Cascadia: The New Frontier

PEAK PERFORMANCE: Cascadia is defined by its natural environment, but also an integrated economy
Picture: iStock

A Hidden Culture

While it might be easy to accept that Cascadians share a distinct ecosystem and economy, whether or not we share a distinct culture is a trickier question. But there is something unique about living in the West Coast, something that is perhaps most clearly seen in our major cities.

Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, in particular, have strong ties to one another and are known for having created a high quality of life, says Larry Beasley, an international urban design consultant who served as the City of Vancouver’s co-director of planning from 1994 to 2006. “While cities are in competitive situations in national terms, we’ve said, ‘Well, maybe we’re not that,’” he says. “We’re searching for our own identities and reaching out beyond our countries.”

The three cities are distinct in that they aren’t really leaders in any traditional sphere of power, Beasley says: not in finance, industry nor politics. This has freed them – or perhaps forced them – to choose a different character, and historically this character has been inspired by the environment. Importantly, the process our cities have experienced to build their own identities has been co-operative, Beasley says, with each city learning from the others. Vancouver, for example, looks to Portland to learn about streetcars, whereas Seattle is looking at Vancouver to learn about highrise downtown housing.
But perhaps the most valuable lessons that have come out of the relationship have been about how to design sustainable and livable communities. This will likely give the region a competitive edge as the global economy comes to rely more and more on service- oriented work, Beasley says, by drawing valuable creative professionals from around the world. “These people can be anywhere they want to be, and they go to places of quality,” he says. “If you look at Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, we are places of quality, and we present ourselves that way; that’s our brand.”

Douglas Todd, spirituality columnist with the Vancouver Sun and author of the 2008 book Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia, is convinced that Cascadia represents a distinct North American culture – although few of us realize it. Cascadians are individualists, perhaps more than anything, he says, shunning large institutions. A smaller proportion of people in Cascadia belong to organized religions, for instance, than in any other region in North America. (We also tend to have higher rates of self-employment, and more of our economy is driven by small business.) “There’s a real live-and-let-live individualism here, which says everybody’s responsible for themselves,” Todd says. “It’s got a good side, and it’s got a down side as well.”

On one hand, this attitude has allowed Cascadians to be extraordinarily tolerant of immigrants and diverse cultures. However, it tends to discourage us from forming strong communities and acknowledging a shared culture. While academics, for instance, are quite comfortable talking about Cascadia as an important region, few residents of the region will actually identify themselves as Cascadians. But Todd insists that it’s critical for this region to have a sense of its identity, both for immigrants trying to integrate into a new society and for longtime residents trying to differentiate themselves from an increasingly homogeneous global commercial culture.

Whether Cascadians will ever come to recognize their distinct identity in a significant way – and whether a major world event such as the Olympic Games will make a difference – is difficult to tell. But in some ways, to adopt a little bit of Cascadian pragmatism, what we think of ourselves does not matter as much as what we do with ourselves. People in Cascadia are highly optimistic that their own actions can change their lives and the world around them, Todd says; they strongly believe they are capable of determining their own destiny.

“That’s why my book is called The Elusive Utopia; there’s a sense that people come here and they want to start something new,” he says. “The future is a very important part of the culture: what we are going to create that has never been seen before.”

But that raises the question: Can this individualistic ambition, so prevalent in the region, ever be focused in a collective, co-operative direction? Or will our individualism in fact prevent us from working together? There’s a difference between a region of like-minded people all engaged in their own business and a region that acts and grows with common purpose. It is that will to act as a community – on the part of politicians, business people and citizen groups – that might finally transform Cascadia into something more than a name on some unofficial map.