Thank you, John. I appreciate your well-written, hopeful post. I've been a resident of Portland for 40 years. I have children and now grandchildren who live here. The future state of Portland is very important to me.
Although our recovery has been slow and I expect it will remain so for a few more years, I also think it’s inevitable. Over the last 13 years, on my long photowalks throughout the metro region, I’ve seen much that we can be proud of and smile about. Those sights are still there; we might need to just look again.
After recently posting some not-so-nice Portland photos to draw attention to the current state of the Blumenauer Bridge and the Eastbank Esplanade, in 2024 I pledge to return to my earlier “posting positive Portland photos past and present” phase. How’s that for alliteration?
In the meantime, I’ll leave the not-so-nice scenes for the outrage photojournalists, from here and elsewhere, to document for their online clicks and dopamine hits.
I hope you're right, John. But I worry about a downward economic spiral, as businesses leave the downtown area, tax receipts drop and services fall. That's something we've seen in other cities over the decades, and it's hard to escape. In the longer term, perhaps the best metric for where a community will be in 25 years is the state of its education system, and Portland (and Oregon) don't do well there: one of the shortest school years in the country, adjusted NAEP scores behind Mississippi's, limited early childhood programs, very low high school graduation rates, and below-average college attendance. All that said, your points about Portland's geographic advantages are sound, and I'm hoping you're right about a turnaround in '24.
Thank you, John. I appreciate your well-written, hopeful post. I've been a resident of Portland for 40 years. I have children and now grandchildren who live here. The future state of Portland is very important to me.
Although our recovery has been slow and I expect it will remain so for a few more years, I also think it’s inevitable. Over the last 13 years, on my long photowalks throughout the metro region, I’ve seen much that we can be proud of and smile about. Those sights are still there; we might need to just look again.
After recently posting some not-so-nice Portland photos to draw attention to the current state of the Blumenauer Bridge and the Eastbank Esplanade, in 2024 I pledge to return to my earlier “posting positive Portland photos past and present” phase. How’s that for alliteration?
In the meantime, I’ll leave the not-so-nice scenes for the outrage photojournalists, from here and elsewhere, to document for their online clicks and dopamine hits.
I hope you're right, John. But I worry about a downward economic spiral, as businesses leave the downtown area, tax receipts drop and services fall. That's something we've seen in other cities over the decades, and it's hard to escape. In the longer term, perhaps the best metric for where a community will be in 25 years is the state of its education system, and Portland (and Oregon) don't do well there: one of the shortest school years in the country, adjusted NAEP scores behind Mississippi's, limited early childhood programs, very low high school graduation rates, and below-average college attendance. All that said, your points about Portland's geographic advantages are sound, and I'm hoping you're right about a turnaround in '24.