US, such opportunities are everywhere and all but insurmountable. In recent years, almost invisible to the national media, a wealth of individuals, ideas and experiments has already begun to retool our society for a major transition— some would say transformation—from a culture that cannot last our lifetimes to one that is infinitely sustainable. From the great thinkers of our time, to people simply putting in gardens and recycling their waste, a quiet movement is emerging that is giving weight to such a transition. And it is a movement big enough for everyone because the tasks before us are as many as there are people. What will such a transition look like? For our larger society the images are unclear, in part because it is not really at the national level where change is being forged. But for our regions and localities—for the Portland area—the images are much more tangible. It is here where the transition is already underway. "The '80s," says Hazel Henderson, author of the new book The Politics of the Solar Age, "will be a period of reconceptualization and innovation, redirected investments, recycling, redesign for conservation, rehabilitation and reuse of buildings for new life, revival of small towns and small businesses, and resurgence of neighborhood-based and local enterprises, co-ops and community development, which release human energy and potential in new local and regional economies of scale." If there is a larger vision that can guide Portland through this transition, perhaps it is the image of the sustainable city—the city that thinks of itself whole, that moves with change, and plans for permanence. Above all, this implies an acceptance of responsibility and nurturing of solutions at the local level: conserving indigenous resources and managing them for sustained yield; fostering local production to meet more of local needs; designing political systems to support decision-making at the lowest possible level; and, everywhere, encouraging low-cost, community self-help strategies that empower people to help themselves. The vision is still a distant one. It may require nothing less than a reorientation of our values. But doing such things, a city will survive and endure. Pieces of such a vision have already begun to appear in American communities: neighborhoods that have experi44 mented with integral food, energy and waste systems; cities that have built energy conservation into their street design, zoning and building codes; urban regions that are assessing the levels of growth and development that can be supported by their air- and watersheds; whole states that are being studied to determine their ability to become self-reliant in food production. Make no mistake about it, the transition has begun. But, as yet, no major community has come forward with a new image of itself that integrates all these ideas and uses that image to build its future. Perhaps Greater Portland—with its sense of place, its search for quality, its openness to change—can be that city.
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