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  #4301  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2021, 3:06 AM
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Originally Posted by CorbinWarrick View Post
Looks like close in and downtown living are losing their luster. With the way prices have jumped and the complete non-affordability of that area it’s a godsend the one good thing the pandemic did is show folks how much more you can get just living in say parkrose.
LOL, I've lived in Parkrose for 15 years now. Love the area for the most part, but it doesn't have amenities that come with living close in. Has worked for me because I used to travel a lot for work and it's a quick Lyft to the airport. But since I'm not traveling anymore, I'd prefer to move into a closer in neighborhood with more shops and restaurants and civic life, even downtown if I can swing it.
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  #4302  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2021, 6:52 AM
Nunya Nunya is offline
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Downtown had a rough year between protests covid and homless camps. Much of the year parts of the core looked like a scene from robocop. Given the s-show that 2020 was for downtown that’s not much of a drop but a welcome one if we can get things back on track.
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  #4303  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2021, 6:53 PM
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Originally Posted by CorbinWarrick View Post
Looks like close in and downtown living are losing their luster. With the way prices have jumped and the complete non-affordability of that area it’s a godsend the one good thing the pandemic did is show folks how much more you can get just living in say parkrose.
One thing the pandemic did for me was to show how much I value the ease of having nearly everything I need in walking distance to my home. I live a half block off SE Hawthorne in the 40's. I am able to purchase just about anything I need in a 10 block radius even during the shitshow of 2020. COVID has eliminated one of my favorite parts of living here - dining/drinking out. Hopefully there still will be places to go once the restrictions are lifted.

We've definitely had to make sacrifices. My wife, our teenage son, and I live in just over 1,200 sf. Which sucks because we're all working/schooling remotely and there's really no place to escape. We have very limited storage, and have to pay for an off-site unit to have seasonal stuff like camping gear.

For us, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Others certainly would not be willing to sacrifice square footage for this lifestyle. I am seeing, however, a lot more folks being converted. Our suburban family/friends who visit us are usually quite surprised at how accessible everything is in our area. None of them have moved next door, though...
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  #4304  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2021, 11:39 PM
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Turns out having mobs of upset people outside your door, graffiti everywhere, boarded up buildings, and untold numbers of homeless, doesn't bode well for downtown rents.
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  #4305  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2021, 11:42 PM
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Originally Posted by eric cantona View Post
We've definitely had to make sacrifices. My wife, our teenage son, and I live in just over 1,200 sf. Which sucks because we're all working/schooling remotely and there's really no place to escape. We have very limited storage, and have to pay for an off-site unit to have seasonal stuff like camping gear.
My wife, son and I all live in about that size of a house along the MAX in the burbs. I could never afford the current prices in town given how much we put into retirement, daycare and student loans. My respite is the 440 sq. ft. garage. I've considered converting it to a den.
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  #4306  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2021, 12:40 AM
CorbinWarrick CorbinWarrick is offline
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Originally Posted by subterranean View Post
Turns out having mobs of upset people outside your door, graffiti everywhere, boarded up buildings, and untold numbers of homeless, doesn't bode well for downtown rents.
Exactly my point. It’s ridiculous how unattainable living close in or downtown had gotten for an average sized family.

But if the one good thing the pandemic does is drop the cost of living down there then a lot of people should be excited.

Regardless it’s great people are seeing the light and making a change
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  #4307  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2021, 12:42 AM
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Originally Posted by eric cantona View Post
One thing the pandemic did for me was to show how much I value the ease of having nearly everything I need in walking distance to my home. I live a half block off SE Hawthorne in the 40's. I am able to purchase just about anything I need in a 10 block radius even during the shitshow of 2020. COVID has eliminated one of my favorite parts of living here - dining/drinking out. Hopefully there still will be places to go once the restrictions are lifted.

We've definitely had to make sacrifices. My wife, our teenage son, and I live in just over 1,200 sf. Which sucks because we're all working/schooling remotely and there's really no place to escape. We have very limited storage, and have to pay for an off-site unit to have seasonal stuff like camping gear.

For us, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Others certainly would not be willing to sacrifice square footage for this lifestyle. I am seeing, however, a lot more folks being converted. Our suburban family/friends who visit us are usually quite surprised at how accessible everything is in our area. None of them have moved next door, though...
I echo the gratitude I felt during the pandemic summer and fall of 2020 during which I was confined to my urban home with small patio and raised vegetable garden. My proximity to supermarkets and a hardware store here in NW Portland made the restricted daily life quite manageable. It would have been tough if we were in a Downtown apartment with no private outdoor space and with ground floor retail spaces all boarded up.

Nonetheless I am anxious for Downtown to be brought back from its dark and depressing pandemic & protest conditions.
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  #4308  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2021, 1:06 AM
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Originally Posted by eric cantona View Post
One thing the pandemic did for me was to show how much I value the ease of having nearly everything I need in walking distance to my home. I live a half block off SE Hawthorne in the 40's. I am able to purchase just about anything I need in a 10 block radius even during the shitshow of 2020. COVID has eliminated one of my favorite parts of living here - dining/drinking out. Hopefully there still will be places to go once the restrictions are lifted.

We've definitely had to make sacrifices. My wife, our teenage son, and I live in just over 1,200 sf. Which sucks because we're all working/schooling remotely and there's really no place to escape. We have very limited storage, and have to pay for an off-site unit to have seasonal stuff like camping gear.

For us, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Others certainly would not be willing to sacrifice square footage for this lifestyle. I am seeing, however, a lot more folks being converted. Our suburban family/friends who visit us are usually quite surprised at how accessible everything is in our area. None of them have moved next door, though...
I echo the gratitude I felt during the pandemic summer and fall of 2020 during which I was confined to my urban home with small patio and raised vegetable garden. My proximity to supermarkets and a hardware store here in NW Portland made the restricted daily life quite manageable. It would have been tough if we were in a Downtown apartment with no private outdoor space and with ground floor retail spaces all boarded up.

Nonetheless I am anxious for Downtown to be brought back from its dark and depressing pandemic & protest conditions.
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  #4309  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2021, 10:19 PM
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Downtown Portland: after the 2020 (and '21) downward spiral, what comes next?

Hey everyone, as a lifelong Portlander it has been incredibly tough to watch this city suffer through the events of the last year -- much more than most cities. The pandemic has ground urban life to a near standstill. The thugs that continue to riot around the city have kicked many businesses while they're down with repeated break-ins and theft. And the homeless situation is exacerbated by covid, and is more visible than ever. Every neighborhood is now affected by camps, trash, needles and the occasional run-ins with the mentally ill.

In a ranking of real estate attractiveness, we've gone from #3 in 2017 to #66 in 2020 out of 80 U.S. cities. And tourists' views of the city have turned sharply negative thanks to media coverage of constant protests turned violent.

The mayor has just hired former mayor Sam Adams as his main point guy on all these issues. I'm glad there is a recognition of the urgency needed and hope this brings positive results, fast, but I realize change won't happen overnight, especially until the pandemic is no longer dictating our lives.

Where do you see our city in 2, 5, 10 years? What issue do you think needs most attention? And what positive, visionary steps should we take to get the City of Roses back on track?
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  #4310  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 12:18 AM
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A couple thoughts on this. #1 - a friend of mine, well-connected in commercial real estate, has hopes, at least, that downtown will snap back. For one thing, there's still a housing shortage, and rents in downtown have fallen over the past year. If, this coming summer, we don't have continued protests (note: I'm in favor of protesting injustice), downtown may find itself quickly repopulated with people seeking the same things people wanted a year ago. That would certainly help things recover. #2 - an article in I think Slate was discussing this recent phenomenon of tech CEOs leaving the Bay area and other big cities for places like Austin and Miami. The journalist spoke with Richard Florida, who noted that no matter that people can work remotely, cities are still attractive to people who want, you know, social lives and places to go out. Which would you rather have: the dating pool in Portland? or Hood River? Also, t**** made a concerted effort to paint Portland as a shithole and with his twitter account suspended, that impression may fade (already the amount of lies circulating on social media, I read somewhere, fell by 70% when his account was taken away). So in the next two years I think (I hope) that things will improve. In five years, though, we could well have a President Pompeo or Cotton and then all bets are off.
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  #4311  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 12:19 AM
subterranean subterranean is offline
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Categorize anarchists as domestic terrorists and throw them in Guantanamo.

Solve the homelessness problem.

Business Oregon money for restaurant start ups.

Remove height limits downtown.
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  #4312  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 12:49 AM
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bvpcvm -- thanks for your response. I do think downtown will snap back. On recent visits I'm encouraged by the recent developments in Goose Hollow, West End, etc. And there are small projects that improve the pedestrian experience, like the 10th/Yamhill garage remodel and another refresh at 4th/Washington coming. Portland has long had one of the best pedestrian experiences of any U.S. city. But not so much with homeless camps on almost every corner.

Btw I don't mean to dismiss protests, I absolutely support them -- but the string of vandalism that has continued for months on end has to stop. These people are destroying businesses whose owners, more often than not, agree with their general positions. A third of DT business owners say they plan to relocate outside the core within 2 years, compared to 17% who said that in 2018. We have a narrow window of time to turn this around. (Which makes me kinda onside with subterranean's thoughts on anarchists... ha!)
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  #4313  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 1:48 AM
CorbinWarrick CorbinWarrick is offline
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Portland will be booming after this. It excels in the food and drink industry. People will be excited to come out and enjoy themselves. The Post-Pandemic Boom as I anticipate it’ll be known as.

By the end of summer, this city will experience its own version of the Roaring 20's & we'll bounce back. There will be a new renaissance here. People will be desperate to go back out again & thus will pump a ton of capital back into the economy, which will create new jobs.
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  #4314  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 5:30 PM
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I would love to see that, I hope you're right. We definitely have to clean up the city though, before negative perceptions take hold. Requests to clean up trash and graffiti are up 300% over the last year, but the city's budget for this hasn't kept up. I hope the severity of this problem leads to a cleaner, safer city going forward.
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  #4315  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 5:45 PM
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Not that misery loves company, but New York, Paris, and most lively cities are dead too.

It was really such a short time ago that Downtown Portland was full of life. So much effort and positive, well-thought-out development had made it possible. It has what's needed to be full of life again. First downtown office workers must return. I bet not everyone wants to work at home, isolated from their colleagues. Downtown needs office workers, which support the commercial infrastructure of Downtown. As restaurants, shops, museums, bars, and theaters reopen, tourists will want to return.

But the City must clear the sidewalks of homeless encampments. Has the Bybee Lakes Hope Center (former Wapato jail) filled up yet? Aren't the former Greyhound station and the Convention Center being using temporarily to house the homeless?

I realize that Big Retail was suffering before the pandemic, but I believed that Downtown retail seemed to be transitioning to interesting one-of-a-kind shops or stores like Muji or Kinokuniya. (I was sad to see Real Mother Goose leave some time ago.) Unique shopping was filling the void left by the departure of chain retail. That unique shopping is an important component of bringing back visitors.

I believe the Portland Business Alliance is ramping up its efforts to bring back Downtown. The new group River City Downtown Collective is specifically working for Downtown revitalization. From City Council, I hear crickets.
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  #4316  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 6:27 PM
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subterranean, I recommend reading some books about anarchism so that you at least know what you're talking about when you make such comments publicly. The kind of fascistic repression that you are suggesting, even though you're not serious, is intellectually embarrassing and immoral. It puts you on the same incoherent and violent-talk level as someone like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and I'm surprised to hear crickets from the mods. Among other things, it suggests that you would label Ursula Le Guin a "domestic terrorist" and throw her in a concentration camp if she were still alive. That sounds combative, I'm sure, but I am dead serious. There's way too much violent, unhinged, ignorant language being thrown around these days. In this case there's a ton of literature, both academic and not, about the history and philosophy of anarchism, including the underlying ideas, which were circulating long before the word itself came into use. Nuance, thoughtfulness, and care seem to be the things that are really dead these days. Shit is complex. Think more. Read deeper. There's no excuse for anything less, particularly if you are affluent and have ready access to books.
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  #4317  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 6:40 PM
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Originally Posted by downtownpdx View Post
I would love to see that, I hope you're right. We definitely have to clean up the city though, before negative perceptions take hold. Requests to clean up trash and graffiti are up 300% over the last year, but the city's budget for this hasn't kept up. I hope the severity of this problem leads to a cleaner, safer city going forward.
Don't just expect government to take care of everything. SOLVE https://www.solveoregon.org/ conducts regular volunteer Downtown litter pickup events. I have participated in one such event. There were almost too-many volunteers. We kept crossing each other's paths in searching out litter. To be honest, in my wide-ranging search into Old Town and Downtown, I did not find so much litter EXCEPT near homeless encampments. I suggest that everyone pitch in to help solve the problem and not just complain about it.
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  #4318  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 8:31 PM
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subterranean, i recommend reading some books about anarchism so that you at least know what you're talking about when you make such comments publicly. The kind of fascistic repression that you are suggesting, even though you're not serious, is intellectually embarrassing and immoral. It puts you on the same incoherent and violent-talk level as someone like marjorie taylor-greene and i'm surprised to hear crickets from the mods. Among other things, it suggests that you would label ursula le guin a "domestic terrorist" and throw her in a concentration camp if she were still alive. That sounds combative, i'm sure, but i am dead serious. There's way too much violent, unhinged, ignorant language being thrown around these days. In this case there's a ton of literature, both academic and not, about the history and philosophy of anarchism, including the underlying ideas, which were circulating long before the word itself came into use. Nuance, thoughtfulness, and care seem to be the things that are really dead these days. Shit is complex. Think more. Read deeper. There's no excuse for anything less, particularly if you are affluent and have ready access to books.


+1
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  #4319  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2021, 11:51 PM
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It puts you on the same incoherent and violent-talk level as someone like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and I'm surprised to hear crickets from the mods.
Had I moderated the comment, I wouldn't have been able to read the well thought out reply. If there is a targeted and serious call for violence on this board, the comment will be removed as well as most likely the commenter.

Downtown, the city actually, is in a once in multiple generations dramatic transition. The way we live, entertain, consume, work, it all changed literally overnight. There's a lot of opinions on what needs to happen going forward and this is as good a forum as any to have that discussion.

If there is serious concerns about comments or one's own safety, please feel free to send me or Mac a message. Lord knows I get weird moderator requests from everywhere else in the world. Those Canadian forumers can get pretty spicy when arguing about the weather.
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  #4320  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2021, 1:11 AM
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Originally Posted by subterranean View Post
Categorize anarchists as domestic terrorists and throw them in Guantanamo.
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Originally Posted by tworivers View Post
... and I'm surprised to hear crickets from the mods.
I'm just catching up with this thread now. I don't know how I would have responded if I'd been reading all the replies in real time, but I do agree with tworivers that calling for people with whom you have political disagreements to be thrown in a facility well known for torture and indefinite detention without trial is a pretty extreme statement. So, yes, let's cool it down several levels.
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