For wistfully carrying on about place and placefulness, I sure am troubled by it often.
Today I felt different feelings on place and geography, with the realization that the place I am in now simply does not "fit"me well. I guess one could allude to it as a simile for clothes:
A place you are familiar with fits well. Like a new jacket you can't take off, or the perfect fitting pants. Sometimes it takes breaking a place in... For a long, long time. Other times, it happens like magic, where you fall into... place... and its like putting on the correct fitting shirt, and scanning the tags on the shirt on the cash register while you are still wearing it as you leave the store.
Barcelona was a lot like a good pair of sneakers for me. I was a bit wobbly putting them on, not quite finding where I was, and how to deal with the new lumps of sole underneath my feet. But once my feet became adjusted to them, the soul of Barcelona fit me like a malleable track fits a runners shoe. I never took those shoes off, and it was sad that it was mandatory to return those pair of shoes after six weeks.
Southwest Washington, and mostly Vancouver, is like
that shirt. You put it on, and at first it fits just right. You wear it throughout the day, and it sits well on you. Then... that one time you get out of your chair, it just catches on some invisible force on your shoulder, and you can't quite fix it.
This city is perplexing. It is solidly defined in contrast to its "other"... Portland. The city across the river (in Oregon) is very hip, cool, and has a couple of TV shows about it or based in it. It is the alternative scene, where bikes are the thing, weird shops abound in places across from the local supermarkets, and the weirdness of it is just charming enough to bring people in... but weird enough for them to be able to leave after a week. The city is also very, very community oriented. The sections of the city all have their diverse and distinct flavor, and you will know it when you travel between the two (I didn't believe I would at first, but trust me... It happens.)
Vancouver on the other hand is distinctly
not Portland. I was attracted to this at first. (Not trying to sound too hipsteresque here...) Vancouver was a welcome relief to "normalcy" compared to Portland. There are distinct social classes in Vancouver, deserts of suburban emptiness, and a quirky small up/downtown area, charming enough to draw in regional tourists. It is also very historical compared to Portland, with priding itself on being A. Older than Portland, and B. More historical sites and a greater consciousness about its history. Vancouver politics are local community politics, whereas Portland works much more in the national spotlight.
So naturally, I loved this contrast. This subtle "We are more normal & more complex than you" sort of feel. The city brings you in with the welcoming
"Come this way child... You can rest easy away from the strange city of Portland over here in the safe environment of Vancouver Washington..." Over here there are bigger box stores, more people drive their cars places, and in general a more middle of the road approach to life. But keep in mind, this is all in contrast to Portland.
(I.e. Compare say... Lancaster to Vancouver... Lancaster would probably see Vancouver as the "wierdos across the river.")
So how does this not fit right? Well... It gets a little too... Not historic... Nothing physical or popular in Western historical thought here goes back past basically the 1830's. There is no sense of decline and dismay, much like the industrial rust belt across the Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states on the east coast. There are no "giants of industry" here, only small firms which employ lots of people. No "one value or staple" can make or break the community. There is a Port, yes, but it has A. Never gone out of business and laid of tons of people, or B. Been a huge employer to begin with.
The identity of the place is very fractured. Many people are from elsewhere, combobulated into this
space where they can make a living and provide for them and their families. Their families. Lots of new families are here. And they all identify on loose strings, if any at all. The most thing people here have in common is that they... all live in the same geographical area. Very few, if any, families are staple dynasties, there is no major industry to identify around, and there is not really any "downfall" to rally against. Its like everyone does their own thing, ... together(?) , but not to go anywhere or pioneer anything..., except to make money, and to support themselves, so that they and the neighborhood kids can place nice?
As always, these things are best compared and identified when looking at something else. Here, if you could not tell or are not from the rust belt or the east coast in general, is where I compare and otherize this place via my own home region: The Heartland.
The Heartland is the region which lies south of the Great Lakes (basically south of Canada), North of the Ohio River, and East of the Mississippi River. Westward it extends basically until it hits that other unique region of Appalachia. (And try to define those borders. It doesn't work well. Trust me.)
The Heartland is characterized by its reliance on agriculture as its staple and lifelong industry. Yes, fewer farmers are working in the fields, but people still identify with "the crop" and still see it as a vital part of the region. Many people work in urban centers while living in suburbs, and some small outlying rural towns (Hey! That's like my town in Ohio!) Many people work in business, and technology, and the service industry. This is only because the once glorious industrial powerhouse of the Heartland (and Mid-Atlantic) pretty much pulled up shop and moved abroad in the mid 1970's to 1980's. Since then, tons of people have searched for work in different fields,
but! within the same region. People stay put, and rarely migrate outside of the region itself, but mostly from rural areas to urban areas.
The Pacific Northwest (or at least Portland and Vancouver) is characterized in opposite of this by wild boom and growth in the technology sector, along with skilled workers who come from near
and far to work in this industry. People readily move up from California, and down from rural Washington, and! westward from the plains states and open prairies. The growth rate of industry here has brought more people than the local region could ever supply, so we get migrants from out of the area, especially from those plains and high desert states to the east, in between the Rockies and the Cascades. And the area just keeps growing! People keep coming into the area for jobs, and don't leave. They set up shop here, and make more people!
The quality of life tends to be pretty good in urban areas, while rural areas are completely depleted of youth and innovation, because all of them either left for the cities a long time ago, or the new youth (very few) are getting the hell out of Dodge once they graduate high school. So we are left with a once logging boom, which kept much of the population evenly distributed between urban and rural, to a massive growth in urban areas to a depletion of population in rural areas, while still bringing in more people from outside the region to fuel the job and career engine.
I guess this is why this doesn't sit well with me. There is too much changing and diversity of people coming in. The place can not only
not decide on a solid identity, but really has no basis to work on yet. The area is in such flux, that the "leftness" of the Pacific Northwest is about the only thing that binds people together, along with their eco-consciousness and desire to have a good education system and pay workers living wages. Progressiveness.
There is dissent, but it is so little, it rarely gets noticed. This in comparison to back east, where the dissent is well known, and there is a battle to the death over ideals and the future. Maybe its because we have seen the boom bust cycles of capitalism, and we want stability from our leaders and for our futures. In Portland and Vancouver, it seems as though there is so much progress, the people don't know the dangers of the bust cycle that may or may not be coming their way. The logging industry felt this, but the effects were felt mainly in the rural areas. When will the urban fall come for the cities of the Pacific Northwest (or the West Coast in general?)
Now that I am done with my Wikipedia entries and horrible over generalizations; here is a little food for thought:
Make it a challenge to seek out these places and stay in them for a while. From my experience, even if the shoes squeak and the shirt snags, there always becomes a happy medium. The longer you live in a place that "doesn't fit you well" the more, and better, skills you will learn to see that place from the perspective of the people who live there. The better you learn how to understand the viewpoint of another human being, and the life and culture they live and participate in. And I think that is a pretty valuable skill to have.
