Living east of 39th but west of 82nd for 5 years it threatened going from “families putting up with ‘Felony Flats’ for the price” straight to “new kids moving straight into their new apartments without encountering Portland proper, normies who would have lived in Clackamas but now think they’re too cool for it (they aren’t)”
So been nice this last week getting out and encountering people who reminded me of the Portlanders I saw further in a decade ago, just 10 years older now and settling down, do hope the development ends up chasing that. On a shorter horizon, insofar as places have standing waves of “culture” I suppose the wave will be reestablished by the first, boldest types to emerge from reclusion, let’s hope it’s something everyone later is drawn to match.
That said when I moved in 5 years ago there was a sporadic car parked on the street but now I guess between the 6-plex put in two blocks away, and the few houses moved over w/o garages, and houses going from 2-car families to like 4 adults, and whatever pressure wave propagating out from the apartments on the corridor corner like 9 blocks away, the street is crowded and narrowed, if I didn’t have a garage or a driveway I’d really still be fine but that I’d have to look for a second-best spot at all is new.
Portland is, statistically, less of a biking and transit-riding city when it moved in. Part of it’s that just like repurposing and reusing things, growing your own food, or entertaining yourself outdoors or with local performance, that had historically come, as much as from the city being precious, as it being practical and poor.
Part of it is that 10 years ago, Portland! was more compact, like an arc defined by SW/NW/NE Broadway plus Alberta. It wasn’t quite as compact as before it spread across the river, in free-transit “fareless square”, but like it was at most 20 minutes and zero transfers end to end. Now like, I can’t even imagine someone from Lents dragging ass to North Portland. I never make it out to either!
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