Quote:
Originally Posted by pdxtex
lots of people love to ask "where are all the black people" to somehow discredit portlands urbanity.
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i was in no way trying to discredit portland's urbansim. portland does so many things right in terms of urbanism, and it is to be rightly lauded for those things it gets right - urban growth boundary, transit investment, bicycle accommodation, etc.
i merely brought the racial element into the discussion to demonstrate to some of the others in this thread that race is a
HUGE FUCKING DEAL in the history of american urbansim, most particularly the era of massive white flight and subsequent urban decline in the postwar period. portland's relative lack of racial diversity allowed it to avoid a very large chunk of the problems that most other american cities were forced to contend with because they weren't geographically isolated like portland.
all that said, yes, i agree with you, from my own firsthand experiences, milwaukee and portland are two very different cities. i like both of them a lot. they both have much to recommend them, but it cannot be denied, portland is a media darling these days while milwaukee is a fucking urban ninja. i know who my money would be on in a fight