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Not that long ago, didn’t it seem like every news outlet in the world was writing opinion pieces and travel guides and “10 reasons to love”-type articles about our cute little cartoon city?
On one hand, I get it: Go stand at Council Crest or Mount Tabor or on the waterfront and tell me you don’t get it. It is objectively beautiful here. But also, oh my god, wasn’t that the most obnoxious era? From the outside, we were a glossy novelty, but on the inside, this was very much a city. And like cities do, it was transforming, and growing and evolving, like, experiencing her adolescence.
Now that the growing pains are really showing, many of the same rubberneckers who gleefully listed 101 reasons to drop everything and move to Portland are back in the Rose City to reassess and tell us how they see our current era. And it is not cute and cartoony.
Today’s podcast guest Nigel Jaquiss, a major contributor to this week’s cover story, “Greetings from Portland,” is going to explain why maybe that’s a good thing for us.
What do people who examine cities in crisis see when they look at us? What do people who’ve been forced out see when they look back at us? We are the haters seeing that’s getting them so worked up? Nigel Jaquiss knows.