When I first arrived in the States, in Portland, I observed an unquestioned worship of property: “my own little patch of grass,” the American Dream. American property worship plays out in a number of ways: aspiration to homeownership, xenophobic rhetoric about people “not from here moving here,” attachment to single-family homes, and proprietary protectionism and paranoia even around curb space. I’ve seen residents call police, thump on doors, storm through yards and yell across the tops of cars regarding parking spaces. I’ve seen front-porch vigilantes stand to attention when a bumper crosses into a driveway, even for a moment. And we have all seen makeshift signs policing people’s driving.

When you hear about nationalism, you may think of Trumpism, of anti-immigrant sentiment, but I bet you never think of yourself, of Portland. I wonder often about the pro-nature dogma, the cedar and mountain pride, the shoe-and-backpack consumerism entwined with suiting up for a thirty-minute “hike,” or swallowing nature like a fusion chimichanga sushi burrito. The regionalism so many people in Oregon espouse sounds a lot like localized nationalism to me. Its rhetoric can be easily weaponized to promote exclusion.

When I first moved here, I heard punk bands and news articles and radio announcements spouting “Don’t Move Here.” I still hear people sport the title of “Portland Native” like a huge, shiny badge, with no thought for how claiming this status makes people who are actually Native invisible. I usually respond with, “Ahh, your family is indigenous to this region?”, to which I receive a scoff or an eye roll.

This anti-outsider vibe and the erasure of the rightful owners of the land our city occupies are reminiscent of the blatant, glistening white supremacy I grew up around in Australia. In Portland, it’s cool to be pro-immigrant but hate people moving here. It’s hip to protest a border wall but definitely not want more people visiting the Gorge than already are. We all know cultural appropriation isn’t cool, but we will twerk around our white friends. We brag about our tolerance or liberalism while simultaneously shaming a Thai restaurant for its “tacky” (read: traditional) décor and rewarding the same cuisine packaged in the white upper-class aesthetics of hardwoods and Mason jar light fixtures. Portland is built upon and continues its legacy of exclusion, classism, and racism, thinly cloaked by declarations of good intention and the mantra of “I’m a nice person.”

One way to lessen the exclusionary harm of Portland’s obsession with single-family dwellings, spacious yards, and parking room is to move toward social acceptance of ecological, high density living. The acreage chase and materialism so unique to this city and this nation has resulted in a quick rejection of what many populous cities have embraced to accommodate for growing numbers of inhabitants: high and medium density housing. The lack of analysis and high-density criteria in Portland’s regulation of development and construction is mind-boggling. Minimum ecological requirements are not included with most new development proposals. High statistics of unsheltered houseless individuals—including children, even during snowy nights—matter less than building more single-family dwellings. It is no coincidence that tall apartment buildings that do get built in Portland are openly mocked—it is inherent in the proprietary nature of the city’s consumers to oppose density.

If we look to other cities, countries, cultures, and continents for cues, we see a normalization of smaller dwellings, studio apartments, shared facilities. Less of what North Americans might call personal property or privacy. More of a collectivist cohabitation. There is a shared understanding in parts of South East Asian cities that this is how inhabitants live so everyone can have a home. When I think about what it means to be “American” I relate it to generating unnecessary waste, owning at least one vehicle, and having a five thousand square-foot house. As a Southeast Asian person, my cultural personal space is elbows and knees touching, multiple people to a room, intergenerational and multifamily dwellings.

We can wax lyrical about equity in so many ways, but as a city and as individuals if we don’t adapt culturally, if we don’t shift toward a more international model of living alongside each other, then we can no longer look externally for scapegoats for the city’s housing crisis. We must reframe the complaints about Californians moving to Oregon and the terrible traffic. We have the opportunity to rethink the potential of the tracts of space we already have and the models we currently use to move, transport and house ourselves: one tiny human per large car, truck, or house. How do we use those “Old Portland” ideals—the communalism and ride-sharing I encountered organizing with anarchists and DIY punks in North Portland fifteen years ago—to reconsider how we think of housing, land, and living?