Attempting to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle in St. Louis

I must say that I’ve never liked a city as much as I liked Portland.  It really felt like a place that i could live, granted I wasn’t there for 6 cloudy/rainy months either.  The ethos of the city though is very much in line w/ mine.   The bike cultural, the voluntary adoption of mass transit, the sustainable building practices, the artisan like community, the hybrid cars out the ying/yang, the dual flush toilets in many of the commercial buildings, the urban growth boundary, locally sourced foods, etc. etc.

A few specific examples of what I saw:

LEED certification – There were so many buildings that were LEED certified that it made no sense to take pics of them all.  I read in this NYC report that Portland had 63 LEED certified buildings. The Ikea we went to was LEED certified, so was the REI, our hotel and even a winery we visited.

Ikea of Portland

Sokol Blosser winery’s solar panels. They were also the first LEED certified winery in the nation.

Locally sourced food was available/promoted at all of the restaurants (it was a foodie town). Even Burgerville, which I initially laughed at, uses sustainable locally produced food. I mean, have you ever seen a burger chain’s website with wind power, bicyclers and kayaker’s on it??

Though Burgerville was a chain, it was a local enterprise. This theme was very prevalent in Portland and they appeared to be very supportive of their independent businesses.  Another example of this is the downtown Portland food campers.  These are groups of 10 campers on a single parking lot selling really good food for a decent price. (see pic below)

lastly and not least is that Portland favorite non-microbrew beer appears to be PBR.  A city after my own heart.  I never drank one though, because with over 50 microbrews in town, why drink something I can get from my local store for less than $.50/can.

We’ll miss you Portland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!