91ÊÓƵ

Chet Orloff, an adjunct professor at Portland State University, gets excited about the concept of cities.

“Everything about cities: sustainability, traffic, streets, art, history, culture … the list of topics is virtually endless,” he said.

That passion is what fueled Orloff’s idea to create the Museum of the City, which made its online debut last year.

“Cities have been around for at least 12,000 years,” Orloff said. “They change dramatically or disappear. They’re repositories of knowledge and culture. They’re models for economics, planning and adaptation. I thought that deserved a museum, so we created the Museum of the City as an online resource for people to visit as they would any other museum.”

The bulk of the museums’ “exhibits” are short (1000-2000 words), pictorially driven works done by students, not just from PSU, but from all over the United states and more than a dozen countries. Visitors to the site come from all over the world.

Having the world as an audience was part of how the content of the site was designed. Tari Donahue, the museum’s head curator, has a strong background in Web design rather than civic planning, and webmaster Alvero Fontan is also a journalist, so he understands the importance of being concise and readable.

“We’re constantly thinking, ‘What can we do to make it simpler, to make it as succinct and interesting as any other museum?’ ” Orloff said. “A good portion of our visitors have English as a second language. That and making it generally accessible to anyone from kids to everyday people, while maintaining enough to make it an academic resource, are the parameters we work toward.”

“As of 2006, more people lived in cities worldwide than in rural environments. That’s about 4 billion people. One percent, about 400 million, are interested in cities – their own and others. At least 4 million are directly involved with cities in any number of capacities,” Orloff said. “The benefit of this museum is not so much academic, but informative for people in general. Beyond those involved in planning or politics or neighborhoods or whatever, this is a site where you can find something both interesting and useful.”