Portland, Oregon neighborhoods

Portland, Oregon has a rather unique system of neighborhoods. Like every city, Portland has neighborhoods, where certain districts have a certain "air" or "feel" to them, based on common subcultures or economics. However, in Portland, their are also 89 different established neighborhoods that function as quasi-governmental organizations. They are further gathered up into seven different districts based on geographical location. The neighborhoods originally started in the 1960's and gained prominence in the early 1970's when they fought against some of City Hall's plans. One neighborhood went so far as to organize itself as a seperate city, and still exists as an enclave, the City of Maywood Park, totally surrounded by Portland on all sides. However, City Hall, realizing that the old truism You can't fight City Hall had been disproven, decided it would be easier just to organize the Neighborhood Associations and join forces with them. Today, thirty years later, the neighborhood associations are mostly conservative organizations, although they can still raise their fur when the City comes up with an extremely wacky plan.

The Neighborhoods are, by district:

The Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods
North Portland Neighborhood Services
Southeast Uplift
Central Northeast Neighbors
Neighbors West\Northwest
Southwest Nieghborhoods, INC
East Portland Neighborhood Office
Unaffiliated Neighborhoods

It should be pointed out that these are the names of the official neighborhoods, which have official boundary lines. However, in normal nomenclature, not all these neighborhoods are actually used in speech. While people from Laurelhurst often say they are from Laurelhurst, I have never had anyone come up to me and say "I live in Cully-Sumner". In addition, people may say they are from an area, without actually being from the official nieghborhood. Mount Tabor, for example, is much larger than the offical neighborhood named after it, so someone may identify themselves as being from there who does not live strictly inside the neighborhood. Thus, the term district is sometimes used for an area that has similiar characteristics but cuts across bnoderlines. Se Hawthorne Boulevard, for example, cuts across many neighborhoods, but has a similiar culture along its length, characterized by many headshops.

There, then, is an introduction to the diversity that is Portland, Oregon.

Alameda	Mount Tabor	Pearl District	Portland, Oregon
My New York will die with me	SimCity	Maywood Park, Oregon	Tompkins Square Park
Portland	Hayden Island	Grant Park	St. Johns
Toronto City Hall	Portland, Maine	National Honor Society	Portsmouth
Concordia	Piedmont	Centennial	overlook