Submitted by mmmarvel on Thu, 08/17/2006 - 4:32am.
You asked what will make them succeed? How about reading what the article states -
"Factors that lure investment today, like good schools, roads, tax policies, and support industries,..."
We have poor schools, not due to lack of money but due to the way it's spent. We have horrible roads because ODOT and POT think roads should take a back seat to overly expensive trains and streetcars. Our tax policies ... I believe the Beatles said it best with the song TaxMan, it describes Oregon and Portland in particular to a tee. Support industries - well you need the other parts to attract that part.
Portland is becoming the biggest example of the haves and the have-nots. You have doctors, engineers, chic artists, etc. who are living large; and you have the homeless, the poor, the disenfranchised (this is especially evident in the downtown area but is spreading). Our "land use" policies continually drive home prices higher and higher. Our "transportation policy" continues to demand (and get) more and more subsidies (which takes money which could be spent elsewhere). The "middle-class" is becoming a smaller and smaller group of people, in Portland you are either a have or a have-not.
I help build for a living, I see what is going on, I see what prices are doing - the middle class is a dying breed. Portland is moving towards you're an engineer/doctor, whatever or you're a service worker. There will still be folks like me who are necessary to build and maintain the buildings that we build but we have been priced out of Portland (in particular) and in some cases out of Oregon all together. We live in Vancouver, we live in Camas, we live in places where it's cheaper to have us come in (on the contractors dime) and live in a motel for a month while a project is being worked on, than it is to live in the area where our job is.
Oregon has one of the highest unemployment numbers in the country - THAT should tell you something.
Read the whole article
You asked what will make them succeed? How about reading what the article states -
"Factors that lure investment today, like good schools, roads, tax policies, and support industries,..."
We have poor schools, not due to lack of money but due to the way it's spent. We have horrible roads because ODOT and POT think roads should take a back seat to overly expensive trains and streetcars. Our tax policies ... I believe the Beatles said it best with the song TaxMan, it describes Oregon and Portland in particular to a tee. Support industries - well you need the other parts to attract that part.
Portland is becoming the biggest example of the haves and the have-nots. You have doctors, engineers, chic artists, etc. who are living large; and you have the homeless, the poor, the disenfranchised (this is especially evident in the downtown area but is spreading). Our "land use" policies continually drive home prices higher and higher. Our "transportation policy" continues to demand (and get) more and more subsidies (which takes money which could be spent elsewhere). The "middle-class" is becoming a smaller and smaller group of people, in Portland you are either a have or a have-not.
I help build for a living, I see what is going on, I see what prices are doing - the middle class is a dying breed. Portland is moving towards you're an engineer/doctor, whatever or you're a service worker. There will still be folks like me who are necessary to build and maintain the buildings that we build but we have been priced out of Portland (in particular) and in some cases out of Oregon all together. We live in Vancouver, we live in Camas, we live in places where it's cheaper to have us come in (on the contractors dime) and live in a motel for a month while a project is being worked on, than it is to live in the area where our job is.
Oregon has one of the highest unemployment numbers in the country - THAT should tell you something.