JULY NEWSLETTER | Hope in systemic change (and taxes)
Hi friends,
I spent time with dear friends in Vienna last month and came home restored after so much inspiration, from the role of the Secessionist and Wiener Werkstatte movements in birthing modernism, to so many Bruegels!, to exceptional classical music in venues offering broad access with €10-€330 tickets.
I came home wondering how we could shift American financial planning’s mathematically impossible individual tradeoffs (retirement income, health and elder care, donations) towards systemic solutions that could fund our collective challenges (more below).
Now that I’m back home, I’m delighted by our continued downtown Portland renaissance and enjoying Wednesday team lunches in our sunny parks at the farmer and ceramics markets, drag storytelling, and music shows.
Here’s to long, light-filled days full of queers, justice, and art,
Georgia
values & money
Vienna has made bold, long-standing choices to create a city where: 40% of the city lives in affordable quality public housing, private Waldorf-style preschool costs €250 per month, college is free for the first four years, and healthcare and elder care are nearly free. The Viennese pay up to 55% income tax; which seems like a deal to me for benefits that are impossible to fund as an average working person in the U.S.
Broad access to financial planning can never solve the systemic issues of affordable housing, healthcare, education, long term care. But what if we could shift our anti-tax, antigovernment narratives to one that believes we’re capable of long-term collective choices to fund and operate government-run programs? Could we shift our narrative to tell ourselves we’re capable of creating systemic solutions to these culture wide issues?
What luck that one of Modernist’s fave economic development orgs, Neighborhood Partnerships, lead a delegation (Portland Housing Bureau staff, city council members, housing advocates, and more) to study the Viennese housing model and ask: what could work here? Now they have created Housing The City: A Coursebook and Curriculum on Social Housing. A free, accessible study guide to what social housing is, why it works, and what it could mean for Portland (and other cities).
Fund Your (Queer) Heroes
I deeply admire the founder energy of my long-time NYC friend Liz Alpern. She co-founded Gefilteria, leading the Jewish Food revival with the Gefilte Manifesto cookbook and the Jewish food advice podcast Meet Me at the Deli.
Then she founded Queer Soup Night in Brooklyn after the 2016 election, to make space for queers working for justice to gather, share soup made by queer chefs, while raising cash for community orgs.
Ten years later it is an international phenomenon, so obviously she’s writing a cookbook/community building manual:
“It's a record of the first ten years of this extraordinary project and a how-to-manual for creating community, practicing mutual aid, and taking inspiration from generations of queer cooks and organizers.”
Portland: Gayer & Artier Than Ever!
Obviously I’m thrilled about the opening of Darcelle XV Plaza, a renovated park right next door to Modernist HQ!
Located in the heart of downtown, Darcelle XV Plaza honors the late Portland luminary Walter Cole, who enlivened the city in the Darcelle XV Showplace (the longest-running drag cabaret on the West Coast).
Construction wrapped up this month, just in time for Pride!