The future of the city is dreamlike in talk, but when are we going to get out of this nightmare of facts?

There are a couple of things that have put my hometown of Portland on the map. From bikes to bridges to beer, the nation looks to Portland for some specific things. Recently, the buzzword around Portland (especially at Portland State University) is "sustainability." I have yet to find out exactly what everyone means by this, but some of the professors on campus are lecturing around the world on this topic. Essentially, if we're all going by Webster, it has a lot to do with a community or city that survives and is maintained on a balanced level of renewable resources and ecologically friendly technologies. (Don't email me if you have another definition. You are your own unique snowflake, I get it.)

Portland State has been active in this movement both locally and internationally. Just weeks ago, Portland State University President Wim Wiewel lectured at Japan's Sustainability Conference in Sapporo. Portland State hosted its very own "Sustainability Week" this November which included a talk from Douglas Cohen, chair of the National Youth Initiatives of U.S. Partnership for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (he obviously needs a longer title), in which he challenged his audience to “imagine a Portland that is thriving, green and just.”

Mayor Sam Adams has championed this in his new, highly publicized "Portland Plan" where he envisions "a strategic roadmap to ensure the city is thriving, prosperous and sustainable for all residents." At a November 17th open forum at Beaumont Middle School, the Mayor invited the city to talk about the future. Tables were littered with buttons, pamphlets, and stickers, all promoting how great Portland is going to be in 25 years: peaceful, friendly, and, of course, sustainable.

Right?

Without getting on my soapbox about the reality of creating a utopia (which is exactly what Cohen and Adams suggest rhetorically), it should be a sobering reminder that sustainability should not even be mentioned until the city unpacks what the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported just one day before the public forum at Beaumont.

According to the USDA, the great utopian prospect of Portland, OR, is the second hungriest city in the country.

"Oregon is now among the five states with the highest hunger rate, in the company of Mississippi, Maine, Oklahoma and Missouri. Only Mississippi, at 7.4 percent, had a higher percentage than Oregon of hunger," the USDA said in a report filed on the 16th.

Rachel Bristol is the CEO of the Oregon Food Bank, the largest provider of food to hungry families in the state. “These alarming numbers confirm the severe human toll of this recession and what the Oregon Food Bank Network has been seeing for the past two years,” said Bristol. “Oregon has been hit especially hard.”

That certainly wasn't the mood on Tuesday's open forum for the Portland Plan with Mayor Adams and the gang. It was upbeat, polite, and while some mentioned a few critical problems for our city, the topic of homelessness and hunger was not mentioned even once, until a young man stood up and asked why the plan for Portland completely neglected to include the word "homeless."

The City of Portland ranks #1 for homelessness per capita in the United States. And now, we're the second hungriest city in the United States? The Portland Plan, which will supposedly shape the next 25-30 years of the city, is embarrassingly lacking on these subjects.

If, like Mayor Adams says, its citizens should imagine Portland as a place where all people thrive, shouldn't we first help them survive?