Portland Bankrupt? Will this be a Detroit Sister City? (Salem: low income, sales)

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by skiffrace

Right on.
I'd only add that the reason Portland lags somewhat behind Seattle is not the "business-hating, communist government", as the right-wingers endlessly blabber. Portland area is a home to 2 huge, world-class companies (Intel and Nike) plus countless medium and small-size businesses.
The reasons Portland lags behind Seattle are geographic. Seattle is a deep-water seaport, right next to Pacific. Portland is limited by the 40-foot depth of the shipping channel on Columbia, thus severely limiting the size of ships that can access it, and putting it at a disadvantage compared with Seattle or LA.
This, plus the length of the journey down the Columbia has always been major limiting factor in the development of the Port of Portland, and the rest of the city, which historically was based on the port up until quite recently.

LOL, you putz. The WHOLE of Oregon's state government is business - hating communists.

Having owned a business in Oregon, I can tell you that's absolute and unarguably true. Oregon's terrible abuse of business, especially small business, is universally known and freely admitted, except by the few, who go around posting tripe like the above.

And yes, they have tried repeatedly to get Intel to leave, by threatening them with massive tax hikes and all sort of other abusive things, trying to extract more money from them.

Nike doesn't make a thing in Portland, and the only thing keeping them there is the inconvenience of moving the office furniture, yet, you guys act as if it's a red-headed stepchild you can abuse freely.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by hamellr

The UGB and Metro both predate our current issues by some time, and by most accounts are highly successful models for any Urban Planning Group to imitate world wide.

LOL!!!!!!

NOTHING about your urban planning can be called anything REMOTELY related to "success". It is one of the most stupid things on the planet. Please.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

Actually, Detroit has lost about 40-45 percent of it's peak population... which was decades ago.

The last 10 years hasn't seen all that unusual of a deviation from the trend, though it is higher. What's significant about the last decade or so, is that we had a recession, and Detroit spent more, and the tax base has continued to decline.

The handwriting was one the wall for Detroit 30 to 40 years ago, but the people who kept getting elected and re-elected paid no attention to it whatsoever, blaming problems on Republicans, racism, low taxes, phases of the moon, and other assorted absurdities, until the money completely ran out, with everything borrowed that can be borrowed and default was simply unavoidable.

Here is the view of the historical population...



2012 population was 700,000. Gross loss from peak of 65%. White population down about 90%.

Public employment was down about 40%. That is rational given that the infrastructure and requirements of the city track things other than population. Present public employment is well below that required to maintain the city in a functional state...

[Larry Caldwell]

Schnitzer Steel had revenues of $3.3 billion in 2012. That's not small potatoes.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

LOL, you putz. The WHOLE of Oregon's state government is business - hating communists.

Having owned a business in Oregon, I can tell you that's absolute and unarguably true. Oregon's terrible abuse of business, especially small business, is universally known and freely admitted, except by the few, who go around posting tripe like the above.

And yes, they have tried repeatedly to get Intel to leave, by threatening them with massive tax hikes and all sort of other abusive things, trying to extract more money from them.

Nike doesn't make a thing in Portland, and the only thing keeping them there is the inconvenience of moving the office furniture, yet, you guys act as if it's a red-headed stepchild you can abuse freely.

I have also owned a business in Oregon, and never found any problems with the state. Of course, I was a responsible business owner who researched business requirements before I formulated by business plan, and operated honestly and responsibly. I do understand that Oregon is kind of hard on the rape-and-run crooks and fly by night con artists, but I never encountered any problems. We are much better off if they all move to Texas anyway.

As for "massive tax hikes," you will notice that businesses have benefited from a massive property tax cut, and the proposed corporate tax hike never made it out of committee in the legislature. Oregon politics requires people to talk with each other instead of screaming invective.

Boise Cascade, Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific have left Portland, but that was due to the feds shutting down logging on public lands. You can't run a mill with no logs, and you can't ship lumber with no mills. Right across the river in Vancouver you will find timber land being converted to subdivisions because GP isn't around to manage it any more. If you keep living in the past, you will never catch up to reality.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by VTHokieFan

Integra is moving out of Portland which is a huge loss.

From the news reports: Integra confirms plans to move corporate HQ from Portland to east Vancouver | OregonLive.com

""The work site benefit, all being in one facility, was really the driver," said Integra chief financial officer Jesse Selnick. Spread out around the Lloyd District, he said, many key employees rarely encounter one another."

Doesn't seem like a financial issue or tax issue at all. Yeah it's a loss, but not enough to support the OP's claim.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

LOL!!!!!!

NOTHING about your urban planning can be called anything REMOTELY related to "success". It is one of the most stupid things on the planet. Please.

I'll... just leave these here for you. Read them at your leisure and feel free to articulate your counter argument with examples also.

The Only Elected Regional Government in the U.S. - Nate Berg - The Atlantic Cities

“How is it that you can have these two models who apparently sit atop two very successful metropolitan regions, where costs have been managed more efficiently than other places, where they’ve gotten their regional act together – why doesn’t that spread? Why isn’t it imitated?”

Transitography 101: The Portland Metro – A Case Study on Regional Government | Transit Miami - Metro as an example that the Miami area should imitate.

Case Study in Regional Planning: Portland's Metro Council | SPUR
"How do we assess the results? One way is that agricultural land has been protected to a greater degree in Oregon, including in the metropolitan area, than other parts of this country. All kinds of acreage statistics will show you this. The economics of agriculture have changed--growing berries is not as profitable as it once was, while nurseries and wineries are a lot more important--but the fact remains that there is viable agriculture in the state, and near urbanized areas."

Portland, Oregon, Trailblazes a Successful Regional GIS - ArcNews Winter 2009/2010 Issue
"People from around the world come to Portland, Oregon, to study the city's successful model for growth management and comprehensive land-use planning. "

Getting over our Portland envy | MinnPost
"Every time I talk to city planners, developers and the like, they bring up Portland, Ore., to which they are constantly making holy pilgrimages. To hear them tell it, the place is the bee's knees, which an old-fashioned way of saying an outstanding example of its kind. "

USA - Oregon (Portland) - Sustainable City | The EcoTipping Points Project
"Portland was falling into a downward spiral of urban decay, sprawl, and the multiple problems stemming from car-centered development. Not wanting to follow the same pattern that characterized most North American cities, Portland has helped to spearhead a movement towards urban livability. With urban growth boundaries, quality public transportation, and broad-based citizen participation in everything from local and regional planning to neighborhood associations, Portland is at the forefront of a movement to create livable urban regions in North America."

Focus Story
"By Oregon state law, all metropolitan areas in the state must have a UGB, which is designed to separate urban land from rural land and will prevent urban sprawl from invading natural landscapes being used for farming and recreation. Portland’s UGB appears to be doing exactly that: From 1990 to 2010, the Portland metro area’s population grew by more than 46 percent,[3] but from 1992 to 2006, the urban growth area only grew by approximately nine percent.[4] This success isn’t without pitfalls, though. While promoting compact urban form has been supported by the region’s conservation community, those concerned with ecological health and livability inside the UGB have significant concerns regarding the loss of nature in the city."

"METRO GOVERNMENT IN THE TIME OF DEFICITS" | Senator Eliot Shapleigh - Texas Senator District 29
"A separate study on city-county consolidation reveals that regions with consolidated governments outperformed their peers economically after consolidation. Because of a unified and larger tax base, better credit ratings, minimal in-fighting, unified plans/policies, and more dynamic leadership, consolidated governments produced more jobs and experienced a faster growth in real income. "

How Other Cities Succeed - Five Ideas to Revitalize New York's Region - Regional Plans - One Government For 3 Counties - NYTimes.com
"The Regional Plan Association, an organization based in Manhattan that issued a 25-year agenda this month for the 31-county three-state region, has violated that taboo. The group studied metropolitan areas all over the world searching for urban ingenuity and found inspiration in a greenbelt around San Francisco, a broad-based travel card in London, a regional government in Portland, Ore., business district development in Tokyo and work force training in Pittsburgh."

[Steve Pickering]

A couple of the businesses you guys are throwing out as Portland Successes are not in Portland and pay no Portland City tax.

[VTHokieFan]

Originally Posted by hamellr

From the news reports: Integra confirms plans to move corporate HQ from Portland to east Vancouver | OregonLive.com

""The work site benefit, all being in one facility, was really the driver," said Integra chief financial officer Jesse Selnick. Spread out around the Lloyd District, he said, many key employees rarely encounter one another."

Doesn't seem like a financial issue or tax issue at all. Yeah it's a loss, but not enough to support the OP's claim.

I mean they could've found somewhere in Portland to move under one roof.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

I have also owned a business in Oregon, and never found any problems with the state. Of course, I was a responsible business owner who researched business requirements before I formulated by business plan, and operated honestly and responsibly. I do understand that Oregon is kind of hard on the rape-and-run crooks and fly by night con artists, but I never encountered any problems. We are much better off if they all move to Texas anyway.

As for "massive tax hikes," you will notice that businesses have benefited from a massive property tax cut, and the proposed corporate tax hike never made it out of committee in the legislature. Oregon politics requires people to talk with each other instead of screaming invective.

Boise Cascade, Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific have left Portland, but that was due to the feds shutting down logging on public lands. You can't run a mill with no logs, and you can't ship lumber with no mills. Right across the river in Vancouver you will find timber land being converted to subdivisions because GP isn't around to manage it any more. If you keep living in the past, you will never catch up to reality.

LOL, way to play partisan politics...

Yes, keep being a little sheep, make sure you have really high profit margins, so you can pay the tax man and pay for all the abuse the state heaps upon you, and pay your employees squat while raping your customers... that's what Oregon demands.

I've either been employed by, or owned, a small business for the last 20 years in Oregon, the state has NEVER done anything but be as stupidly abusive as it can be. I've been lied to, had my tax filings destroyed, seen inspectors search for ways to make successful businesses impossible to continue... It never, EVER ends.

And just as soon as anyone finds some way to succeed, the Portland-Salem axis of mindless stupidity dreams up a way to kill it.

And yes, the state and all you portlanders jumped up and down with ecstatic glee at the loss of the timber industry, and it's accompanying bankruptcies, suicides, alcoholism and broken families, praising the feds for thier actions.

Yes, we have a long memory, and WILL NEVER FORGIVE the hate and harm you all have heaped on the rest of the state.