Now that is funny.

However, you don't need to worry about them anymore. Those guys all became carbon tax consultants and brokers.

God, I am beginning to hate consultants and the politicians that hire them.

I got taken to a Mindspring guest event in about 1977, refused to sign up. This guy sounds like Mindspring for cities.

Don't tell me: he did one of his creative class lectures and the check bounced, right? "How DARE they do that to me? ME! I will make them all PAY!"

This is about as poetic as it gets:

"Across the country, the battle to attract the creative class carries on. In Dayton, Ohio, billboards and T-shirts carry a new Richard Florida?inspired logo: "Dayton patented. Originals wanted." The city is building bikeways, passed an anti-discrimination ordinance in 2007 to increase its score on Florida's "tolerance index," and has given a local group called DaytonCREATE the use of a vacant bank, now called "c{space," "where they hang out and do a lot of their creativeness," Mayor Rhine McLin says."

Should I laugh, should I cry? Either way, I get to decide

on the Streetcar.

I guess it's easier to criticize and pipe up with your sarcastic two cents, but I can't help but wonder if any of these more prolific jokers/commenters ever have any constructive solutions to the serious problems facing our city, region and country.

A blog like this would seem to be a great forum for that discussion.

"Creative class" was called out as b.s. early and often. But to dumb guys who never had a real job (think Adams, Sten, Saltzman), it sounded "cool." Sorry, Joey, but we all get to have a little laugh on that one.

The most serious problem in our city right now is that local government has run amok and is quickly bankrupting itself with streetcars, stadium rehashes, and other worthless vanity projects. The constructive solution, discussed on this blog every day, is to stop wasting money on junk -- get the city out of the real estate development business, which has been a major bust for the taxpayers. Drastically scale back "urban renewal" and pay off some debt.

If that's not serious enough for you, maybe you need to stop reading this blog.

Richard Florida already has dismissed Portland, in essence if not explicitly. In his Atlantic article early last year, he predicted that the winners in the post-crash economy will be the "hub" cities in each of the nation's "mega-regions". Portland is, obviously, not a hub city by any reasonable measure.

The CoP is in a classic business scenario right now. There are plenty of examples of businesses that over the course of many years started to expand not by organic growth, but the diversification and M&A.

All was great at the beginning, but over time, this vast enterprise started to strain at the seams. What was once a well oiled machine is now fast becoming an old jalopy.

Smart management would recognize what was happening and quickly bring the company back to its core business. Bad management would simply drive it off a cliff.

Times running out....

Joey,

Instead of the CoP using Urban Renewal to evict working class folks along with TIF to build condos for upper middle class and upper class folks, they should use Urban Renewal to create more industrial land.

Furthermore, the CoP should adopt a more welcoming attitude towards business in lowering licensing and fees, lowering business taxes, lowering property taxes, get rid of local income taxes, and have code inspectors turn their cheek more often to petty code violations.

However, the CoP could do all this and Portland will just appear as Oregon's version of Laguna Woods, CA with pine trees, rain, and a bunch of twenty somethings as the servile, service class living off the tips of retiring and retired Baby Boomers.

Situated in between Seattle and San Francisco, Portland really does appear to be the red headed stepchild, yet what has been proposed in attracting retirees with urban renewal that focuses on "living in the city" will continue to fail as the service class of twenty somethings realizes they have no future in Portland beyond their barista gig and pack up their bags for Austin, D.C., L.A., and other big cities with more career opportunities.

I am one of those twenty somethings who was educated and worked in Portland for a few years and left due to no opportunity.

Whoa Jack. My question was not a personal attack on you. I just wonder if "stop doing that" is really a solution.

We have 11% unemployment in the area. What is going to be the foundation of the city's economic growth in the future? What should the city be doing to create an environment to foster the kind of economic growth we want, while being mindful of the environment and general fairness?

I actually agree that city leaders are wasting large amounts of tax dollars on their various "vanity" projects. Regardless of how wasteful we consider the spending on urban renewal and streetcars, you have to admit it's at least been a net benefit to jobs.

According to the Brookings Institute, out of the largest 100 metros in the US, Portland is among the 20 with the weakest performance over the past year or two. This isn't because of stadiums or an aerial tram - it's a much larger, systemic problem with the regional economy.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. Portland, OR is really a town where the haves and have-nots are readily apparent.

Your haves are your successful small businesspeople, those employed in K-12 and higher ed, those employed with the City of Portland, and those employed in healthcare.

The have-nots are those making between mininum wage and $16/hour in the service sector (restaurants, coffee shops, beauty salons, the lower rungs of the healthcare industry, and retail).

I hate to be so negative, but I cannot paint of pretty picture of what is not.

Where cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have a solid, vibrant blue collar middle class due to the harbor and oil and gas refineries, I have yet to notice a comparable blue collar middle class in Portland, OR.

If the City of Portland is going to sustain it's "visions and plans," then they need to think long and hard on how to attract a solid blue collar middle class tax base.

Doing so would require the City of Portland to throw many of it's environmentalist stalwarts under the bus, yet if progress is to be made, then those standing in the way need to be leveled. However, I do not see the CoP willing to loosen environmental restrictions to allow a refinery or 4 on the South Waterfront.

Yet it would mean 1000+ well paid, blue collar jobs to add to the tax base, but the environmentalists would fight it tooth and nail for what? Geese and trees?

RyanLeo, I've been saying more or less what you just did, on here and elsewhere, for years now.

This place sure has potential as a seaport. Lots of rail in and out, and plenty of industrial sites. I hear they once built/repaired ships here, and imported as well as exported goods. If you explore the vast, mostly abandoned areas where this activity occurred, it's quire evident that this place at one time in the ancient past supported blue-collar families.

But the over-educated morons who are busy running the economy of Portland straight into the ground, the snide little creeps who have never held a real non-government job once in their lives, think that a solid middle class can be built with coffee shops and government employees.

They seem blissfully unaware that, eventually, they will run out of businesses and people to tax the hell out of. They act as if Government is a producer, not consumer, of tax revenue.

I used to taunt the Peak Oil cultists among our hordes of enviro-mental cases with Jim "Y2K" Kunstler's own words about facing the hard realities of industrial water-based port traffic, with all of the seedy activity that accompanies it, but I gave up. It's pointless...it's like arguing with a Baptist.

You're damned right that geese and trees are more important than people to them. If they have their way, we'll eventually be living in mud huts, digging for grubs with pointed sticks.

This town is doomed. It's far far too late to put the brakes on the processes the host of this Blog details daily. You can feel it in the air lately.

Despair. Doom. Look at all those people sleeping under the overpasses and in the doorways of closed businesses and in their broken vans and sometimes just right on the sidewalk. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them, more every single day.

That's Portland's future, folks.

In another post, someone joked about appropriating the one-time unofficial slogan of Seattle, that even made it onto a billboard in the early 70s:

"Will the last person leaving Portland please turn out the lights ?"

Found where I read about the "turn out the lights" billboard. Turns out two real estate guys thought it up first, then it became a short-lived local icon of sorts.

The figure cited of 13 percent unemployment and mention of families selling everything they own to buy food and pay rent sounds just like today's Portland:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008696819_lightsout02m.html

Has anyone noticed that "creative class" champion Joe Cortright has been absent from the news for the past couple of months?

Can't eat grubs--PETA would object.

We have 11% unemployment in the area. What is going to be the foundation of the city's economic growth in the future? What should the city be doing to create an environment to foster the kind of economic growth we want, while being mindful of the environment and general fairness?

The city's already given its answer, repeatedly, explicitly. First Katz, then Adams (and to a lesser degree Sten) made "creative class" a key stone in the foundation of the city. Florida himself has been here, had lunch with Katz, and she, Adams and others have promoted the hell out of it for years.

I take the view that most don't--that cities are, ultimately, inherently unsustainable. You can't draw a line (UGB), focus on growth and density, and expect the environment (and people, and the economy) not to eventually suffer.

As planners are fond of saying, there are winners and losers. Mostly, we are losers when it comes to attempting to keep growing cities. New York and a half dozen other global cities are cracking at the seams, both economically and in physical infrastructure. It's not going to be--heck, it isn't now--pretty.

But at least we've got a "bike boulevard" and a "pothole hotline" and a "mayor".

Speaking of New York.

We have completely abandoned our small manufacturing and forest products industrial base in favor of the so-called Creative Class and Green Jobs.

Kids on skate boards practising Grafitti art and web site design are not creating jobs for anyone. Paying developers to build wind farms then sell the power back to us is like eating our own young.

I like a good coffee shop as well as the next guy, but catering to hipsters on bicycles is a complete distraction from the hard work of real economic development which faces our city and state.

I beleive in Portland for the long term, but as so many others have pointed out we're very much headed in the wrong direction.

The optimist in me wants to beleive that if enough of these "creative class" baristas come to realize that their $10 per hour earnings will never get better, they'll stop voting for establishment candidates like Adams and friends. The realist in me knows that's not going to happen.

We need change, and fast. Dissolving the PDC and scaling back Metro would go a long way toward lowering business taxes and fees and pumping cash into the school system but it just aint gonna happen folks.

Good one, ecohuman. I do think population growth is a key part of the situation here as well . . .

Sam, Vera, Bragdon and all his Metro ilk always drone on for hours about the "million new people" that will be coming to the Metro area--a fact which, looking at population trends, is clearly a delusion.

And on top of that, we already have a problem with people who already live here finding jobs. Portland and some of the other Metro-area cities that have been drinking Metro Kool Aid seem to think residential sector growth (and particularly, yuppie growth) is the be-all and end-all . . . and it's clearly not.

Portland needs jobs, plain and simple. But the city leaders don't get it. They're too busy drooling over condo bunkers and consulting with Richard Florida/Jim Kunstler-types.

Where cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have a solid, vibrant blue collar middle class due to the harbor and oil and gas refineries, I have yet to notice a comparable blue collar middle class in Portland, OR.

You must have been hanging out with the wrong class of people. Portland had large numbers of blue collar jobs throughout the decade, in fact the big layoffs you read about in the business news in the Portland area are mostly blue collar jobs. When Boeing lays off off hundreds of people at a time from the Gresham plant, those are blue collar jobs. When Freightliner announces they're closing their plant, those are blue collar jobs. Gunderson? Blue collar jobs. And that's just jobs for machinists.

The overbuilding of apartments, office towers, houses, etc.? Those were built by blue collar workers.

I think you guys carping about how the city's infested with latte-swilling tree-huggers have about as much connection with blue-collar workers as the people you're complaining about. If you lived in San Francisco or Seattle you'd be making the same damn argument about how the place was run over by the politically correct.

darrelplant, good point. I think what bothers most is that Portland prides itself on cultivating the "creative class" not blue collar workers. This is appearant in policies and lack of focus on meaningful job creation, unless you like green aprons and the smell of coffee that is.

The overbuilding of apartments, office towers, houses, etc.? Those were built by blue collar workers.

About 74% of which are not local (or permanent) residents, based on statements of major construction firms. And, over 80% are temporary jobs (18 months or less in duration). Those jobs look good on spreadsheet pivot charts, but they do little to build the foundation of a long-term tax base: the middle class. Hence, Portland is declining, while grasping at "creative class" and other constructs.

And I'm not sure what "blue collar" is anymore--it's an anachronism that people seem to use to mean "not based in an office".

Maybe what people mean is the middle class. That's becoming another anachronism, in Portland and elsewhere. "Blue collar" wages like construction rarely make one "middle class" any more, two incomes are nearly required to not live in poverty or near-poverty.

Jack's term is appropriate--cities pursue "snake oil" of conceptual handwavings like "creative class" because they're always focused on growth. Modern cities have fully embraced the idea that if you do not compete and grow, you decline and die. There is no middle ground. And as a result, there may soon be no "middle class".

Darrelplant,

You are talking to the son whose Father belongs to the Boilermaker's Union for Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in downtown Oakland, CA and whose Mother worked 15 years at Raley's before she acquired a college degree. Yes, I am their trophy child who received a Bachelor's and Master's prior to the age of 25.

As for hanging out with blue collar workers, hell I work graveyard shift in mental health and my family whom both sides I see at get togethers every year is full of blue collar workers from Long Beach and various parts of the California Bay Area. So please, stop with this assumptive attitude that only blue collar workers can propose blue collar ideas.

Joey:

It is not just a regional "problem." Many of the comments are right. Portland (the City, many of the people) are more active at hindering private business than in support it. Sure the region has be hurt badly by the recession, but if you look at the latest unemployment data it is clear that the rest of the region is doing better than Portland. The City's unemployment rate in November was 10.3%. Tigard, Tualatin, West Linn, Hillsboro, and Beaverton were all lower -- much lower, ranging from 7.9 to 8.7%.

I think the direction this post is going, and most would agree-at least Jack, is that pursuing all these "snake oils" shouldn't be such a large part of government. Stop defining, labeling, and let Economic Nature take its course.

I never said anything about "only blue collar workers can propose blue collar ideas". I said that there were large numbers of blue collar workers in Portland and that anyone who claims that there isn't doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. Then I gave a few examples of companies that have -- in the recent past at least -- employed many thousands of blue collar workers in the Portland metro area.

ecohuman, while it's true that construction jobs are largely temporary and have a high transiency rate, that's hardly a new phenomenon. The build-up of the Kaiser shipyards during WWII was the same. All large public or private works projects bring in people from outside the area. Some of them stay and try to find work here, most of them go. But a city with a series of overlapping construction projects -- which Portland has had over most of the past decade -- still has a blue-collar tax base, even if the base is made up of different people from year to year.

The problem is, there aren't enough blue-collar jobs to go around any more. There never have been enough "creative class" jobs to go around, but it was more than fifteen years ago when the Woodworkers union voted to merge with the Machinists because their membership in the district had fallen so far that they couldn't reasonably maintain their presence in the state. Since then, the Machinists have lost a lot more members themselves.

But that doesn't mean blue-collar workers have completely disappeared. Although, I suppose at a certain point, they do tend to fade into the cityscape, much like ones servants do at home.

ecohuman, while it's true that construction jobs are largely temporary and have a high transiency rate, that's hardly a new phenomenon.

I guess my point was: no city succeeds, long-term, when it makes development the key part (or even a crucial part) of its economic base.

However, that's exactly what Portland's done--and is doing. "Sustainable devlopment" is an oxymoron in at least two different ways.

The problem is, there aren't enough blue-collar jobs to go around any more.

There never were. And construction is *always* a boom-and-bust phenomenon; those involved know it well. To build a long-term, prosperous tax base always requires a long-term, stable workforce.

But you'll notice Portland trying to do what every desperate city trying to grow does: base your long-term economic strategy on false aphorisms like "attract the creative class" and the attraction of tourism (see: Tram, Streetcar, Convention Center Hotel, etc.)

As for me personally, I grew up poor as hell, and have an intimate familiarity with "blue collar" work, pinto beans, and Top Ramen.

The hard fact is that there is not much a city can do to truly grow private businesses, besides offering direct subsidies of some kind for a business to locate here.

Economic Development is largely just grasping at the latest popular straw (creative class, biotech, green jobs). We've seen a lot of it here.

But think about it. What can even a mayor really do to convince Company X to move here? Aside from offering direct grants and tax incentives (i.e. payouts), not much.

The only other thing they can do is stay out of business' way as much as possible. Minimize red tape, long processes, fees and taxes. It's not sexy, but it's what really impacts the bottom line, and just as importantly, the ability of a company to have an idea and execute it quickly.

We have to turn our much-praised planning system inside out and examine it from a different perspective. How do we bring our planning vision to fruition? By applying new rules and processes. What are rules and processes to a business? Time. What is time to a business? Money. What is the first, second and third goal of any business? Making money.

This is a town where a large employer comes in, is told:

"Sure we have buildable sites, but you have to pay $20 million cleaning it up, then you have to grant 30 feet of waterfront to the city, pay to build a park and trail there, zoning precludes you from having as much parking as you'd like because we prefer bikes here, and an unelected "design review board" has final say on your facilities. And planning and approval will take two years before you can break ground."

And construction is *always* a boom-and-bust phenomenon...

Isn't that what I said? But for that matter -- as "those involved know" -- the timber industry was the same way, even before the advent of environmentalism. If you look at the history of Oregon for the past 150 years, it's a roller coaster of booms and busts hugely dependent on the economic fortunes of the construction industry across the country. When times were tight, fewer people bought Oregon lumber. Then huge killings were made when people needed wood products for housing in the good times. The state was essentially a one-product economy for a long time and it's never really managed to diversify.

Personally, I don't have any piercings or tattoos. I worked in an office over a metal refinishing shop across the street from Bridgeport Brewing back before there was a Pearl District, and as the whole thing's gone up over the past 15 years, all I've been able to do is ask myself how the hell anyone could think there were enough people in Portland who could buy that many overpriced condos. We barely managed to buy our house 20 years ago back when it was $45K.

And that doesn't even come close to what I think about the South Waterfront.

So I share in the skepticism. I can't figure out where the people with facial tats will get jobs, either. The city of Portland as an organization doesn't seem to have any plan to bring in manufacturing or other types of blue-collar jobs. Then again, those types of opportunities — like Norwegian electric car assembly plants — are rather few and far between. Seattle lost Boeing's HQ to Chicago a while back, then it lost the Dreamliner plant to NC last year.

I just don't know that complaining that there aren't any blue-collar workers in Portland — which is what I was responding to — and that the whole place is overrun with people who "If they have their way, we'll eventually be living in mud huts, digging for grubs with pointed sticks" is in any way connected to reality.

Isn't that what I said?
Partly. You said a city with "overlapping projects still has a blue collar tax base". But this is quibbling over what "tax base" means to us, I think.

I can't figure out where the people with facial tats will get jobs, either.

Myself, I'm not so interested in the people who are christened the "creative class" or other silly label; I'm more interested in the decisions being made and money being spent in pursuit of it, based on little more than a book and a slick marketing effort.

I just don't know that complaining that there aren't any blue-collar workers in Portland — which is what I was responding to — and that the whole place is overrun with people who "If they have their way, we'll eventually be living in mud huts, digging for grubs with pointed sticks" is in any way connected to reality.

I agree.

Mock the hipsters, their "creative class" co-travellers, and the ridiculous things cities do in the name of attacting them --e.g., Michigan's "Cool Cities" initiative--all you want (I do my share). I think Florida's work stands up better when he is simply reporting on trends and less so when he gets into policy prescriptions.

But to survive and thrive a city needs young people, and young people have been moving here (for better or worse). Of course, there aren't enough jobs and affordable housing for them, and a lot of them will leave.

But anyone who truly loves Portland and hopes for the best for it has to take some measure of comfort in this, especially since it gives us greater potential compared to other cities who are losing young people. And to maximize that potential and to get the next generation to stick around and start those families and jobs, we need to re-direct public money and policy towards reducing red tape that discourages start-ups and employers with family-wage jobs from setting up shop here; supporting the development of housing families can afford and want to buy (and not condoboxes for DINKs); and shaking up the education system to ensure we fully tap the human capital of the city's young people.

But to survive and thrive a city needs young people, and young people have been moving here (for better or worse)

Actually, they aren't; at least not in the droves being reported by the press who calculates such things by largely hanging around food carts and self-reported hipsterists.

The average age of Portlanders in 2008? 35.1 years old.

That's right--well beyond the hipster demographic. And as far as can be determined, the average age of in-migration isn't lower than that.

So, you see, the whole "young people are flocking to Portland" thing is, like Florida's ever-shifting thesis, is bull.

And to maximize that potential and to get the next generation to stick around and start those families and jobs, we need to re-direct public money and policy towards reducing red tape that discourages start-ups

Now you're talking like the anti-Measure 66/67 crowd.

supporting the development of housing families can afford and want to buy (and not condoboxes for DINKs)

You're confusing your demographics. Those condo boxes are not for the young (18-34) demographic, they're for people at the end or beyond that range--people with money.

People came here in droves and "wanted and bought" tons of housing, condos, and other stuff. Now that they're here, you might wonder--where is the income to support those mortgages? Many of them are wondering that too--and the housing market's come to a screeching halt.

Again, as the middle class shrinks, it's not the lack of "affordable housing" that shrinks them--it's something much bigger. A fundamental, root problem with the economy itself, and an overconsumption problem that's going to last for a very, very, very long time.

Now you're talking like the anti-Measure 66/67 crowd. For what it's worth I'm undecided but leaning towards a yes on 66 and no on 67. Businesses whine whenever their taxes are raised a single penny (and should usually be ignored when they do so), but the taxing of gross receipts versus profits that 67 introduces seems a step too far.

Actually, they aren't; at least not in the droves being reported by the press who calculates such things by largely hanging around food carts and self-reported hipsterists.

Well, we'll have some hard numbers to know for sure after this year's Census.

A fundamental, root problem with the economy itself, and an overconsumption problem that's going to last for a very, very, very long time.

You can bash Portland or predict its doom using data and arguments colored by your own particular ideological lens. And as much as I like to indulge in it from time to time myself, in the end I just hope posters here are putting at least a fraction of the energy they put into complaining about things into trying to make a positive difference.

RyanLeo: "...the CoP should adopt a more welcoming attitude towards business in lowering licensing and fees, lowering business taxes, lowering property taxes, get rid of local income taxes..."

Robert: "Portland (the City, many of the people) are more active at hindering private business than in support it."

Snards: "The only other thing they can do is stay out of business' way as much as possible. Minimize red tape, long processes, fees and taxes. It's not sexy, but it's what really impacts the bottom line, and just as importantly, the ability of a company to have an idea and execute it quickly."

If shifting the tax and fee burden away from business is the answer to our economic problems, then who do we shift it to? Or do we just make further cuts to schools, public safety and other services? I'm not sure how that trade-off will improve the quality of life. Most studies I've read rank education as one of the greatest drivers of economic growth.

in the end I just hope posters here are putting at least a fraction of the energy they put into complaining about things into trying to make a positive difference.

I agree. I also think there's a profound feeling of frustrated powerlessness that's gripped many, especially as the local city administration reveals itself to be worse with each "deal" it contemplates. Perceived powerlessness tends to polarize. So, polarized voices turn a serious problem into a shouting match over the fence, reinforcing the powerlessness. As a result, people like Mayor Twitter and Randy the Ram get to operate with impunity.

Joey: "do we just make further cuts to schools....".

Why do so many forget, or don't know that Oregon's budget went up 9% for the present biennium? That is not a cut.

Do you believe that inflation has decreased the actual dollar value over 1% from the former budget as the Oregonian reports, as they regurgitate the Yes vote proponent arguments? Inflation the past two years hasn't been higher than 9%, or actually over 10% adding in the 1%+ cited by proponents. We never get answers to this disparity.

Then, as most Oregonians have experienced a drop in their incomes, why should government be expected not to trim their budget?

Us commoners have figured it out and only have simple questions and simple answers for them.

Lee: "Why do so many forget, or don't know that Oregon's budget went up 9% for the present biennium? That is not a cut."

State spending per student for education (which is what I'm speaking of, and how you quoted me) is down 20% since 1990-1991. Clearly you don't really know what you're talking about.

http://www.pps.k12.or.us/departments/budget/1119.htm

"Then, as most Oregonians have experienced a drop in their incomes, why should government be expected not to trim their budget?"

Because as more people struggle, the social safety net is needed even more.