GREATEST PLACES IN THE WORLD: PORTLAND, ORE?

Greatest places? In the world? Portland? Ore?

The civic booster in me recoils at calling a city one of the greatest ‘places’ in the world, then having it echoed by the newspaper of record, the Oregonian.

It’s got to help public relations, but Time Magazine didn’t help with their image of Portland.

Neither did the Oregonian.

The Oregonian used an image of a river bridge under cloudy skies; Time used a freeway bridge;

Breaking News: Portland has a river and a freeway and you can cross them on bridges.

And it might rain.

Isn’t that great?

Filling Out The Greater Portland Picture

There’s something about a place where you stand on one volcano, see another volcano with its peaked top, and another with its top blown off.

Portland is a mountain gateway.

You can actually drive to Mt. St. Helens and look into a mountain.

Or take a right turn through the Columbia Gorge on the freeway and experience what it’s like to drive through a mountain range.

What would ordinarily be a mountain pass like the Santiam winding through the Cascades changed with ice aged floods.

If the geological aspects of Portland aren’t enough, be sure that the current physical aspects go beyond rivers and freeways and bridges.

The Greatest Places For A Bridge

Time says “Portland, Ore. All are welcome.”

Portland is the last place on the list. And it’s not an alphabetical list. Google “time greatest places 2022.”

The Time image is Flanders Crossing over the 405.

The question I see is the welcome mat. Are all welcome in Portland, Ore?

Sure, come on down.

Portland, OR might be a problem, though.

Could someone remind Time we’ve moved past the Ore of shortened Oregon for the even shorter OR?

Or, I’ll grab the nearest pigeon and tie a note to its leg.

Portland is used to being a backwater destination, and Time agrees. They want to show the world a place in the heavily wooded Northwest by noting a freeway bridge as if to say, “See, they do normal things out there.”

Ask the average person east of the Mississippi where Oregon is and wait for an answer.

Keep waiting. I did.

“Near Wyoming?”

Close enough, just like groundbreaking bridges showing off the world’s greatest places are enough.

The welcome part is a question though. Portland has enough people willing to trash the place and doesn’t need anymore help.

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As a place it’s one thing, as a city it’s another.

“Sometime in the future a kid will walk by hole in the ground in downtown Portland and see the layers of streets, ours included, pressed together like rings in a tree. They might see the modern street level, and the paths below, and wonder how time peels away while man adds on.

“They won’t have any perspective to understand the roads of history, the roles of science, or the turbulent social mix that produces a civilization. But they will still wonder.

“They won’t have a chance to sift through the dirt to see what holds meaning for them. The only dirt they’ll see is shovel after shovel landing on their future, their dreams, by a state that turned its back on them in hard times. And it will feel normal.

“Is it asking too much to give a kid something to see when they look at a hole in the ground?

Or is the dirt good enough?“