Produced by the City of Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability this is a brief introduction to the neighborhoods of Portland emphasizing their uniqueness. Posted December, 2014.

What's working, and what's not, and why?

What improvements can actually be done by this time next year? 

Answering these questions, and others, will be: Multnomah County Chair-Elect Deborah Kafoury; Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman; Suzanne Hayden, Citizens Crime Commission; Traci Manning, Portland Bureau of Housing; Matt Morton, Executive Director at Native American Youth and Family Center; and Leo Rhodes, Street Roots. KGW NewsChannel 8 reporter and anchor Reggie Aqui will moderate this forum.

At City Club's April 4th Friday Forum, Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a leading national voice on the issue of homelessness, offered her views on the causes and evidence-based solutions to end homelessness. Click here to watch the video. 

With results due in January, a City Club research committee is studying how the homeless population in Multnomah County can best benefit from federal and state health care reforms. Streamed live on Jun 13, 2014 With research, advocacy and public forums, the City Club of Portland, in 2014, has established a year-long focus to find practical solutions to end local homelessness.

As the City of Portland prepares to move forward with the revitalization of the long depressed Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood, there are renewed interests in preserving the architecture and honoring the history. This area is home to two National Historic Districts, and there is hope that we can restore and reuse many of the historic buildings.This panel will: Review the challenges of redeveloping historic buildings; explore better financial tools and incentives; suggest good in-fill considerations; discuss ideas of streamlining the process in order to attract private investments and put historic buildings back in full service.

Speakers: Brian Emerick, Principal at Emerick Architects; Julie Garver, Housing Development Director at Innovative Housing; Jeff Joslin, Director of Current Planning at the City and County of San Francisco; Peggy Moretti, Executive Director at Restore Oregon; and Ethan Seltzer, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Moderating the panel will be Chet Orloff, Manager at Pamplin International Collection of Art & Published on Jun 24, 2014.

Alejandro Aravena: My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process.

The most powerful ingredient of happiness is strong positive social connections and it is so when it comes to making citizens and cities happier. Charles Montgomery speaks at Sam Sullivan's February 2014 Public Salon in Vancouver, BC, Canada. 

How can we be happier in cities? Charles Montgomery looks for answers at the intersection of urban design and the new science of happiness. In psychology, neuroscience, and behavio

ral economics, and in cityscapes from Disneyland to Dubai, he explores the link between the ways we design our cities and the ways we think, feel, and act. His work demonstrates how each of us can change our own lives by changing our relationship with the cities we inhabit.

Order his book from Amazon by clicking on the image or visit your local bookstore. Thank you.  

This is a proposal for the location of a Chinese style Green Grocer in the New Chinese Japanese Historical District of the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association. Ruth Ann Barrett is a sustainability advocate living in the neighborhood with experience in community development, local government, association management and marketing. This is an update of an earlier version. Published on Oct 26, 2014

What do the youngest-ever President of the Sierra Club and the first Chief Sustainability Officer of Walmart have in common? They are co-founders of yerdle, the Bay Area startup that helps members to share and receive free items with their social network. Hear Adam Werbach and Andy Ruben speak about their convergent paths to the sharing economy and their insights on driving fundamental change in the private sector. Published on Dec 2, 2013

TEDxPhylly speech, Architecture critic Inga Saffron challenges cities to shift focus and look beyond skyscraper fantasies in her TEDxPhilly talk - "Moving from The Grand Vision to The Grand Adjustment." Cities should instead work to improve and build amenities that make urban areas better places to live for existing dwellers. Public spaces should be a priority: upgrade transit systems, add bike lanes to all major roadways, increase walkability, create and maintain great parks and public plazas. Saffron believes that skyscrapers are not the only way to achieve the worthy goal of density and sustainability. To explain, she points to the success of mid-rise buildings in Philadelphia and posits that different cities need a range of densities. American cities must be flexible and make adjustments - an idea jokingly demonstrated in Saffron's opening skyscraper yoga poses. Uploaded on Jan 29, 2012