OurPDX » gentrification http://ourpdx.com Collaborative coverage of news and events, with a focus on community. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:58:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Don’t take my liquor store away! http://ourpdx.com/2008/07/dont-take-my-liquor-store-away/ http://ourpdx.com/2008/07/dont-take-my-liquor-store-away/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:36:15 +0000 Dieselboi http://ourpdx.net/2008/07/dont-take-my-liquor-store-away/

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Originally uploaded by dieselboi

In my neighborhood, where I have lived now for 10 years, things are changing rather quickly. I live 2 blocks off N Interstate and the new zoning proposal is really going to change the landscape. Where single family homes currently stand, high rise apartments and/or condos will soon dominate. Boy, the ghosts in my 1890s home would be miffed.

I’m not against development. I am actually for it in my little neighborhood. I want to see some of the detritus removed and if condos come in as the replacement, so be it. Slowly the neighborhood cleans up. [For all you haters who think I'm supporting the negative side of gentrification, email me offline your home address and I'll send over some of my neighbors and neighbor's "friends" to come over and shit in your lawn, steal your flowers and plants or knock on your door @ 1am looking for cans.] Change can be good.

And yet…. The photo to the left is of a couple of houses just a block from my house which are boarded up. In total, there are currently 7 single family homes on that block of 9 that are boarded up. These houses range in age from 54-104yrs old. Seriously, one of the houses was built in 1904 and will be razed in a few short weeks. See, they are razing the entire block in order to build a mixed use complex with condos, apartments and retail space right off the Prescott MAX stop. An amazing location for anyone to be sure. It saddens me to see these old houses go, but it saddens me more to see my liquor store go.

Yep, the liquor store! I live 2 blocks from a prime liquor store, the only one within many miles. There are no liquor stores on NE MLK, nor on N Interstate. Whole neighborhoods are going to be left wanting when this liquor store closes in a couple of weeks. All in the name of development. Where will I get my whiskey now?



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]]> http://ourpdx.com/2008/07/dont-take-my-liquor-store-away/feed/ 17 Pressed to the Back of the Bus http://ourpdx.com/2008/06/pressed-to-the-back-of-the-bus/ http://ourpdx.com/2008/06/pressed-to-the-back-of-the-bus/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:15:16 +0000 Jeremy Towsey-French http://ourpdx.net/?p=68

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With my niece in town attending Rock and Roll Camp for Girls, I’ve had the pleasure of accompanying her to camp each day via tried-and-true Tri-Met number 8. You step on at the Lloyd Center, then sit back to enjoy Portland’s premier socioeconomic bus tour. Beginning with upscale Irvington, the bus slowly meanders up to the more humble Woodlawn neighborhood. During this stroll, even the most inattentive and absentminded among us can notice the pressure of the recession (yeah, I tossed out the ‘R’ word) make greater impact the further you climb towards Dekum, then on to the Northern tip of MLK. Combined with this is the sweet-and-sour taste of gentrification as you hit Alberta.

As an auto-less person that cycles to work each day, I rarely get the opportunity to check-out the myriad of bus routes available to me, so this has been both a pain and a pleasure. I get so darned caught-up in the simplicity and joy of my daily 3.5-mile commute through inner NE and SE, that I fail to remember how the recession, combined with gentrification, has affected so many Portlanders. Yes, there are people like me on the 8-line, who really can’t afford to own/drive a car; but I suspect that there are also a lot of people on that bus who can barely afford to make their rent. This is a pressure that I don’t have to face every day. Bushco policies and urban gentrification are making the issue ever more complex, twisting the vice one high-priced-boutique-turn at a time.

One of my favorite papers discussed the issue of a city’s attractiveness and the associated effects of gentrification in a recent article, which drives home an issue that’s been impacting Portland, quietly, for years. San Francisco’s Mission district saw a massive backlash during the dot com boom that held the baton of the gentrification surge. Portland hasn’t seen this, yet. With the economy pulling a Titanic, steam starts to fill the cooker. What happens next is either the birth of an amazing meal, or a potentially big mess. A mess that’ll affect us all.

This is an issue we should all be concerned about. Yeah, I’d love to have access to a Pix and Laughing Planet in all of my favorite neighborhoods (no offense to Pix and Laughing Planet), but it comes with a price. Is this price a good thing? Is it inevitable? Or is it the sign of something else?



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