O’Toole hates cities, though he still lives in Oregon be it out in the woods.

And most of those qualities are not available in TX, a fact that I am painfully aware of.

You’d actually be surprised at how many libertarians are in Portland. There is a fairly large, unseen number of us.

Having said that, I landed in Portland almost completely randomly with no intent of staying, and the circumstances that followed (having children, getting married, etc.) kept me here. But political ideology doesn’t affect which way the wind blows or how amazing the Columbia River Gorge looks on any given day.

There are many, many attractive qualities to this area that transcend political bickering.

I understand that he pisses off a lot of people here, and when I first started posting, he pissed me off too. But I’ve mellowed since those days. I do like how he views a problem from multiple points of inquiry and how he doesn’t back down, even in instances where I strongly disagree with him.

I use the comments on this blog as an opportunity to learn, regardless of whether I agree with the commenter. In that light, I’ve learned a lot from Randal, Bennett, Dan, Frank, CP and a few others.

I will use individualist from now on. I do not use the word collectivist anymore due to negative connotations associated with it. I would love to talk about the virtues (and vices) of collectivism, socialism and communism, but when those words are used it’s often difficult to have a rational conversation.

Seeing as I was using the term “radical self-interest,” it may have come off as a bit two-faced. Again, I will use individualist from now on.

Every city has their cultural schtick, and Portland’s happens to be planning. It’s hard to argue about Portland when it comes to planning. It’s kind of like using NYC as an example for rail transit. They’re outliers. Most professional planners or ideological communitarians would probably view Portland plans as over the top and in some instances onorous.

Inevitably I think the argument gets down to where to draw the line. Deep down inside most antiplanners like zoning, separation of certain uses, regulations of form, etc. But these regulations can go too far or can be reactionary and this is where the unintended (but surprisingly predictable) consequences come into play.

I feel that by and large the individualist/objectivist POV is too absolutist to be realistic in a society (see: collection of people) let alone a city, particularly Portland. We’re all in this together and we all want rules to the game.

Also, while I don’t think “voting with your feet,” is a particularly realistic concept, it’s hard to imaging why any individualist/objectivist would choose to live in Portland where the overall culture in the city is in direct opposition with their ideology.

Y’all need to move down here to TX. You’d fit right in and we’d treat you like kin.

Touche. Well said and noted.