Thanks, Kit, this is fascinating.  Sorry to have put off commenting.  We cannot do too much to encourage appreciation of the connexions between environmentalism and the arts!

We really should not sunder our interests and specializations, though.  The chapter in Thoreau's "Walden" entitled "Reading" is astoundingly good, but would seem to be overlooked, and considered of secondary importance, by many environmentalists with other interests or educational backgrounds.

Never having been to the PacNW, I cannot comment on either Portland or David Oates's work.  But I love the way he discovers new relations between what we read and what we value -- which after all is what reading is all about.

Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" has long been a popular text.  And it makes me happy that it has some special relevance to environmentalists with an interest in urbanization.  Another book, of a different sort, by the same author, with a more realistic urban setting, is "Marcovaldo: or The Seasons in the City."

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.