This year’s cohort of SFU urban studies graduate students recently returned from Portland, OR, where they explored the future of urban development. In a city known for “keeping it weird,” students drew inspiration from the concrete jungle as well as the work of admired innovators in their field.

The trip, which was first initiated in 2008, allowed those in attendance to opt into whichever workshops and seminars interested them on the two-day itinerary. The 40 students who travelled to Portland this year heard talks on immigrant and refugee community issues, city repair, and sustainable transportation, to name a few.

Students were significantly impacted by the hands-on experience of the trip. Said urban studies graduate student Peter Marriott, “It was sort of a highlight and defining moment of the program. Going to our laboratory of nearby cities, whether it’s Seattle, Portland, Victoria, maybe one day San Francisco, it really gives us an opportunity to study cities first-hand and to explore such a huge diversity of people who are working and researching in different cities.”

One speaker who left many of the students inspired was Mark Lakeman, a national leader in sustainable development who has created more than 300 community-generated public spaces in the Portland area.

Student Katelyn McDougall spoke about what resonated most with her — that the initiatives Lakeman discussed are run by, “people who aren’t afraid to stand up for their own use of what communities should be, contrary to what planning departments are telling them.”

One such initiative is Dignity Village, a self-governed, permanent housing encampment built by and for homeless people. Since being officially recognized by the city, the area houses approximately 60 people. It even elects its own officers, provides comforts such as showers, and offers a variety of community services.

Upon arriving at Dignity Village, student Robyn Craigie said, “It was quite awe-inspiring. I would recommend anyone go and see it, just the ability of people, who supposedly have no capacity to help themselves, are really creating something for themselves.”

“It’s much more powerful, I think, to go down and experience what people are living.”

– Robyn Craigie, urban studies graduate student

Many students appreciated similar opportunities to see theory in practice, exploring the neighbourhoods that they had heard about in their workshops. “It was really neat to hear that from the professors earlier and then to go out and experience the gradient of gentrification and neighbourhood change,” said Marriot.

With Portland only a stone’s throw away from Vancouver, participants were also exposed to initiatives that could potentially be made to work in our own urban world. “A lot of the issues we’re dealing with in Vancouver, you can find in a lot of major cities on the continent,” said Craigie. “You can read about that commonality of issues and experiences but it’s much more powerful, I think, to go down and experience what people are living and how they’re similar to you.”

Beyond an opportunity to consider new ways of thinking about urban development, the trip was an opportunity for urban studies students to engage with their peers and experts in their field. “Grad school can be a fairly isolating environment,” said Marriott, “It really strengthens us in the program, the program [itself], and what we were able to learn by going on this trip.”

Despite Portland’s attempts to keep itself “weird,” the understanding of urban issues brought back from the trip by students may not be so far-removed after all. McDougall commented, “Understanding the inequalities and the nature and fabric of the urban landscape is very important in terms of how we move forward creating a sustainable, economically [and] socially just place in the future.”