Amazon Neighborhood: Friendly Mr. Prince

Today, I called Randy Prince, the Co-Chair of the Amazon Neighborhood Association, and met with him this evening. For starters, I borrowed my friends car, and almost crashed it. Secondly, I had to meet him at his house. Oh, the sketchy possible situations you can get into when trying to get a good interview! It ended up being a great experience.
The neighborhood is surprisingly a very pro-active community for sustainability. Prince showed me some houses that were into growing their own produce and having their own gardens. One thing that the community tries to do every year is put on a “bike tour”. A bike tour is where people from surrounding areas interested about high-quality, green living can come and tour houses on a bike route. The people on the tour will go around the neighborhood and get tours of the houses that grow their own produce. It’s fascinating!
Also, he explained how many of the residents don’t use their cars, and instead ride their bikes or walk everywhere. Luckily, there are convenient grocery stores in the neighborhood like Sundance Natural Foods or Albertsons that people can walk to. Prince also explained that Alder street is a “bike boulevard” for Eugene, which is a street that doesn’t have heavy car-traffic and cyclists can ride on through Eugene and to campus and safely ride.
The neighborhood consists of about 50 percent college students, and the rest families and homeowners that don’t have children. There is a community school called Camas Ridge Community School, which the neighborhood routinely gets involved with and at one point last year volunteered to help the school grow their own produce garden.
The main community center called Amazon Community Center and the Amazon Pool are actually used more city-wide rather than in the neighborhood. The neighborhood has easy-access to exercising with trails surrounding them and city parks such as Amazon Park. Also, most people bike or walk everywhere in the neighborhood.
Overall, I think that I got some very useful future contacts and a good feel for the Amazon Neighborhood.