The Tale of Two Oregons

The pandemic reveals pre-existing divides that need to be addressed if Oregon is going to reach its full potential.

This is the tale of two Oregons and, unlike the tale told by Charles Dickens, this is solely about the worst of times.

From national economic statistics gathered at the census-tract level over the last six months, Yair Ghitza and Mark Steitz mapped where unemployment is most rampant. In showing unemployment at the neighborhood level, the analysts revealed the geographic separation of the haves and have nots.

In Chicago, the map exposes that unemployment unsurprisingly spiked on the South Side, disproportionately home to African-Americans; on the North Side, unemployment was under 10 percent. In New York City, a glimpse at Lower Manhattan shows some spikes in joblessness but it’s nothing compared to the outer boroughs; a few neighborhoods in the Bronx, for example, had unemployment rates upwards of 20 percent, while neighborhoods below 95th Street in Manhattan reported rates less than half of that. 

The tale of two cities is told throughout Oregon as well.

In Central Oregon, Bend has several tracts with ten percent unemployment or lower. But, just 30 minutes north in Redmond, Oregonians living in the city’s three core census tracts experienced unemployment rates of 15, 16, and 17 percent. Along I-5, the disparities are just as evident.

Images taken from NYT tool provided in the link above.

Down south, in Medford, communities on the west side of the interstate featured unemployment around 17 percent; it was nearly half that on the other side of the road. In South Eugene, unemployment rates averaged to about nine percent. But just to the east, in Springfield, several neighborhoods reported unemployment rates of 14 percent or higher. 

Up in Portland, as will come to the surprise of no one, unemployment in the West Hills was as low as the houses are big—typically around seven percent. East of I-84, though, unemployment regularly topped 20 percent. Near Centennial, one tract reported 21 percent unemployment. 

Of course, there are tales of two regions to tell as well.

Oregonians in some coastal communities, like just outside of Newport, lived in neighborhoods with 23 percent unemployment; similar rates were experienced near Astoria. Individuals in the Warm Springs Reservation and in Eastern Oregon have also confronted disproportionately high rates of unemployment. 

What the data reveals is that even state-wide solutions are insufficiently nuanced to tackle the neighborhood-level disparities that exist in Oregon. In other words, top-down solutions are a non-starter. Now more than ever, we need to empower context-experts -- the local leaders in city and county government, the small business community, and nonprofit champions that understand the unique and neighborhood-specific challenges confronting those struggling to stay above water.

The importance of bottom-up solutions that address opportunity inequality at the neighborhood level was known before the pandemic. Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist, reported in 2015 that moving a child from one zip code to another could have life-altering effects on their level of educational attainment and professional success.

At a time when the media is nearly exclusively focusing on the different visions for America presented by presidential candidates, we should not forget that decisionmaking at the local level can often have the most profound effects on reducing inequality, fostering upward mobility, and facilitating the kind of diverse neighborhoods we know create more resilient, more connected communities.