In Your Portland Neighborhood

When I was little, our family was the first in our apartment building to get a color TV. All the kids came to crane their necks in our front door to see Sesame Street in color. Yellow big bird, Ernie with his orange and blue striped t-shirt, blue cookie monster. This was years before Elmo. 

I remember a song from that show: Who are the people in your neighborhood? There's the postman, the grocer, the auto mechanic. Even as a child, it gave me a feeling of peace and belonging to know that I lived in a neighborhood where other people lived, who did their work, and kept my world functioning.

Here in Portland's inner neighborhoods you'll find the printer, the professor, the jewelry maker, the barista, the tattoo artist. The singer, the saleswoman, the food cart guy. But truly, you'll never find them and meet them if you don't live in a Portland neighborhood.

A neighborhood is where you regularly travel. You set your footprint there and you belong to it. You are central to its workings, and your interaction with all the other people is what makes it a place worth being in. It's the place your memories are seeded and take root, creating your life.

A good neighborhood contains the lovely and practical things that compose your environment: the big trees, the diverse kinds of homes, the range of human expression in the shops and businesses people have individually designed and run, in the specialties they cook for you to eat. Portland's full of great neighborhoods.

Pocket neighborhoods in big cities are what make life grand, living there. When you live in a true neighborhood, you are recognized and others recognize you for belonging there. Belonging can be a rare thing in the world.

If you have what it takes to live in an exciting Portland neighborhood, you are already comfortable with diversity. That your neighbors may not live or look like you is cool. You know how to navigate city life, and you aren't afraid of it. It energizes, excites, and fires you up, at the same time making you comfortably at home. The character of the homes reflects the range of character of the people who live alongside each other.

You know who you are. Let me put you in a home in Portland that is rooted in its neighborhood, and let the life of depth and richness begin.