Salon: Milwaukee is the new Portland

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by STUPID ARTICLE

Foreclosure, blight, drugs, failed schools, homelessness, brownfields, pollution, decay, and crime: there’s plenty to justify the term, and Milwaukee has it all. Or maybe had it all.

Uh. . . what?!?

. . .

[mhays]

Portlanders aren't as pretentious as the show suggests either. I'd say 1/5 as much, maybe.

It's definitely not a high-density city. A few core districts and strips are dense and getting denser (the Pearl is outstanding), especially the very walkable and fast-growing greater Downtown area, but it's more about bungalows on 5,000(?) sf lots.

[llamaorama]

It's definitely not a high-density city. A few core districts and strips are dense and getting denser (the Pearl is outstanding), especially the very walkable and fast-growing greater Downtown area, but it's more about bungalows on 5,000(?) sf lots.

There is more to a city's soul than just its built environment. Portland has all the crazy stuff; small independent businesses and people with side hobbies that add to local color.

Also I thought Portland had a lot of nice amenities which were particularly desirable and relevant to the middle class/family demographic as well as lower crime? At least in comparison to Milwaukee. Sorry I'm hopelessly sunbelt to think of these things, lol.

These things give actual meaning to a dense urban form, IMO. Gives people things they want to live in proximity to.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Also I thought Portland had a lot of nice amenities which were particularly desirable and relevant to the middle class/family demographic

portland's main amenity that's particularly desirable to the white middle class is its relative dearth of black people compared to a colorful, but extremely segregated, city like milwaukee.

this reality highlights another pretty radical difference between the two cities and feeds into the stereotypes about them.

[brickell]

I've run into a Milwaukee whirlwind today
From this thread

to reading about this guy

src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Al...rban_farmer%29

to this (which I've had on the headphones all day)
• Video Link

What else can we throw on there -

[mind field]

Just visited Milwaukee for the first time a few weeks ago. Was very impressed with this city, downtown has amazing architecture and was very clean. Seems like a very under rated gem of the Midwest, dwarfed by it's neighbor to south.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mind field

Seems like a very under rated gem of the Midwest, dwarfed by it's neighbor to south.

i've said it before and i'll say it again, no big city in the nation flies lower under the radar than milwaukee.

and yeah, chicago's large shadow is responsible for some of that, for better or worse.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

portland's main amenity that's particularly desirable to the white middle class is its relative dearth of black people compared to a colorful, but extremely segregated, city like milwaukee.

this reality highlights another pretty radical difference between the two cities and feeds into the stereotypes about them.

Oh, come on Steely.

Portland's main amenity that is particularly desirable to the middle class is its affordability, especially relative to the rest of the West Coast.

After that would be: its focus on single family homes as opposed to multi-family dwellings; the city and metropolitan area's manageable size; and the region's easy access to beautiful natural areas and family-friendly recreational activities.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

portland's main amenity that's particularly desirable to the white middle class is its relative dearth of black people compared to a colorful...

Sorry, but that statement is ridiculous. Most people who actively choose to live in Portland do so because of the open-minded culture, tolerance, and progressive values. Just because Portland doesn't have a large black population in no way makes it some sort of inherently racist city.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by fflint

Oh, come on Steely.

no, i'll stand by that one. well, ok, it may not be the main amenity (that part was snark for llamaorama's silliness), but it plays a major role in portland avoiding a lot of the urban abandonment/social dysfunction issues that have plagued so many other american cities.

being from the midwest, i'm all too familiar with how fast white people (and their money) run away when the proportion of black residents in a given neighborhood gets too high for their liking. i'm not a sociologist, so i can't tell you exactly where that threshold is, but it's a very real threshold.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

There is more to a city's soul than just its built environment. Portland has all the crazy stuff; small independent businesses and people with side hobbies that add to local color.

While low density, Portland nonetheless has a high-quality public realm and robust urban form which are also huge part of its appeal. There are relatively few parking lots and little in the way of blight, lots of attractive new developments, TODs, an extensive light rail system, comprehensive bike lanes, and well-designed public spaces and streetscaping. Its natural surroundings don't hurt either.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

There is more to a city's soul than just its built environment. Portland has all the crazy stuff; small independent businesses and people with side hobbies that add to local color.

Also I thought Portland had a lot of nice amenities which were particularly desirable and relevant to the middle class/family demographic as well as lower crime? At least in comparison to Milwaukee. Sorry I'm hopelessly sunbelt to think of these things, lol.

These things give actual meaning to a dense urban form, IMO. Gives people things they want to live in proximity to.

If you think Portland has "all the crazy stuff"... old blue collar cities like Milwaukee has all the crazy stuff in spades.

LouisVanDerWright stated it very well above... "Out of their blue collar base, Milwaukee seems to have developed a more genuine "hipster" culture where that 25 year old on the corner wearing flannel might actually be employed in a factory and hunt on the weekend."

Been to Portland numerous times quite recently... vibe I get: white middle class suburban kids, lots of cool stuff going on... but a somewhat self-conscious, manufactured cool that's not quite inherent to the place... like those people with side hobbies...

... in Portland playing the accordion on the sidewalk in the afternoon before you go to your blacksmith co-op to learn how to forge antique-style farming tools is seen as "cool". In a city like Milwaukee, you play the accordion because you learned how to play it at age 4 at the Polish Falcons Club while your dad got blitzed on shots of whisky and quarter drafts, and you know how to handle a hammer, oven, and anvil because 3 generations of men in your family before you slaved away in a fucking foundry, forge, or mill.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Just because Portland doesn't have a large black population in no way makes it some sort of inherently racist city.

jesus, my point wasn't that portland is an "inherently racist city" or anything like that, my point is that white people everywhere are a little bit racist, to one degree or another, most clearly seen in the patterns of racial housing segregation that play out in cities all across our nation.

generally speaking, the more black people a metro area has, the more racially segregated the housing patterns are, which in turn also then correlates to higher rates of social dysfunction. portland has avoided a large degree of the urban ills that have affected so many cities like milwaukee by the simple "virtue" of it never having a large black population. had portland seen half a million or so mostly poor and mostly uneducated southern blacks move into the metro area during the great migration period, portland would not be the same urban white hipster shangri la that it is today. it would be a very different city with a whole hell of a lot more problems.

[pdxtex]

lots of people love to ask "where are all the black people" to somehow discredit portlands urbanity, as if the racial makeup of a city has anything to do with land use in the first place. well, there aren't alot i usually answer and anyone with a bit of historical knowledge knows why. lets drop that part of the discussion now.

as for our building stock, its definitely a draw for lots of folks. but yes, portland is unique in that it didnt mow down its old houses in mass. in fact i bet half of multnomah county was built before 1940. our residential focus in 2014 is now infill, single family or whatever else which can be shoehorned into a increasingly small amount of vacant land. except for a few instances, were not growing extremely tall, but more like wide. we have a love affair with 6 story, multi-use structures. just look around, they are all over the place. but sorry milwaukie, your transit network doesnt hold a candle to trimet at the moment. its a little slow downtown and has a few choke points here or there but rail transit constuction is booming at the moment and were about to add a new light rail extension into northern clackamas county, uncharted territory thus far. milwaukie has an awesome lake, some great northside density, proximity to chicago and the brewers! all of which is awesome but i dont see alot of similarities between our two cities.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

lots of people love to ask "where are all the black people" to somehow discredit portlands urbanity.

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

[pdxtex]

^^^^oh i know. just alot of folks who move out here are kind of taken aback when they get here. the overwhelming whiteness seems odd to them. did you not do your research before you got here young midwesterner?? portlandia has nailed lots of things on the head but it done a bit of diservice too. the quaint p.c.'ness that tends to be portrayed is really two neighborhoods in this whole city. outside of those two places, its pickup trucks and welding shops, mcdonalds and big box hell, just like any other place. we just happen to be surrounded by mountains and are at the confluence of two enormous rivers so people think its hippyfest 365. which brings us to another point. if this were a blue collar dick measuring contest, portland is as blue balled as any other rusty midwest industrial town. we build boats, ships, trucks, aerospace crap, planes, ship grains, import cars (we have a large working seaport, really!). high tech out on the west side and all sorts of other junk going on. unlike the youngstowns, pittsburgh, or detroits, its traditionally been a very diversified industrial economy, that diversity is probably why the economy never tanked en masse. there was a slowdown in the timber industry in 80's but those losses have long been absorbed., so its not just shell art, thick rims glasses and chickens named collin. but we have that stuff too.

[Boisebro]

gee.

all this time i thought Milwaukie was the new Milwaukee.

[pdxtex]

ooh, just wait, milwaukie, or is about to be overrun with hipsters. its on the urban frontier of cool neighborhoods but its about to be serviced with the best rail transit in the city.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

^^^^oh i know. just alot of folks who move out here are kind of taken aback when they get here. the overwhelming whiteness seems odd to them. did you not do your research before you got here young midwesterner?? portlandia has nailed lots of things on the head but it done a bit of diservice too. the quaint p.c.'ness that tends to be portrayed is really two neighborhoods in this whole city. outside of those two places, its pickup trucks and welding shops, mcdonalds and big box hell, just like any other place. we just happen to be surrounded by mountains and are at the confluence of two enormous rivers so people think its hippyfest 365. which brings us to another point. if this were a blue collar dick measuring contest, portland is as blue balled as any other rusty midwest industrial town. we build boats, ships, trucks, aerospace crap, planes, ship grains, import cars (we have a large working seaport, really!). high tech out on the west side and all sorts of other junk going on. unlike the youngstowns, pittsburgh, or detroits, its traditionally been a very diversified industrial economy, that diversity is probably why the economy never tanked en masse. there was a slowdown in the timber industry in 80's but those losses have long been absorbed., so its not just shell art, thick rims glasses and chickens named collin. but we have that stuff too.

good points--Freightliner trucks, Intel, Precision Castparts (I think), all in Portland.

[pdxtex]

just off the top of my head, big players in town are intel, nike, OHSU (huge bio research compound), freightliner, mercedes trucks, precision cast parts, oregon ironworks (makes street cars now), port of portland, esco steel, pacificorp (in fact portland is home to three huge power companies). so yeah, there is alot of crap being designed and built here.