Champoeg Street Corner, courtesy of Wikimedia

The history of Cascadia, (then known as Oregon Country) reveals a very ambiguous power structure. As one of the vestiges of the frontier, men (and women) made the long journey to the Pacific Northwest as a way to escape established institutions and try their hand and a better (and wetter!) life. For many years the lucrative Hudson's Bay Company acted as a proxy government for the Cascadian people, of which the vast majority were employed under. The governments of both Britain and the US had agreed to share the land, essentially seeing it as nothing more than an exploitable resource base for their affluent Eastern cities. But as the population grew, and in turn, diversified, Cascadians realized that a structure of governance was necessary. A series of meetings were held in Champoeg, Oregon (halfway between Salem and Oregon City), which culminated in the establishment of the first government of Cascadia.

On May 2, 1843, in the bustling prairie town of Champoeg, prominent settlers of Oregon Country debated about how to establish law. Finally, a line was drawn on the ground. All those in favor of establishing an independent government were asked to cross the line. The vote was close, 52-50 but the settlers decided on a new government. Thus, the First Provisional Government of Oregon was established. The government existed for almost six full years, providing a legal system as well as a common defense for the Cascadian pioneers. On March 3, 1849 the government was absolved as the Oregon Territory was established under the United States Government. Nonetheless, Cascadians did in fact rule themselves before anyone else got the chance.

To commemorate this historic event the Cascadian Commons is hosting a Founder's Day Event in Champoeg State Park. Although the town of Champoeg no longer exists due to a devastating flood, a marker has been laid down to mark the place of the Champoeg meetings. The Cascadian Commons intends to reenact the line in the ground and ask all who believe in an independent Cascadian Government to cross it. Find out more information at their website: CascadiaCommons.org

Car Free Cascadia!

Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, courtesy of Wikipedia

The Oregonian published this great interview with Australian Professor, Peter Newman. He studies what he has dubbed, "car culture" in America and Australia. Here are a few excerpts:

Q: We have a $4 billion proposal to replace a six-lane highway bridge on Interstate 5 with a new bridge that would have six highway lanes, plus six auxiliary lanes. It would also extend light rail to the northern suburbs and have generous pedestrian facilities. It's been billed as having a little bit for everyone. Is that kind of project worth pursuing?

A: Four billion dollars is what you're going to need for building these transit lines and subcenters.

Keeping the traffic moving is what you have to stop doing. VMT (vehicle miles traveled) reductions are not going to be promoted by that bridge.

There will be a whole series of freeways taken down when they reach the end of thei life in cities around the world. The one in Seoul (South Korea) came down. Now it's a beautiful river, and a park with transit. The mayor who did it is now the president.

Q:What's the difference between a sustainable city and your latest term, a resilient city?

It's moving more directly into this climate change and oil agenda. In many ways, the sustainability word is being made to mean "green." But the agenda of oil and greenhouse gases -- the consumption of resources -- is about resilience in the city.

Resilience means you can have options so that we can achieve a 50 percent reduction in VMT, so that we've got capacity in the transit system, you've got destinations clos by that you can reach biking and walking, and if you need to use a car you don't need to go far.

Suburbs on the fringe built with all the certainty of the future are now very uncertain, because people living there sometimes have to spend 40 percent of their household budget on transport, and 40 percent is not sustainable.

If you're going from $3.50 a gallon gas to $6 a gallon, which is the price of fuel in Europe ... many of these suburbs will be abandoned. They are not resilient.

Q:Every month or so, another magazine names Portland the most sustainable city in America. They tend to cite the renewable energy we use, the commuters who don't drive to work and the number of green buildings. What should the next challenge be for us?

On those sustainability ratings, it comes out on top, and I would agree with that. But on a resilience rating, it's not. New York comes out on top.

There are whole regions of New York that are just as bad as Atlanta. But the core of Manhattan is very resilient. It's got enormous ability to take people other than by car.

Portland now needs to lead the way in the exponential decline in VMT, and there can be no complacency anymore in saying, "Well, we're already there."

Check out the whole interview with some videos here.

The State of Jefferson

Via Magazine
By Christopher Hall
September 2003

Barreling north on Interstate 5 in the late afternoon, with the Siskiyou Mountains before me slipping into shadow and lofty Mount Shasta glowing orange in my rearview mirror, I suddenly find I'm no longer in California. Not so strange, perhaps, except for one thing: Oregon still lies a good 20 miles ahead.

In a pasture just off the highway, the words STATE OF JEFFERSON appear, painted in eight-foot letters on a barn roof. A few minutes later, I pass a sign confirming that this stretch of road, traversing a 2,500-foot-high valley of hay farms and cattle ranches, is litter free thanks to the State of Jefferson Chamber. On the car radio, an announcer reminds me in his soothing baritone that I am listening to Jefferson Public Radio. Clearly, I have entered some real-life Twilight Zone called Jefferson.

A quick check of the history confirms that Alaska was the 49th state to enter the union. But if events had unfolded a bit differently, the State of Jefferson—carved from the border counties of Siskiyou, Del Norte, and Trinity in California and Curry in Oregon—might have beaten the northern giant to the punch.

Partly serious bid, partly publicity stunt run amok, the Jefferson movement spawned impassioned rallies, highway blockades by a self-appointed border patrol, and the election of a governor who posed for inauguration day photos with a bear named Itchy.

Today in these counties it's unlikely that you'll encounter serious secession sentiment, or even a tame bear. You won't be stopped by the border patrol—only by natural wonders like the rushing jade waters of the Smith, the last major undammed river in California. During my four-day drive through modern Jefferson, I pulled my car over plenty of times. I gawked at soaring bald eagles. I stood in awe before an army of insect-eating, cobra-headed California pitcher plants rising from a misty forest floor. I felt the spray of water where rivers meet ocean surf, and I ate salmon within view of the boat that caught it only hours earlier. And all along the way, I learned about this almost-state that was born in a small Oregon town.

With its peaceful, slightly funky feel, Port Orford, Ore., hardly seems a cradle of revolution, but in 1941 it had Gilbert Gable at the helm. Gable described himself as the "hick mayor of the westernmost city of the United States" when he met Stanton Delaplane, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who penned a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning stories about the Jefferson movement. Gable was actually a transplanted Philadelphia public relations man who had headed west with a wad of dough and big plans for extracting the region's timber and ore and for transforming his sleepy new hometown into a bustling seaport. One of the things that stood in his way was bad roads, many of which were no more than oiled dirt lanes that turned to sludge in rain and snow.

Perhaps hoping to get a good new road or two, Gable announced in October 1941 that Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath counties in Oregon might merge with California's Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc counties to form a new state. "It was more publicity stunt than serious secession movement at that point," says Jim Rock, historian and Jefferson expert. "After all, under the U.S. Constitution, they had to get the approval of Congress as well as the legislatures of both states."

Port Orford today has a small fishing fleet and an unusual open-water port, where boats are hoisted out of the ocean rather than tied to a dock. The population is a mix of fishermen, old-time lumbermen and ranchers, and newly arrived retirees. A good number of artists live and work in the area, selling pieces at galleries and gift shops like Port Orford Pottery, which is open "most days" from April to October, "unless the fish are biting."

Drive slowly through town or walk the bluffs in Port Orford Heads State Park to take in the stunning views up and down the coast and you'll see that booming development, as Gable envisioned it, never came. "We get visitors throughout the year, but mostly in the summer," says current Port Orford mayor Gary Doran, who is as low-key as Gable was hard charging.

Visitors come to stroll along sandy Battle Rock Beach, the site of a fierce 1851 fight between pioneers and Rogue Indians, or to explore Rocky Point tide pools that brim with flowerlike anemones and deep purple and bright orange starfish.

Humbug Mountain State Park attracts scuba divers and windsurfers, as well as those who are up to the challenge of a hike through old-growth forest to the mountain's 1,756-foot ocean-side summit.

Full story here.

Learn more about this little rebel state at www.jeffersonstate.com

Most Livable City

A Post to make Seattlites jealous.




Courtesy of NYC's StreetFilms. (If you have the time, check out the feature on Ciclovia, in Bogota. Probably one of the most creative intiatives any city has ever taken.)

Climate Change Strikes Cascadia

Cascadians have generally been lucky when it comes to disastrous weather. Although the '85 Helen's eruption has remained paramount in collective memory (not to mention the constant doomsday earthquake predictions) recent years have kept us safe from the calamities befalling other parts of the US (ie. forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, and snowstorms). Well, it seems our luck has finally run dry. This week devastating winds (up to 90 mph) and rain (up to 11in) wreaked havoc on Southern Washington and Northern Oregon. The storm has left 5 people dead, at least 150 stranded, many more homeless, and over 100,000 without power. To make matters worse a twenty-mile section of I-5 between Centralia and Chehalis, Washington was completely flooded, halting the main transportation route between Vancouver, BC and Porland, OR. It is estimated that $4 million are being lost to businesses every day due to the obstruction and to raise the highway could cost upwards of $400 million. Even optimists that usually look to storms like these for snow in the mountains were disappointed since the warm weather meant rain and winds destroyed the already limited snow-pack. Sadly, no matter what our future response to global climate change may be, our past irresponsibility means that this is probably not the last of these type of disasters.

See also:
[The Seattle P-I]
[The Oregonian]
[BBC News]

Tom McCall: The Natural Visionary

Last week Audrey McCall died in her Portland home at the age of 92.

Audrey McCall, the First Lady to the late Governor of Oregon, Tom McCall, was an active and powerful patron of environmental issues in Oregon.

While Mrs. McCall deserves admiration in her own right, one must know her husband to truly understand the impact of the McCalls on Cascadian history. Under Tom McCall's leadership in the 1960's and 70's, Oregon became one of the most progressive places in the world for environmental awareness.

"Surely, we all can subscribe to the uniting thought: That our actions here --- and always --- be guided by a reverence for life and respect for nature."

At first glance McCall doesn't seem to have the credentials of a typical eco-friend. He was a Republican and a vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, which raged during his Governorship. Nonetheless he understood the importance of the natural environment in the Oregonian psyche. "Health, economic strength, recreation --- in fact, the entire outlook and image of the state --- are tied inseparable to environment," he proclaimed in his first Inaugural speech.

McCall first ran for governor in 1966 under the banner of "livability". Although his own party opposed him, he won the election and quickly passed the "Beaches Bill" which granted the public ownership of much of Oregon's beautiful coast, saving it from development. This would be the first in a long line of pioneering environmental measures. His most famous was the "Bottle Bill" passed in 1971. This law, the first of its kind in the nation, required all soft-drink and beer containers to be returnable for a small refund. This bill dramatically cut down on litter and has since been copied by many other states in the country.

McCall also worked hard to clean up the Willamette River, which runs through the center of Portland and had virtually become an industrial wasteland by the end of the 1960's. The Harbor Drive Task Force which McCall organized in 1968 aimed to replace an old section of the Route 99 freeway, which spanned the Willamette River in downtown Portland, with some type of public space. In 1974 the highway was demolished and the area was developed into the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, a beautiful, historic park in the heart of downtown Portland. (Hmmmmm, maybe tearing down a decrepit viaduct on the water CAN have good results!)

But more than just environmental issues, McCall saw things from a greater perspective of sustainability and quality-of-life. He is well-known for his blunt message to non-Oregonians: "We want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live." Even in a post-WWII environment, where growth of the West was seen as an integral goal of the United States, McCall understood the necessary balance needed between humans and other life. Under his leadership Oregon implemented the first statewide land planning system, which introduced an urban growth boundary to many of Oregon's metropolitan areas.

In 1983 Tom McCall mournfully succumbed to cancer. From that day forward, Audrey McCall carried on her husband's ambitions until her unfortunate death this year. The McCall legacy is one that all Cascadians should remember and commend. It is people like this that have made our small region of the world one of the best. In 2002 Oregon Governor Ted Kulungoski summed up McCall's character; it is one that has greatly influenced the Cascadian ethos:

Non-conformist. Fiercely independent. Plain spoken. Tolerant. And above all, in love with—and determined to protect—natural beauty.

Sources:

Oregon Historical Society: [Governor Tom McCall]
Oregon Biographies: [Tom McCall (1913-1983)]
Oregon State Archives: [Tom McCall's Administration]
Wikipedia: [Tom McCall]
Wikipedia: [Oregon Bottle Bill]

Towards Carfree Cities: Rethinking Mobility, Rediscovering Proximity

The dream is still alive! The 8th Annual Carefree Conference, put on by the World Carefree Network, will be held in Portland next summer. Check it out, or get invovled.

Cascadians talk Climate

Willamette Valley, Oregon

Taking the Lead
By Eva Sylwester
November 1, 2007

"Global warming: A problem that requires the cooperation of the world to solve.

Action at the state level and collaboration between states is still an important part of the solution — even though measures taken at the different levels of government involved can conflict with each other.

Speakers at the "Combating Climate Change on the Regional Level: West Coast Policy and Litigation" symposium at the UO School of Law on Oct. 19 addressed these issues. The Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation, which UO law students produce, and the Bowerman Center for Environmental Law sponsored the symposium.

State Sen. Brad Avakian (D-Beaverton), one of the symposium's keynote speakers, said Oregon's government has a historical record of acting for the betterment of society, as in the 1967 Beaches Bill and the 1971 Bottle Bill.

"We lost that in the last couple of decades, but the last legislative session was a turning point," Avakian said. "It was the beginning of a cultural shift back."

Accomplishments of the 2007 legislative session Avakian noted include expanding the Bottle Bill; requiring recycling of consumer electronics; and the Oregon Renewable Energy Act, which mandates that 25 percent of Oregon's energy will be renewable by 2025.
The level of thought toward climate change in the Pacific Northwest is unique, and so are the Northwest's challenges for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Northwest does not have the number of methane-producing cattle that the agricultural Midwest does, and it also benefits from hydroelectric power. Therefore, the Northwest has a greater share of its emissions coming from transportation than the U.S. does as a whole, said Spencer Reeder of the Washington State Department of Ecology, and transportation emissions are harder to reduce than other types of emissions."

Read full article in the [Eugene Weekly]