Angel Lovemore WR-122 6-2-2026 Street Food Proposal to Portland City Council Most humbly and with the deepest respect, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Angel. I live in Southwest Portland near the campus of Portland State University. As college graduates, you may relate to studying as a student like me. I will earn an associates degree from Portland Community College this year. At the same time, near Southeast Portland is where I work as a Certified Nursing Assistant. I am like many of you who emigrated to Portland, whether by parents, grandparents, or ancestors who traveled the Oregon Trail. I greet you as a fellow Portland resident and community member. As you value directness, my intention is to deliver a proposal. This proposal is organized into different parts with each as succinct as possible out of respect for your time and attention. A frustratingly persistent problem for city leaders like yourselves is the profound lack of trust among the people of Portland. A sad reality is that the people don’t trust their leaders, whether it is the Portland Police Department, Mayor Keith Wilson, or the City Council. The frustrating part is that this public distrust is that it’s simply misguided. Our city leaders have never been more effective, competent, visionary, accountable, and responsible. City leaders are doing the best they can, yet the public distrust is undermining their authority and ability to make change. Indeed, The Oregonian reported a stall in the city council last year. This is when Councilor Eric Zimmerman spoke to this undermining of power himself, “It’s taken longer for us to hit our stride than anybody anticipated. I’m not proud of the fact but here we are.” Echoing this sentiment, Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said that “councilors remain deeply divided.” (Kavanaugh, 2025). Distrust runs so deep that it’s affecting your council operations. I want you to consider a solution that will surprise you: street food. Yes, street food. During my walks downtown, I don’t see a single pushcart or street vendor. Instead, I see many concrete buildings. Buildings are interesting in that their concrete walls are a straightforward example of a separation between an in-group and an out-group. Buildings separate people and are divisive by nature. The separation and isolation of concrete walls applies to restaurants mostly and even food carts to a lesser extent. The walls of restaurants are real concrete dividers between those invited and those unwelcomed. The people of Portland are quite literally isolated by concrete walls. Inversely, open air markets and street food is open to anyone without dividers. This openness allows people to come together and converse. Additionally, bonding over food is a human universal, and universal ways of bonding are absolutely critical in a culturally diverse and polarized city. Distrust is rooted in the fact that people are isolated from each other. Isolation isn’t a metaphor; people are literally isolated from others by concrete walls of buildings. As an intuitive example, what keeps prison inmates inside? Concrete walls. What makes nature a symbol of freedom? Its open air. As another intuitive example, how do you gain trust of a wild animal? You give them food of course. Over time of giving a peanut to a squirrel, or a meat scraps to a stray dog, they begin to trust you. In other words, food is essential for building trust, and relationships rest entirely on trust. People are no different.I stress that this isn’t a cute idea; we need street food as a vital life support for our city, just like we need air to breathe and food to survive, or else we suffer from intense distrust and hatred that will and already is plaguing our institutions. As highly educated, critical thinkers, you won’t accept my opinion or intuitive examples at face value. You value high-quality research and expert opinion. Therefore, I will provide research points for two facts: less regulation for street vending leads to vital cities, and street food builds trust. As for revitalizing through street food, let me bring your attention to Canadian researchers Lenore Newman and Katherine Burnett who studied Portland’s food carts. Their 2013 article found that Portland is “a leader in .. allowing a vibrant street food culture to develop” specifically as a result of their “progressive municipal bylaws”. Newman found that “the regulatory framework” is the causal mechanism for the success of Portland’s street food culture (Newman & Burnett 2013). In other words, relatively low regulations for food trucks caused an increase in Portland’s vitality. Indeed, CNN named Portland the best street food in the world in 2010 (Robertson-Textor, 2010). However, even though Portland has a relatively low barrier to entry compared to other cities, the absolute price of operation is still high. Most food carts are priced at tens of thousands of dollars. Also, the required business licenses are multiple hundreds a year. As a result, the vast majority of potential entrepreneurs cannot afford the cost of entry. In the 2010s, Portland experienced a brief glimmer of vitalization, but that’s merely the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, the City Council must change the regulatory framework to allow smaller food operations, like pushcarts and street vendors, so that they can reveal the entire iceberg of vitalization that is possible for Portland. As for street food’s ability to heal trust, let me share an interesting article published in 2024 by Land, a Q1 journal. Tan Yeui (i.e., pronounced “you-eye”) and his colleagues found causal mechanisms for how street markets facilitate social communities. They found that not only can street markets foster social communities, but they discovered four factors that directly cause increases in trust and social connection. The four factors are public facilities, venues, commerce, and employment. The highest relevant conditions for the quality of street markets are the number of rest areas in public facilities; the cleanliness, type of green space, and safety of venues; and the price of goods for commerce. This means that street markets in Portland are most effective at restoring public trust if they are safe, clean, near bus-stops and rest areas, and maintain low prices. In other words, street markets are proven to heal communities, especially through those specific causal mechanisms. Imagine the legacy you can leave. You have the power to heal the deep distrust in Portland by simply adjusting the regulatory framework such that street vending is slightly less strict and more progressive. In return, Portland’s spirit will roar, and the brave city councilors who decided to act today will be viewed by the nation and the world as historic trailblazers. I hope city councilors work with Councilor Mitch Green in particular as he is on the right track with ‘hot dog urbanism’, and Councilor Mitch Green and others can email me at [email protected] if they want to discuss further or review the aforementioned studies.
Works Cited Kavanaugh, Shane Dixon., “Portland City Stall? Councilors struggle to find their governance groove”, The Oregonian, Sep. 14, 2025, Retrieved on June 1st at https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/09/portland-city-stall-councilors-struggle-to-find-their-governance-groove.html?outputType=amp Newman, Lenore Lauri & Katherine Burnett (2013) Street food and vibrant urban spaces: lessons from Portland, Oregon, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 18:2, 233-248, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2012.729572 Robertson-Textor, Marisa. World's best street food, CNN, 2010 https://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/07/19/worlds.best.street.food/index.html Tan, Y.; Song, J.; Yu, L.; Bai, Y.; Zhang, J.; Chan, M.-H.; van Ameijde, J. The Mechanism of Street Markets Fostering Supportive Communities in Old Urban Districts: A Case Study of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. Land 2024, 13, 289. https://doi.org/10.3390/land13030289 Paragraph I tried to connect with my audience through several techniques. At first, I chose to introduce politely (e.g., “most humbly…”) because I predict my audience is sensitive to disrespect. Shortly after, I named familiar people to connect with the audience (e.g., “councilor mitch green”, “councilor eric zimmerman”). Additionally, I included a personal-to-them example, like the stall at city council last year that was very frustrating to all the city councilors. I used this as an example of powerlessness and distrust. Finally, I concluded by framing the solution as grabbing power, which I think is the motive of my audience. The research that I chose contains causal mechanisms, which I believe is the strongest evidence. Also, I included Portland-specific research to show the historical success of street carts in Portland specifically. Both research articles involve different locations, but they both have the same outcomes and mechanisms. The mechanism is cheap products in clean, safe areas. The outcome is increased trust. The academic articles are highly cited and published in prestigious journals. The historical example and the causal mechanisms should be sufficient to prove that the solution will work.