Posted on 02/09/2014 8:02:24 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Trader Joe’s grocery chain has withdrawn plans to build a store in the heart of a predominantly black neighborhood after a black leadership group fought the move.
The Portland Development Commission was set to give the grocer a large discount on property that had been vacant for years, pricing it at just over $500,000, down from an appraised value of $2.9 million, according to The Oregonian.
The Portland African American Leadership Forum sent a scathing letter in December to city leaders, saying the plan would price residents out of the area and the group“remains opposed to any development in North/Northeast Portland that does not primarily benefit the black community.”
Trader Joe’s would increase displacement of low-income residents and “increase the desirability of the neighborhood,” for “non-oppressed populations,” PAALF wrote.
“[This decision] reflects the city’s overall track record of implementing policies that serve to uproot, displace and disempower our most vulnerable community members,” the letter said.
Trader Joe’s bowed out amid the controversy.
“We run neighborhood stores, and our approach is simple: If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe’s, we understand, and we won’t open the store in question,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to The Oregonian.
But not everyone is happy about the outcome.
“There are no winners today,” Adam Milne, owner of Old Town Brewing Co., told The Oregonian. “Only missed tax revenue, lost jobs, less foot traffic, an empty lot and a boulevard still struggling to support its local small businesses.”
LOL!
From : "Grimm: One Night Stand (#3.4)" (2013) Jake Barnes: [about Elly] I just - she came over and she just wasn't... normal. Nick Burkhardt: Nobody is, Jake. It's Portland.
The reason the press backed anti-Walmart 'community leaders' years ago was because Walmart was accidentally killing small town newspapers.
Walmart would go into an area, build a store, and NOT buy advertisements in local papers. It was one of the ways they saved money to keep prices down. But it was short sighted. A lack of advertising - combined with the reality of some small marginal businesses going out of businesses and taking their advertising with them - - set up the situation where newspapers hated Walmart as much as 'community leaders'.
Walmart started advertising in newspapers sometime in the last 15 years and also worked to support small local businesses - the 'hatred' fervor ended.
Trader Joe's wussed out with their total lack of backbone on this issue and played to the thug-element in the community - they forgot their customer base was hard working residents not self appointed 'community leaders'. Shame on Trader Joe's for their lack of strength, ethics, and the smallest smidgen of insight into inner city reality... Oh, and hats off to Walmart ... there's good reason why many in inner cities speak of them in 'reverential terms, like a generous relative who showed up to offer help in a dark hour.'
The 'locals' aren't the problem.. Trader Joe's was playing to the crooks who run the stores that sell crap at highly inflated prices to people who have no place else to shop... and those crooks give big time to the 'community leaders'.
The reason the press backed anti-Walmart 'community leaders' years ago was because Walmart was accidentally killing small town newspapers.
Walmart would go into an area, build a store, and NOT buy advertisements in local papers. It was one of the ways they saved money to keep prices down. But it was short sighted. A lack of advertising - combined with the reality of some small marginal businesses going out of businesses and taking their advertising with them - - set up the situation where newspapers hated Walmart as much as 'community leaders'.
Walmart started advertising in newspapers sometime in the last 15 years and also worked to support small local businesses - the 'hatred' fervor ended.
Trader Joe's wussed out with their total lack of backbone on this issue and played to the thug-element in the community - they forgot their customer base was hard working residents not self appointed 'community leaders'. Shame on Trader Joe's for their lack of strength, ethics, and the smallest smidgen of insight into inner city reality... Oh, and hats off to Walmart ... there's good reason why many in inner cities speak of them in 'reverential terms, like a generous relative who showed up to offer help in a dark hour.'
A recent study showed that even when $500 million in taxpayer money was spent to skew the market and put more fresh fruits and vegetables into these mythical “food deserts”,
the people didn’t buy them, and their obesity rate did not change. Leftists were dumbfounded. How could this not work?
I got to thinking about this and it exposes the base assumption of the left that causes them to get everything wrong.
That assumption is that man is “basically good” and only exhibits negative behavior because of his external environment.
They can’t fathom that changing the environment, ie, providing more fruits and veggies, didn’t cause people to buy more of them.
The truth was, there were minimal F & V’s in these areas
BECAUSE THERE WAS NO MARKET FOR THEM - THE PEOPLE WOULD NOT BUY THEM!
In other words, yet one more proof that the left’s assumption about the nature of Man is 180 degrees wrong.
Two-Buck Chuck is now $3.00. Still a good buy!
We have two TJ’s in the KC area; one on the Missouri side that sells liquor, and one on the Kansas side that doesn’t (per KS state law).
How ethical is it bow to a shakedown? How insightful is it to ignore the danger of inner city reality?
It truly is a bizarro world. Similar to when white people move out of increasingingly black neighborhoods for fear of violent crime, they're racists. And when white people want to move back into mostly black neighborhoods i.e. gentrification, that's bad, probably racist as well.
Why would white people moving into a black neighborhood be racist? I'll be da..ed if I know. It just is. Ask your local black community organizer, and he or she will gladly tell you why it's racist. And why you're a racist for asking. Yes, truly a bizarro world.
There wasn’t any ‘danger’. They wussed out...
It got so bad that property values went to zero, taxes were not getting paid and cops were even reluctant to drive through. It was declared a public nuisance and ordered to be demolished. City went in and jus scraped the ground clean.
They were being blackmailed. The usual scenario is to request ‘donations’ to the local black leaders’ causes. If no donations are forthcoming the company is told in no uncertain terms that they will be boycotted. It’s a model perfected by Jesse Jackson who managed to get ‘donations’ from every large company, newspaper, tv station, etc. That’s the reality of race politics.
Trader Joes was smart enough to not even get into that dance.
You're right; the article is misleading, but it's complicated. I checked all the comments; none at that time linked to this other post, "Community Organizers Push Out Trader Joe’s and Jobs", whose source is a bit more objective, but still lacking. I've held off commenting on this for good reason...here-goes:
A local/black community-organizing group sought to flex its muscles and 'be recognized, coming out swinging with the Portland Development Commission (PDC) on Trader Joe's; no wonder they pulled out. I know Portland and know the politics and left because (no pun intended) there weren't enough Conservatives to combat 'Left-turn'. But it's more than just about a Black Community-organizing group chasing out development; that was just 'the effect' reported by the media.
Others might want to check out Who is PAALF?...
...and here's a pre-PAALF article on Portland's 'gentrification' (barf alert...NYT & lots of 'Progressive-relative discussion, but important if you care to understand what the Trader Joe's controversy is all about).
In many ways PAALF has a point, as PAALF was formed POST-Interstate Corridor's 'Urban Renewal Area', which brought much development to predominantly-black North Portland with the Light Rail Project:
Tri-Met, the regional transit agency, completed its first LRT line in 1998, and sought to expand based on its initial success. Named the Yellow line, the extension’s alignment was planned to run along the existing Interstate Corridor. The initial plan was voted down by the city of Portland; however Tri-Met discovered that the residents of Corridor itself wanted the line to be constructed. The agency responded to this community input by creating an urban renewal area (URA) to finance the LRT line, which allowed for the line to bypass local funding and be matched by Federal grants. Created in 2000, the URA funded $28 million of the $350 million project cost. The Yellow line opened in 2004, and connects downtown Portland to Portland State University, also acting as a catalyst for redevelopment in the area.The URA created several subsidized loan programs for businesses and new or first-time homebuyers. An unintended consequence of these financing mechanisms was the impact on the African-American community. The increased feasibility of redevelopment coupled with the existing gentrification resulted in significant impacts. For example, the median home price increased over 100% in each of the Northeast neighborhoods between 2000 and 2010. This increase resulted in more than one-third of all households paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, and 17 percent paying more than 50 percent. The subsidized loans were intended for all residents; however 56% of the money available from the Portland Development Commission’s homeowner and homebuyer assistance program went to white residents. Thus, homeownership became unaffordable to the existing African-American community, who then relocated to southeast Portlandor outside of the city. The existing business community along Williams Avenue changed to reflect the demands of the new residents, which meant that the African-American serving businesses followed the residential exit. Today, the neighborhood is described by realtors as a “newly revived area that is one of the hippest places to shop, dine and drink.”
The (no pun intended) dark irony here is that many residents of the area now complain that TriMet's LRT 'Yellow Line' has brought whites to the neighborhood, that any development within areas in the Urban Growth Boundary at all is pricing lower-income residents out of their homes and the loudest voices of it happen to be black, crying 'racism'; it affects ALL Portland residents not subject to public-sector incomes & job security, or privy to all the public monies lobbed around for all the Light Rail & High-density Housing (HDH) projects currently ongoing.
The City of Portland (OR) is currently engaged in enhancing its assets within the UGB via squeezing more people per square mile of land via the HDH projects, which include splitting single lots for 'mini-townhouses', via huge dependence on the regional Light Rail Plan for Federal Dollars (which is also enmeshed in the current controversy over the under-estimated $2.5 Billion Columbia River Crossing Project, the new Interstate 5 Bridge proposed over the Columbia River, whose cost has been estimated to tip the scales at over an estimated $10 Billion, but has left the State of Washington to reject the plan, mostly due to Portland's, & Salem's, insistence on the inclusion of Light Rail, the latter supported by the President, of course). And, by the way, the whole core of the concept is to get Portlanders out of their cars. I know: I was subjected to one of their 'Mass-transit/High-density Housing' seminars during a Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
For those interested in digging deeper, here is full-frontal on Portland's 'grand scheme', "Portland is a PR machine for light rail & streetcar. Here are Some Facts About Portland Oregon", and that's only a drop in the bucket.
Summary: It's not all about race...it's mostly about the "good-ol-boys" network of Progressives & the ongoing land games within the UGB...making this about race would be a mistake, but that's the angle PAALF uses, unfortunately, and misses the target completely.
Ding, ding, ding - we have a thread winnah!
Self-appointed "community leaders" don't seem to care about another bar selling beer by the quart either...
Being able to use race as a bludgeon is far easier than making a case for a set of views... Thanks for some needed insights.
This article proved many things to me, the first that there is a strata of black culture that is THE SAME whatever the city. It sounds like Portland has their own ‘Lower Ninth’ going on.
In the Times Picayune, a couple of weeks ago, there was a big article about the changes in New Orleans and how the locals felt about them. Aside from a few who were interviewed almost all BEMOANED the changes that progress brought. ‘Culture’ is being lost to ‘gentrification’. Some were actually upset by the influx of white people into all black neightborhoods. They missed the all-night stoop-sitting, street parties and brawls that defined them!! One woman actually complained about all the ‘young whites’ riding bikes and pushing baby strollers and bringing their ‘culture’ into the neighborhood!! They think differently, they pretty up old funky shotguns, and the ‘we are comfortable old and funky and low class’ types prefer the ‘old ways’. One woman admitted her neighbors used to be criminals and thieves, she and another neighbor complained about them, but when they finally got arrested and cleared out she MISSED hearing them screaming and bragging about their crimes. MISSED IT- she considered it local charm and wondered it the safer,whiter, neighborhood she had was worth losing that colorful funkiness!!!! That’s the mentality helping this madness!
You see, they WANT outside money and investments. They WANT rich whites to sink money into their areas, but they DO NOT want the white people themselves. They can say it out loud-and consider it protecting their ‘culture’.
It happened with Costco here. To get the store in the city, the city basically PAID them to build, fixed up the crime-ridden areas streets, gave them tax breaks and got all kinds of social concessions. A certain number of jobs, deals on membership etc. The black community here RAVED that Costco would be ‘their store’ and they wouldn’t be forced to come to the ‘too white’ suburbs to shop. Well, the bloom is off of that rose.
Despite the shuttle service Costco offered to bring people safely to their cars parked elsewhere it hasn’t worked out as the ‘gimme’ class hoped. There were a certain number of jobs promised to locals. Costco brought in ‘outsiders’ for management and locals got PART TIME jobs.They close early, don’t allow all the returns Sams does and the prices are higher. Shopping in a crime zone has some still coming to the ‘white suburbs’. Costco couldn’t lose, they got paid to open, insured the business, and when it closes they will get paid again. I’m quite sure that a percentage of free memberships for the ‘downtrodden’ were part of the deal too.
That’s why businesses open in ghettos. They KNOW it’s a short term thing, but they make more than they lose in theft and when it gets really wild, they close and collect insurance. In the meantime, they get to play ‘socially sensitive’ as a corporation.
THAT is the biggest joke of all. If putting businesses in crime ridden ghettos miraculously transformed them into thriving garden spots, why not put a Tiffany’s in South Central LA? Why not a Rodeo Drive in the blighted parts of Detroit? Because businesses don’t fix ghettos, ghettos destroy businesses!
You have to laugh at a ghetto that announces they PREFER being as backward and depressed as possible. Where are the rap stars opening malls in Portland...hmmmm???
I can’t find a flaw in a word you said. The businesses can’t lose, and neither can the “black leaders” like Sharpton. They can bitch and moan when the stores aren’t there, then again when they are, then yet again when they pull out.
Raciss all the way, brutha.
Helluva system, eh? How did we get here? There’s BIG money in victimhood. Until there isn’t, it’s Mad Magazine time.
OH- the same thing killed Six Flags in New Orleans. They built on land owned by a black politician,swampland in the crime-ridden East part of the city. Six Flags was gonna revitalize the area.
They had to hire LOCALS,and give FREE PASSES to the ‘underpriveleged’. Result- employees were stealing, busloads of thugs got in free and the PAYING patrons got tired of dealing with all of it while paying a fortune for their kids to get what 80% of the park was getting free. So they stopped going. Freebies don’t keep a park running. It closed, still sits rotting and destroyed after Katrina, and the city is STILL trying to ‘develop’ it into a moneymaker! How many places KILL a Six Flags?! ANY money made from such ‘invest a ghetto away’ is made up front- by the politicians, land owners and companies who insure against eventual loss.
Non-oppressed populations? A “black” president, first pick on government jobs, free stuff without working- that’s oppression?
My thoughts exactly. Good for Trader Joe’s for not caving in. There are many, many better communities that would love to have a Trader Joe’s and would welcome them with open arms without a shakedown.
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