, Portland Food & Drink, and Chowhound. In so doing, however, I’ve detected a rather odd trend amongst food lovers, the elevation of excellence over cultural significance.

By no means am I going to argue that wanting the highest quality ingredients prepared in the best possible manner is a bad thing. I believe that using excellence as the only measure of quality, however, is short sighted.

Food is cultural, in that it links us to place. When I think of experiences (like eating a meal) I am often reminded of places. The reverse, then, also becomes true; when I think of certain place I think of the foods that remind me of there. For example, I cannot think of Cincinnati without thinking of the Christmas-cookie spiced Cincy Chili or bottles of Ale8one from across the river in Kentucky. North Carolina? True barbecue pork, Cheerwine, and biscuits in the morning. Canada? The gravy-smothered pile of fried potatoes called poutine.

Are any of these “excellent?” Are any of them “gourmet?” Sure, they could all be made with quality, but for the most part none of these dishes or products would end up on a white-clothed dinner table.

A more local example: in the pages of MIX, the Portland-based food magazine produced by the Oregonian, the idea of the city’s “best burger” was explored. The results? Kobe beef this, mushroom demi-glace that. All of them looked beautiful, and no doubt were spectacular. None of them, however, were memorable. They were just one more expensive gourmet burger in restaurants that, in my view, you shouldn’t be ordering burgers at anyway. (Seriously, you’e going to go to Biwa to pick up a burger rather than a bowl of Ramen?)

What got ignored? Authentic experience, and authenticity is an integral part of culture. If I am going to go out for a burger, it’s not going to be for excellence. I can make a burger at home that will be far cheaper and far better than even the most top-notch burgers from the finest restaurants in town. No, if I am going out for a burger, I’m going out for the experience of the burger, not the ingredients of it. I’m going to go someplace like, say, the Skyline. The burger will be average, the milkshake will be very good, but the experience of getting there and being there in an authentic Mid-Century burger joint tucked deep into the woods of the West Hills will be unparalleled.

And this brings us to the Voodoo Donut. VooDoo has become a local institution, helped in large part by the media (and especially by being featured on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations in 2007). Some, however, have questioned its status as a must-eat in Portland. The charges are usually that the donuts are either not that spectacular, or that they are not that unique.

But the cultural role of food goes beyond excellence or even uniqueness. Voodoo’s signature bacon maple bar, for example, isn’t the best donut on the world, it certainly isn’t made from gourmet ingredients, and it’s certainly not endemic only to Portland. (Their bacon maple bar, in fact, is also made by at least a half dozen other donut companies in a half dozen other cities.) But the bacon maple bar and all the donuts made by VooDoo — and VooDoo itself with its funky, hole-in-the-wall, slightly punk atmosphere — is an authentic reflection of Portland’s eclectic, off-beat culture. And for that, it deserves a place in our hearts, and our stomachs.

Thomas Pettitt on the Gutenberg Parentheses from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

The possibility that we may be entering a post-print age is a fascinating one, and if true will have huge ramifications for the traditional press. Journalism, however, will not be the only profession or activity affected.

How, for example, might public relations work in a post-print world?

For one, as information sharing becomes less textual and more oral again, I believe there will be an even greater need for individuals to facilitate dialogue with key stakeholders, a role that is much more akin to community outreach than to traditional notions of PR. Strategic messaging and media planning will still be required, but interpersonal and group facilitation skills will be relied on more and more.

Skills and methods of communication will not be the only dynamics that will need to change in order to ensure the success of a project. The very nature of how projects form will also need to change. For the public sector in this region, this should not prove to be a difficult transition, given our history of public participation processes.

However, this participation will need to be more effectively handled. At present, many instances of public involvement are little more than window dressing, the obtaining of input on a plan that is already 99% completed by paid technical experts.

In an oral world shaped by Social Media, however, there is the expectation that communication is truly two-way. If input is met with no more than thanks, and not reflected by real physical changes in a project, an organization or agency will at best be considered unresponsive, and at worst may find itself in serious political trouble.

Living in Portland, Oregon, I sometimes get a bit jaded about our region. Thanks to a strong tradition of urban planning, a large transit system, and comparatively robust growth management laws, Portland has become a kind of poster child for urbanization in America. We are the so-called “most European city” in the United States, and the New York Times seems to have a crush on us. As a result, this region almost never looks up or admires other North American cities — we’re more likely to fall in love with Barcelona or Amsterdam.

Except, of course, for Vancouver, British Columbia.

From the perspective of passive-aggressive, grasping Portland, Vancouver is a true international city. It is a beacon of modernism and sophistication, one rarely talked about critically here in the states; we can resent or grudgingly admire Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles, but we can do noting of the sort with Vancouver. Instead we are confined to a quiet awe, as if we were not worthy. Vancouver can be spoken of in the same breath with cities like Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, or Singapore. For all that it wishes to be on the international stage, Portland can only ever pretend to belong to this club.

There are similarities between the two cities. Portland is the warmest and sunniest urban area of the Pacific Northwest, where the idea of perpetual rain is more a myth perpetrated in the tradition of the late Governor Tom McCall’s growth policy of “visit, but don’t stay.” Vancouver, meanwhile, is the only temperate metropolis in a country covered by snow for almost half the year. Both both cities share a history of rejecting freeways. Both have a history of tearing down and then reconstructing high capacity transit. Both have a past that is vaguely hippy, and a present that remains significantly influenced by alternative forms of culture. Even today both cities represent a rejection of mainstream urban norms.

In many ways, Portland, looking to the north, sees its future in Vancouver, B.C.. The downtown core of Vancouver is one of the densest in North America. The suburbs are growing up with residential towers being a common element. The transit system is fully grade separated and runs on rapid schedules.

But is Vancouver, truly, a picture of Portland’s future? There are some key differences any urban enthusiast, public official, or city planner need to be aware of:

Perhaps its not that surprising that Vancouver is simply a different city than Portland. No two cities are exactly alike, and perhaps no city should ever be held up to be emulated, so much as learned from. The initial lessons that I would draw from Vancouver is that

1.) metropolitan areas reflect their downtowns, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries,
2.) increasing density of suburbs has cultural implications that can exacerbate political and social divisions, and
3.) transit development is not enough to intelligently manage growth, even in the relative absence of freeway networks.

Overall, Vancouver is a rich and interesting city. There is no way it can be summed up in this short post, and there are many observations and ideas I brought back from my visit that I think have some bearing on how we live and grow in Portland. Most of all, I came back with a far more realistic picture of this often idolized city, one that is far less idealized but also far more human and real. I encourage any urban admirer of the city to visit, but if you do, do as I did, and spend at least as much time out in the suburbs and outskirts along the SkyTrain line as in the downtown. Cities do not reveal themselves in their shopping districts or their downtown towers, but in their commonplace neighborhoods, both urban and suburban.