The Oil Drum

I'm pretty sure the first one was not legal and only later was accepted by the Portland DOT. While I do suggest you try to do something legal first on your own property, you might just take a chance and do something minimal and temporary and see what the response is and hope it builds...maybe use chalk?

My understanding is that City Repair / VBC encountered some early resistance from the city, many years ago, but that the city came around and is now quite supportive of the whole effort, which involves multiple (15 to 25) sites each year.

That's a function of city culture, and perhaps of the fact that there is political weight in Portland at the grass roots for this kind of thing.

But not every Portland neighborhood is open to it. Southeast Portland is the epicenter... In my Hollywood neighborhood in Portland I have asked some neighbors about doing this kind of thing and generally received shrugs. Since you have to get 80% of the neighbors on each block leading into an intersection, plus (I believe) all four corner houses to agree, it requires both persistence and a certain attitude toward life and living on the part of the neighbors. Without that... no go.

I wish I lived in Southeast Portland instead of square old Northeast. Southeast is the alternative place to be in this town, in my opinion.

If you can get a map of City Repair intersection sites you'll see them all over, but concentrated in SE and North I think, and you can get a sense of the social geography of coolness and involvement.