Started in 2019 with the inkling that we need a new parks movement, PPF’s Green Dreams feature dynamic conversations between local leaders, spatial thinkers, historians, and community advocates to better understand the role —and the possibilities!— of today and tomorrow’s parks.

 
 

Learn more here

2025 Series: On the Nature of Monuments

As the Thompson Elk Fountain returns to downtown this fall, we are reminded that our greatest monuments and icons are not simply images of people and pedestals, but of forces of nature, reflections of community, and reminders of the wild. This challenges the tradition of monument making, and begs us to question:

How do we remember in public? How can art, culture, and the wilderness itself inform our approach to monuments and memorial-making?

This fall, Portland Parks Foundation is partnering with the city’s Portland Monuments Project to examine the interplay of nature, monuments, memory, and cultural placemaking.


2023 Series: Back to Square One: Reimagining O’Bryant Square

  • Back to Square 1: An Introduction to O’Bryant Square’s Past and Future

  • Grassroots urbanism: Growing public space from the youth up

  • Making Space for Everyone: Trauma-informed Design and Programming

  • Urban Futures: Work, Retail, and Living Post-Pandemic Downtown

  • Urbanism in Motion: Making the Mutable City

  • Just Space: Beyond Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Design

full program and recordings

2022 Series: Olmsted’s Legacy in Portland

  • Greening Democracy: Frederick Law Olmsted, Slavery, & American Park Design with Sara Zwede

  • Beyond Recreation: Climate, Social Justice, and the Urban Landscape Ahead with CNE Corbin and Vivek Shandas

  • Parks and Consequences—Hidden Histories of Olmsted Parks Tradition, from New York to Portland with Catherine McNeur and Carl Abbott

Full program

2021 Series: Reimagining Portland:
Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice

  • Liz Ogbu, Studio O, designer, urbanist, racial and spatial justice activist, in conversation with Manuel Padilla, Oregon Solutions

  • Cleanse: A Dialogue on Art and Public Space with Paul Farber and Michelle Angela Ortiz

full program and recordings

2020 Series: Green Drinks & Candidate Forums


2019 Series: Seeding Portland’s Next Parks Movement

  • “State of the Union” discussion with Adena Long, Lynn Peterson and Jon Blasher

  • Albina Vision + I-5 Rose Quarter: A $500-million Parks Opportunity with Albina Vision Trust’s Rukaiyah Adams, Michael Alexander, and Will Ives with Julie Meredith

  • City of Gardens: What is the Portland We Want to Grow? with local leaders and advocates

  • Oasis of Hope? America’s Public Gardens Navigate a Radical Era of Change with Dr. Casey Sclar

Full Program and Recordings