Portland’s Neighborhood Associations: History, Culture, Dynamics

I learned recently that a former Mt Tabor Neighborhood Association board chair wrote a dissertation on Portland neighborhood involvement. You can read it online (or download it from) the Portland Community and Civic Life website (and at the Internet Archive):

"The Dynamics of Creating Strong Democracy in Portland, Oregon – 1974 to 2013," by Paul Roland Leistner

(Paul Leistner’s dissertation at the Internet Archive.)

Excerpt:

“CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

In this dissertation, I examine the evolution of Portland, Oregon’s nationally recognized community and neighborhood involvement system with a special focus on identifying the system elements and dynamics that have helped advance and sustain Portland’s progress toward achieving a “strong democracy” culture and governance partnership between city government and the community….” [Link to the full dissertation.]

This blog post was published on March 6, 2022 (by Laura).