Will Portland Always Be a Retirement Community for the Young?

New York Times ^ | SEPT. 16, 2014 | CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

[angry elephant]

I was born in Portland when my father taught at Portland State, but I have been in Washington state for a long time.

Back then Portland had shipping and was a large railroad hub. The first Fred Meyer store was started there, and Fred Meyer has been very popular throughout the Northwest, the first store opening in Seattle in the 70s.

It was a well-planned city with the city park running for blocks through the downtown, but that is probably a draw for the loafers to hang out all day, drink coffee and play on the MacBooks that they can somehow afford. There is also a very nice hiking park so folks would not have to have a car to travel to a woodsy outing.

It is too bad that sometimes the best planning seems to encourage the most laziness in people.

[jonascord]

Go down to Pioneer Square. Wallow in the intellectual brilliance, and the stench of unwashed semi-humanity.

[fr_freak]

I’ll keep an eye out for it. It sounds delightful!

[mojito]

Another love letter to Portland appears in the pages of the New York Slimes.

How many is that? I mean, just this week?

[posterchild]

Young people move into a city. Some slack some don’t. They get older. They get married and have children. They move out to the suburbs and buy a car. Their children get older and move into a city. Some slack, some don’t. Repeat...

[Mastador1]

A retirement community? Sorry, that’s not what I found there, I found a bucketful of the dregs of society, queers, addicts, beggars, mental deficients and mentally disturbed of all flavors. The only thing my visit to Portland instilled in me was a strong desire to never visit again and awe at how such beautiful country could be spoiled by lunatics and fanatics.

[Wallace T.]

Interestingly enough, the same edition of the New York Times that carried this article had an essay called “The Death of Adulthood.” These Portland residents are hipster variants of Peter Pan and descendants, spiritual if not actual, of the hippies, beatniks, and bohemians of the last century.

[T-Bird45]

OK, thanks for agreeing with my point where I posited the changed circumstances being children would result in a re-calibration of their life, much as you describe. I’ve not experienced the PITA phase of life as regards car ownership since my choices have kept me far from the Portlandian Utopia described in the NYT. I’m glad you’ve found satisfaction where you had the vehicle options you describe.

[silverleaf]

imagine these happy-go-lucky eloy hitching a ride to the mountains with a morlock...

[enraged]

Most all of downtown smells like piss, homeless bums everywhere, aggressive street kids, arrogant yuppies, gangs, smelly yutes tattoo’d all to hell, I could go on and on.

It’s sad, because Oregon is very beautiful it’s just unfortunate that the city is over run with low lifes.

Compared to CA, I guess it would seem nice. Times are changing, I guess I gettting old. I don’t care to associate with downtown anymore.

[fr_freak]

Other than the massive amount of homeless, I haven’t seen things that bad downtown, but maybe I’m just not going to the right spots. Again, given that California has long since adopted most of the liberal policies that result in urban rot even in the smaller towns, my standards aren’t all that high. But I’ve seen no gangs or other aggressive street types in the area. That was one of the things that surprised me most, because I was expecting to see that. Plus, I was surprised how many people speak English here, heh.

[oldfart]

I was born in Portland and - in the more recent past - have traveled around much of the world. Alaska, Philippine Islands, Japan, various rocks masquerading as islands around the Pacific. I lived in California for a number of years. Three years in the Puget Sound area and four years in central Alaska. I keep coming back to Portland.

I see all those professional students attending the multitude of colleges and universities. Every major intersection has at least one “homeless” beggar with the usual cardboard sign. More and more small businesses are being replaced by “For Lease” signs while the bigger businesses are quietly packing their bags and looking for a quick way out of town.

Liberals have so poisoned the economy that the few good, hard-working, conservative people who do live here survive as anomalies remembering what Portland used to be and wanting to return it to those happier days. But then, Conservatives (note the capital “C”) all around America suffer from the same problems.

We remember what America once was, not what the rewritten history books say it was. We look to the future with a sort of fatalistic foreboding, knowing that what has happened will never be reversed without some sort of violent confrontation. We dread what we see in the future - not because we will be in danger, but because our grandchildren will have to repurchase with their blood the freedom we selfishly squandered for our own creature comfort.

I can no longer face my grandchildren without feeling a mixture of love, fear and shame.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

The “people” you describe all seem to accumulate in beautiful places, coastal Northern California, Portland, Seattle, Maine etc. The causal factor being taxpayer support coupled with mental incompetency(cognitive,emotional and motivational.)

[Political Junkie Too]

The headline is misleading. According to the article, the "young" are not "retiring," they are moving for the lifestyle and then can't find jobs.

"Young" and "retire" are oxymorons.

-PJ

[Mastador1]

The “people” you describe all seem to accumulate in beautiful places, coastal Northern California, Portland, Seattle, Maine etc.

Well sometimes, I have also found them to be in Washington D.C., Hollywood and almost every state capitol in America.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Feature article in the Sunday Pittsburgh Tribune-Review a few weeks back:

“Urban Planners: Designing Cities for Hipsters That You Don’t Want.”

[enraged]

Welcome and enjoy! Be careful at night is all I will say.

[jonascord]

My solution would be to use the register role of democrat voters as a proscription list, and employ eugenic methods of disposal... There would only be 12 people left in the city, but they would have had a shower within the last 12 months.

[logi_cal869]

My hometown has gone to scat.

This is what passes for 'art' of-late...

And can't forget about the past...

...its mocking...

...and the rest of the Portland Building story...

Michael Graves' seminal postmodern work the Portland Public Services Building is under threat of demolition, following news that the 32-year-old building needs more than $95 million worth of repairs.

Also known as the Portland Building, the 15-storey municipal office block in Portland, Oregon, was completed by American firm Michael Graves & Associates in 1982 and is credited with being one of the first major buildings of postmodernism, yet its demolition is one of several options under consideration by city officials following a recent analysis of the building's condition.

According to the assessment, a complete overhaul of the building would require $95 million (£58 million), while replacing it or relocating could cost anything between $110 million and $400 million (£67 million and £243 million).

The Portland Building has been plagued with major structural problems and defects ever since its completion, many of which are attributed to the tight $25 million budget of the original construction.

And the more time goes by, the more things stay the same:

Why Cities & Counties should consider leaving TriMet

Now that the Columbia River Crossing bridge is dead, TriMet's business model collapses. But I fail to see how even that massive failure will change anything...

And, yes...it IS public $$ that overwhelmingly supports the system in the Portland area.

-cynicus-

[logi_cal869]

You said it, brother. See my post 39. Let’s not forget the current push to build high-density housing with no parking and MORE commercial retail space on the ground floor of EACH to further glut the market.

I hate what Portland has become...the culture is infectious (the ‘gimme’ culture)...it infected a former friend of mine.

I did write ‘former’...sadly.