22

THINKING BEYOND THE

“SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY”
GLYN EVERETT

Content warning: n/a

I
n 2012 I started a job at the University of the West of
England, Bristol (UK), looking at a strange and curious new
thing for me called “blue-green infrastructure.” This name
refers to attempts to manage urban flood resilience by bringing
together and working with urban green spaces (parks, gardens,
rain gardens, green roofs, etc.), naturalised waterflows, and water
storage—ponds, wetlands, deculverted rivers, rain barrels, and
permeable paving. More green space in our cities has to be a
good thing—I confess, the hippie in my heart exulted at the
thought of researching this subject.
The project’s principal investigator brought our team to
Portland, Oregon, in the first year. We spent a week seeing the
good blue-green infrastructure work that had taken place in
Portland since 1996. One year later, we returned for five weeks to
look in more detail.
On my first night back in Portland, after a thirteen-hour
flight from Bristol, England, I had to go straight out to see one
of my favourite bands, Moon Duo. I am a manual wheelchair
user and have been for fifteen years now, and at this point I was
very impressed by the power of the Americans with Disabili-
ties Act (ADA); I hadn’t had the chance to review the venue’s