Cloud City’s Origins: A Love Story
Always dreaming of a bigger future, Eli never quite felt comfortable in the small Oregon town where he grew up, so as soon as he could, he left home and traveled the country, taking up residence in various cities, exploring and studying them, and then landed in New Orleans, one of the most storied cities in the U.S. There, he spent a handful of years playing jazz and falling in love with the energy, history, and people of such a unique city and learning how important it was to him to live in a city with character.
I was born across the world from Eli in South Korea but was adopted and grew up in a small, working-class suburb outside of Detroit. As a child, I was treated as a foreigner with strangers always asking where I was from, assuming I didn’t belong, kids pulling at the corners of their eyes and taunting me for being Asian. So, in my teens, I wanted out of that place. Desperately. I started exploring Detroit, a city with a warning label that read: danger. Ironically, this dangerous place became my safe haven with the opportunity, diversity, acceptance, creativity, urban beauty, and ingenuity that I craved. It was the first place I didn’t feel so out of place. I found a community who loved and were inspired by their city. Being a part of Detroit was an identity. These early experiences in Detroit started my love affair with urbanity.
Fast forward to the late nineties, when Eli and I both landed in Portland for the arts, music scene, nature, and reputation for being a well-planned city. Growing up as outsiders in our small communities, cities gave us a sense of home, a place to belong, and it was easy to settle down and fall in love with Portland. We grew into adults in this city, built deep friendships in this city’s bars, coffee shops, and breakfast spots, learned about who we were and what we were made of in this place. To us, Portland is one of America’s great cities; there’s no other place in the country like it.
Portland has it’s problems, and some of them are immense: drugs, human trafficking, the housing crisis, gentrification and displacement, and horrific racial disparities. But it’s also a place where people focus on the important stuff, and folks show up ready to try new things, learn, and make a difference. Portlanders are engaged with our world and seek out new experiences. We’re public transit riders, cyclists, and carpoolers. We consider fuel economy, drive electric cars. We love ideas and innovation while respecting tradition. We surround ourselves with beauty - in our homes, our workplaces, our public areas. Our food is art. We spend time at the river, hike away our weekends, BBQ with friends and family. We love books. We get in the streets and fight for what’s right. We support local businesses. We want to make and spend our money in ethical ways that drive our local economy. We’re a place where regular people have built amazing things together.
Like it or not, our reality is that Portland is growing and changing. The City of Portland’s growth forecast predicts the city will add approximately 260,000 new residents by 2035, adding around 140,000 new jobs. SmartAsset reports that “Of the 25,405 millennials that moved to Portland in 2017, more than 15,533 of them came from a state other than Oregon.” And the PSU Population Research Center notes, “between 2013 and 2018, the City of Portland issued building permits for about 31,000 units.” People are coming for the culture, the physical landscape, and we will soon see large numbers of climate refugees, fleeing more volatile places.
Portland’s far from perfect, but it’s aimed in the right direction. Now’s the time to place a stake in the city’s future. We love Portland, like love it, love it. Cloud City is our passion project. We see a need; we want to fill a need. Portland is transforming right before our eyes and will continue to grow and change at a rapid pace. We want to help good people create a better future, to help them make a positive mark on Portland, and to be a part of an enduring legacy.