Farmland became Sunnyside, the neighborhood you are in, between 1890 and 1920, one of Portland's original streetcar suburbs, built once the electric streetcar lines made it accessible to downtown workers who could afford to escape the crowded waterfront districts. Sunnyside is bounded roughly by Hawthorne to the south, Belmont to the north, 20th Avenue to the west, and 36th Avenue to the east — a territory that represents the compact, walkable inner southeast that Portland residents consider the most livable part of the city. The housing stock is primarily craftsman bungalows, colonial revivals, and foursquare houses built between 1905 and 1925, maintained by homeowners who know the value of the neighborhood's architectural coherence.
Sunnyside School, one of the most sought-after elementary schools in the Portland Public Schools system, anchors the neighborhood's family life. The Sunnyside Community House has been a neighborhood institution since the 1950s. The density of independent coffee shops, small restaurants, and neighborhood-serving businesses on the commercial edges of Sunnyside reflects the demographic of the neighborhood itself: educated, progressive, locally loyal, and deeply invested in the physical place where they live.
This is the inner southeast that the food writers describe, made real in daily life.