mythoughtsexactly
Here's a story that ran (two years ago!) in Portland's alternative weekly paper, the Willamette Week about joblessness in Portland. I found it this morning after typing in "Portland Oregon job market" to Google, and up it came. It made me cry. It made me laugh, and sigh, and ultimately made me decide that if I haven't heard from a school by May 1, then I am out of here. I am not playing this game any more.
This morning I awoke frustrated yet again with my lack of paychecks and zero benefits and what seems to be a cycle of let downs and a spiral down toward poverty, and not much change in the future. I'm done with being optimistic. It could have been because last night B and I got into it--he's lent me $1,000 over the past 2 months and is irked that he can't pay off his credit cards like he wants to because he gives me all his money. I can't blame him.
The article backs up what I have been hearing all along. People come to Portland because it's a nice place to live. They come from the east coast, and from the west coast. Too many of them. They come without jobs, and when they go broke and become alienated, some leave. Others get tattoos, go back to school, or go into business for themselves (hula hoops anyone?). Seeing this article written up makes all of what I surmised now feel thrown in my face as common knowledge--I would be a glutton for punishment to stay.
Here's a good quote:
"Not only is Portland attracting people, it's attracting some of the most economically desirable people alive.... Portland is kicking butt, attracting hordes of college-educated 24- to 35-year-olds at a time when that group is shrinking nationally..."
And...
"People come here, hauling their talents, money and degrees. And then what? Serve each other coffee all day?... Call it the really new economy-one in which the city's most important product is itself, and where people choose to live here first, then cobble together work lives that are often unconventional."
And here's the kicker. By the way, I live off Hawthorne:
" Besides producing a floating class of the overeducated and underemployed, this apparent shift from a concrete economy to one based on lifestyle, image and creative opportunity will breed alienation. As much as some people love it, Portland is not for everyone. It can be tough to be unemployed in a town that doesn't quite speak to you.
"I like Portland, but miss New York," says Bernie Longboy, a Hawaiian native who moved here this year because her Roseburg-born boyfriend wanted to return to the Northwest (he'd been working in Beijing). Longboy, who has a graduate degree from Harvard, is struggling to find work for the first time in her life. More than that, she's trying to adjust to a place nowhere near as cosmopolitan as what she's used to.
"It's not New York. It's not Boston, D.C. or Tokyo," she says. "Portland has a very specific niche of people it attracts. And it's all great, but it is very white here. I can walk up Hawthorne, and I'll be the only person of color. Everyone has a tattoo, but to me, that's not diversity."
And it takes only a bus ride through North Portland or outer Southeast to see that there are many people in this city for whom the "creative class," "livability" and the plethora of small graphic-design firms mean less than nothing.
"Every day, I see the seller who says, 'Screw it, I can't take it any more,'" says Valdez. "'I'm from here, and I don't recognize it anymore. The new Portland hipsters only care about walking their dogs and getting their next cup of coffee. I don't want coffee. I want a job.'"
Word.
This morning I awoke frustrated yet again with my lack of paychecks and zero benefits and what seems to be a cycle of let downs and a spiral down toward poverty, and not much change in the future. I'm done with being optimistic. It could have been because last night B and I got into it--he's lent me $1,000 over the past 2 months and is irked that he can't pay off his credit cards like he wants to because he gives me all his money. I can't blame him.
The article backs up what I have been hearing all along. People come to Portland because it's a nice place to live. They come from the east coast, and from the west coast. Too many of them. They come without jobs, and when they go broke and become alienated, some leave. Others get tattoos, go back to school, or go into business for themselves (hula hoops anyone?). Seeing this article written up makes all of what I surmised now feel thrown in my face as common knowledge--I would be a glutton for punishment to stay.
Here's a good quote:
"Not only is Portland attracting people, it's attracting some of the most economically desirable people alive.... Portland is kicking butt, attracting hordes of college-educated 24- to 35-year-olds at a time when that group is shrinking nationally..."
And...
"People come here, hauling their talents, money and degrees. And then what? Serve each other coffee all day?... Call it the really new economy-one in which the city's most important product is itself, and where people choose to live here first, then cobble together work lives that are often unconventional."
And here's the kicker. By the way, I live off Hawthorne:
" Besides producing a floating class of the overeducated and underemployed, this apparent shift from a concrete economy to one based on lifestyle, image and creative opportunity will breed alienation. As much as some people love it, Portland is not for everyone. It can be tough to be unemployed in a town that doesn't quite speak to you.
"I like Portland, but miss New York," says Bernie Longboy, a Hawaiian native who moved here this year because her Roseburg-born boyfriend wanted to return to the Northwest (he'd been working in Beijing). Longboy, who has a graduate degree from Harvard, is struggling to find work for the first time in her life. More than that, she's trying to adjust to a place nowhere near as cosmopolitan as what she's used to.
"It's not New York. It's not Boston, D.C. or Tokyo," she says. "Portland has a very specific niche of people it attracts. And it's all great, but it is very white here. I can walk up Hawthorne, and I'll be the only person of color. Everyone has a tattoo, but to me, that's not diversity."
And it takes only a bus ride through North Portland or outer Southeast to see that there are many people in this city for whom the "creative class," "livability" and the plethora of small graphic-design firms mean less than nothing.
"Every day, I see the seller who says, 'Screw it, I can't take it any more,'" says Valdez. "'I'm from here, and I don't recognize it anymore. The new Portland hipsters only care about walking their dogs and getting their next cup of coffee. I don't want coffee. I want a job.'"
Word.
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