Professor Ethan Seltzer

Making EcoDistricts: Concepts & Methods for Advancing Sustainability in Neighborhoods

In 2010, the Bullitt Foundation from Seattle provided funding to enable a group of faculty and practitioners to explore governance and implementation issues associated with the development of EcoDistricts in Portland. EcoDistricts are intended to be neighborhood-based vehicles for creating a more sustainable city.  Positioned between households and the city as a whole, EcoDistricts are expected to provide a community controlled and human-scaled strategy for enabling goals for sustainability to be more effectively acted on and achieved.  The monograph provided here looks carefully at the assumptions underlying the EcoDistrict concept, and provides insights for their meaningful creation and use.  Importantly, this work finds that unless the issues associated with scaling up from individual EcoDistrict initiatives to the entire city are understood and anticipated in advance, the likelihood that desires for a more sustainable city, and sustainability that is accessible to everyone, are unlikely to be achieved.  Please refer questions or comments directly to Ethan Seltzer at seltzere@pdx.edu.

Download the paper: Making EcoDistricts

Professor Charles Heying

Brew to Bikes

Dissatisfied with passive consumption, many residents of Portland,OR, take matters into their own hands. Associate Professor of UrbanStudies Charles Heying noticed these local artisans prospering all overthe city and set out to study their thriving economy. Profilinghundreds of local businesses, and with an eye on Portland's uniquepenchant for sustainability and urban development, Brew to Bikes isabout everything from bike manufacturers to microbreweries, fromdo-it-yourself to traditional crafts. A treatise to local, ethicalbusiness practices, Brew to Bikes positions Portland as a hub ofartisan ingenuity worthy of admiration.

Read more at Ooligan Press...