Great. So the suckup festival at the New York Times finally overflowed the bowl and the Journal caught the spill. Ah, well: it means a lot of really crappy artists are going to be chased by even more "investors" with more money than brains until the bubble bursts.

Here come some more "creatives." The barista market just tightened up a bit. Time for the taxpayers to subsidize some more "workforce housing"!

Great. More Banksy wannabes

I was born here and can tell you Portland hasn't been a "rough logging town" or anything tough for a long, long time. It's gotta be one of the wimpiest cities I can think of.

And I'm sure there will be a few planners who will smile when they read this. Time for more artists lofts.

Ugh...

The only thing tough about Portland is the traffic.

The only "tough" things about Portland are the aggressive bicyclists, and the street kids with their pit bulls demanding money.
Logging? The only logging done here any more is when TriMet cuts down trees to make way for the f*ing trolley tracks.

Crabbiest. Thread. Ever.
Oh no, artists are innovating with their creations and ways to display and market their art. That's so...arty. It's not like galleries are a small business or anything, or that people might be drawn to visit Portland because of a vibrant art scene. Can't these hippies just cut down a few trees and make an honest living already?

Oddly, I agree with PN - this town hasn't been "rough" in years, though corruption runs deep.

It is ironic that Tri-Met cuts down half-century old trees with impunity, but CoPo will go after you if you cut one on "your" property.

But that's why we have the UGB - gotta preserve that precious farmland for growing small street trees for Tri-Met, PSU, OHSU, and the other developers.

We're gonna need a bigger Starbucks.

The only thing tough about Portland is the traffic.

I think you forgot the /sarcasm tag for that sentence.

I'm settling in here nicely, but I still chuckle at this area's notion of "traffic". Try the DC Beltway at 5:30 PM on a Friday afternoon. Now that's traffic!

Max, I think you and I agree about a lot of things....seriously!

I weep for art if we are the new capital. Once again, Portlandia. The rest of the world obviously sees us as a bunch of celler dwellers biking around on our sustainable roads in search of a vegan burger...an adult daycare center for the overeducated/underemployed. Great.

Can't help but notice the writer spent most of the article praising the art spaces and not the art they contain. If Portland was the next art capital of America, shouldn't they be able to come up more than one photograph of a pretty generic-looking gallery piece?

But that's why we have the UGB - gotta preserve that precious farmland for growing small street trees for Tri-Met, PSU, OHSU, and the other developers.

Don't forget, land for McMansions and estates.

I have written about this before, why are we importing food from China and other places, making it more expensive, when we have rain and farmland here, but yes, where I used to see acres and acres of farmland growing food, I now see the street trees being grown on those acres.