Cultural Civics
...Two things make Tacoma the envy of Portland: guts and cooperation.
...How did it happen? Citizens created a road map with a cultural plan to build Tacoma's comeback on the arts. And a perfect storm of Tacomans in powerful posts in the U.S. Congress and the Washington state legislature and a savvy deal-cutter at the helm as city manager got it done.But none of it would have happened without the leadership of the business community -- cooperation notably absent from the changes in Portland's downtown during the same 10 years.
...During the same decade in Portland, developers built the city while the business community complained about it, swinging at the shadows of the homeless, taxes, regulations and the weak-mayor system of government....Not everything is hunky-dory in Tacoma. The city could learn a lot from Portland's smarter designers and developers. The kind of explosive synergy Portland created with such housing/retail combos as Belmont Dairy, Museum Place and the Brewery Blocks is sorely missing. And Tacoma desperately needs some sort of design review: Witness the vacuous new Pacific Plaza urban park and new Marriott Hotel.
Yet, while many things could have been done better, the new arts facilities are solvent. Thirty new restaurants have opened.
Too bad the two cities aren't teams talking trades: Portland's urban designers and developers for Tacoma's civic boosters; some Tacoma guts and cooperation for Portland quality.
Read the entire piece here. Thanks to Katie Rose '05 for the link.