Swap out the over-educated and underemployed for the Oompa-Loompas, chocolate for lifestyle amenities, and the Chocolate Room for the concept of “Portland-as-place”, and you got yourself a sequel. But there are problems with such city building: it’s too often defined by the ephemera, or that “transitory matter not intended to be retained or preserved”. Livability is too often defined by the ephemera, which represent America’s tendency to fix hard structural deficits with the airy promises of the pleasure principle. the emphasis will not be on the people of a city, but on potential consumers.

• Uncategorized