I'm not from Portland but this explanation doesn't sound right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdxtex
Portlands problem is part geographic, part historical and part contemporary. We don't have a major research university cranking out discoveries and were tucked up against the continent so were more like a cultural cul de sac.
|
The University of Oregon is not small. Maybe not a super prestigious public ivy but still.
Quote:
|
People come here with their own ideas and customs learned elsewhere but once you get here you are stuck, in the cul-de-sac, hemmed in by the ocean and mountains.
|
You could say this about most major US cities that grew quickly after WW2 that weren't anything meaningful before, like Phoenix or Orlando. Phoenix has no reason to exist as a major city except that the most important generation in modern American history decided it really wanted to play more golf.
Quote:
|
We also missed out on the heavy industry afforded to Seattle because of puget sound. They have the port and are a major gateway to Asia.
|
Freightliner, Intel(it is heavy industry when you think about it), Precision Castparts, Kaiser Aluminum(at one time), various paper mills, the west coast's main cluster of steel production, and a general mix of logistics and trade along the Columbia.
Portland is arguably more manufacturing oriented than most west coast cities. I don't know this as a fact but it also seems like the west coast's more bulk oriented cargo port. Seattle, Oakland, and Long Beach are predominately container terminals whereas in Portland there are several grain export facilities, cement plants, etc.
Anecdotally: Fred Meyer which is now a big division of Kroger. When I was in college I worked at a Kroger and I would have to cut open pallets upon pallets that were shipped from N Basin Ave Portland, OR. Store brand antacids and margerine and shampoo and other crap like that, usually it was made in the US so it may have come from that corner of the country.
Quote:
|
Portland's current dysfunction is product of a political monoculture that doesn't necessarily play well with its peers and itself is having a national come to Jesus moment.
|
If it's a monoculture why was the city unable force a compromise with the police department in order to stop the protests. Why a Republican almost become governor? Why are so many neo-nazis and far right loons products of the Portland suburbs?
Quote:
|
We try experimental policy but there isn't a strong business community to counter act it when things go weird. I dunno, its complicated.
|
Translation: democracy is bad, rich elites should control us.
But also Portland is a tech city with a few major players. Hard to believe it doesn't have a power elite. I think more broadly, it's a city run by well educated upper middle class voters who tend to drift towards identity politics due to cultural reasons. Identity politics are what ruined the left. So they are mindless NIMBY's due to a bad mix of misplaced environmentalism and privilege. They'll reflexively defend the needy but won't allow a shelter in the neighborhood. These are people who vote for reparations confiscating things to return to indigenous peoples but also would quietly ship off all the bums to camps if they could get away with it. Fuck them.
I don't think Portland is actually that experimental anymore anyways. Other cities are way ahead of it in housing-first policies and operating homeless programs. Most liberal cities in the US have been trying to divert people from jail for petty crimes, that's not an unreasonable thing to do. It's famed urbanism peaked with the Pearl District being built out, the streetcar based transit network is neat but an early 2000s idea.
Portland spends a lot of money on social programs but hasn't gotten results because it's reacting to the problem in a disorganized way. Oregon was slower on the legalize pot movement. I saw on Reddit a video where the police violently raided a store selling shrooms, because you know stinky hippies and all that. I think it's less libertarian than it used to be. Ron Wyden is holding down the internet freedom front, but besides that I find the Pacific Northwest to be full of a bunch of scolds who would ban everything fun. In Eastern Oregon the "libertarians" are just gun-hoarding psychos who think the Handmaid's Tale was an instruction manual.
Prev
. 
Linear Mode
