https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877917704493 International Journal of Cultural Studies 1–15 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1367877917704493 journals.sagepub.com/home/ics Site-specific television as urban renewal: Or, how Portland became Portlandia Helen Morgan Parmett University of Vermont, USA Abstract This article addresses the rise of what I call ‘site-specific television’, where the dispersion of television production outside traditional centers results in shooting locations that also serve as the crux of the televisual narrative. I argue that site-specific television constitutes ‘TV renewal’, in which on-location shooting practices are constitutive of urban regeneration efforts that draw on local, alternative, and creative cultures of production to help promote, rebrand, and revitalize marginalized city spaces with, often, gentrifying implications. Taking up Portlandia as a case study of site-specific television, I argue its on-location production practices depend on decentralized and embedded practices of production that align with recent economic and cultural changes in the television industry and in the city. Keywords creative cities, gentrification, on-location filming, production studies, television production, urban renewal In a third season, stop-animation sketch episode of Portlandia, two rats decide to move out of their newly gentrified neighborhood, Portland’s Pearl District, which used to be a gritty industrial, working-class area but has in the past 15 years been ‘revitalized’ into a shopping, entertainment, and cultural arts destination. Searching for a more ‘authentic’ neighborhood, the rats first try out the city’s Southeast neighborhood on Hawthorne St., Corresponding author: Helen Morgan Parmett, Department of Theatre, Director, Speech & Debate Program, University of Vermont, 475 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405, USA. Email: hxmorgan@uvm.edu 704493ICS 0 0 10.1177/1367877917704493International Journal of Cultural StudiesParmett research-article 2017 Article