Jack you missed the obvious. We need more bike lanes!

The UW is a big part of Seattle's economic engine. OHSU, PSU, Reed, Lewis and Clark (sorry, Jack)just don't contribute to Portland's economy in the same way.

West Hartford.... bwhahahahahahahahah..... I lived in Hartford for awhile back in the 70s. A crumbling economic base (save for all those big insurance companies who have been busy off-shoring and outsourcing). Infrastructure crumbling. Hard to get flights in and out of Bradley Field (it's the closest airport to my alma mater) from anywhere but a few select places. A few years back a co-worker left here thinking PDX was a wasteland. She left Hartford even faster. Who makes up this stuff anyway? West Hartford is a very WASP burb of a really forsaken crumbling mill town.

Topeka, KS beats us? Sam needs to build more empty buildings andbike paths for sure.

Face it folks, if you need a job in the private sector you are screwed.

“Seattle is revising its tax, zoning and permit policies to make them more business-friendly.” Gresham Oregon is doing that too. Meanwhile Portland is raising fees and making things more difficult for business. Every time I walk by a coffee shop and see the hipster – hippy – Birkenstocker sitting there I see why this inane city council keeps getting reelected.

PDX appears to have the highest percentage of creatives in the working class...44.9%

PDX appears to have the highest percentage of creatives in the working class...44.9%

The Artist-Intellectual
The visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet. They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves. Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school. Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown. Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made I between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo. The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the same thing.

Milo, to continue your story it goes on in this tangent:

This Portland artist-intellectual meets up with an aspiring "journalist" from the Oregonian at the hip coffee shop, they talk awhile and the journalist learns that the artist-intellectual has teamed up with a few intellectual friends to open up a "collective" on a teeming, storefront, cool street here in Portland. He calls it a collaborative to encourage symbolic interactionism of collective artistic endeavors.

What the "collective" is, is a storefront junk shop where his intellectual friends have cleaned out their closets, attics, and concrete block formed shelves and called it art. The most telling item of the Oregonian article is the artsy photo where a small, rustic ship model is displayed in the window. Creative. Well, at least all the friends got together and that's good. And the Oregonian spent two pages to tell this story.

Top ten things overheard in Portland

1. I’m in a band.

2. I’m working on a movie treatment.

3. Of course I ride a bike.

4. I’ll have a can of PBR.

5. Do you have any spare change?

6. The mayor did what?! Again?!

7. Are you hiring?

8. Stop or I’ll…..too late.

9. Water? We have plenty, but it will cost you.

10. Does always rain? Only during Rose Festival.