What would Portland city policy look like if it wasn't worried about what people in the suburbs were saying?

Seriously, what if Portland had a discussion about bicycle infrastructure and transit that didn't hinge on what some car dealer in Wilsonville had to say about it?

What if discussions of Portland street closures, reconfiguration, and maintenance didn't involve complaints from Clackamas County drivers?

What if the discussion of houselessness in the city didn't adhere to the suburban newscasts' framing of it as a policing issue?

What if city policing didn't hinge on whether or not someone's buddies out in the counties thought they were being "soft" on "those people?"

What if the city's dialogue with its citizens wasn't routinely turned into a regional referendum -- either literal or figurative?

Portland has highway policy dictated to it by residents of other cities in other states. It has transit policy, down to fare checking, policed by people outside of the TriMet district. More than many cities its size, Portland's strings are pulled by former citizens in its suburbs

While Portland's cooperation with the Metro region, surrounding suburbs, and its adjacent states holds certain lessons in diplomacy, its reticence toward independent thought and action is illustrated by a city government with little to no intracity regional representation.

No matter how this election shakes out, Portland is at a point where it should look inward. What are its needs? What are its wants? What voices are being left out of that discussion? What external voices have undue weight in those same conversations?

Are decisions being made within the city directly beneficial to those living there? Or are they of tangential or nominal benefit to all but commuters and visitors?

Did the city make the best decisions it could for the people who call it home, or did it do its best to placate those yelling at screens and newspapers beyond its borders?

When folks from the suburbs want something from the city -- more parking spaces, faster streets, larger attractions (ballpark, waterfront amphitheater) -- they often say the city needs to "grow up." In truth, it may need to grow a spine.

Those external concerns should be, rightly, secondary to those of the people within its borders. The complaints of residents whose municipalites turn streets into six-lane highways, lest they offend a corporate tenant, might not consider the best interest of an older, denser city

The security concerns of folks living in 5,000 square feet and trekking in for the Rose Parade may not be the same as those living in 500 square feet and walking those same streets each day once the onlookers leave.

The views that took people out on Barbur and Sandy shouldn't hold the city hostage when those same people come back in for date night on 84 and 26.

An ideal Portland is one that recognizes me as a visitor, values its citizens' day-to-day lives over my convenience, and suggests I take the train instead of driving in. I wish its voters the best in shaping their city.