In a couple of posts I have talked about Eugene Hippies. About how radicals in Eugene often control the development debate centering around how to rebuild downtown.

Since I like to garden, ride a bike, trail run, eat organic vegetables, and recycle, I thought it would be appropriate to clarify what “Hippy” actually means in Eugene. Especially for people planning to relocate.

Basically, it means nothing. It’s more of a spectrum of hippyness vs. a black and white world of hippies and suits duking it out. Those metaphors are better suited to The Simpsons than to real life. Or maybe to Springfield.

So let me point out how Eugene is unique, different, and just a little more fun than most cities with 170K people:

• Eugene Hippies sell joke books. Good or bad jokes, it doesn’t matter because they’ve already broken the ice.
• Eugene Hippies make Saturday market a REAL old fashioned market.
• Eugene Hippies prevent homogeneity. They make minorities feel comfortable in a State with so few minorities.
• Eugene Hippies aren’t so attached to material competition or gains as the general public. Their value system tries to put human beings before economic interests.

Now that the days of Anarchists in the street are over, Eugene has brighter days ahead. Yes, there are more street urchins passing drugs around downtown than you will find in most cities of this size. Yes, debate and decisions about downtown can be hijacked by current tenants downtown, some of which only add ’smoke’ to the debate. Ok, that’s life. Difficult people are everywhere.

It just so happens that our true “Hippies” in Eugene, or left of left spectrum, the Eugene political power brokers, side with difficult people. Very difficult people.

So here’s what happened. A city of abnormally tolerant and open-minded people became critics of “Hippy” political domination when the eco-terrorists and anarchists decided in the late 90s that a lot of hardworking people in this town just don’t care what happens to Eugene. Or to Downtown.

Many hippies sided with the anarchists..a huge mistake. Tree-climbing w/poop-bag drops, riots, and general political and social mayhem brought a lot of ridiculousness to downtown policy and politics. This tipped the political scale in favor of development away from downtown. Many of those developments becoming very successful.

So as the City of Eugene attempts to put together a plan for downtown Eugene, they should consider how we got here in the first place and how to avoid getting here again.

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