On Location: Portland beyond Portlandia: Creative Cities and the New Economy
May 21 - June 5, 2018
Portland, Oregon is a city that is at the forefront of a national trend affecting many urban centers -- from Brooklyn to Detroit, Nashville to Austin. In Portland, as in other cities, the emergence of a class of artisan entrepreneur -- people who produce local organic food, sustainable fashion, hand-crafted beer, third-wave coffee, artisanal furniture, and so forth -- is driving population growth and dynamics of demographic recomposition and gentrification. Housing and rental prices are soaring. Neighborhoods are changing. Working-class and immigrant groups and people of color are being displaced from central neighborhoods, which are being redefined by the establishment of high-end grocery stores, maker spaces, boutique shops, coffee shops, and a generalized aesthetic of hipster enterprise and consumerism.
This on-location course investigates the creative culture and new forms of work, enterprise, do-it-yourself-ism, and consumption that are associated with urban change and economic development in American cities today. Over the span of two weeks spent in Portland, the course will cover topics including the history of gentrification and displacement in the United States, urban planning and the racial politics of space, Portland's lengthy history of do-it-yourself art and creation (e.g., punk, grunge, indie), the emerging "maker movement," relationships between localized consumerism (e.g., craft beer, farmers markets) and identity, critical perspectives on ethics and entrepreneurship, including claims about sustainability in enterprises ranging from farming to fashion, an analysis of hipster aesthetics and whiteness, and intersections between gender and the changing meanings of work and labor in America.
