Creative Commons photo by Steve Morgan
Portland, Oregon has always served as my home away from home. It’s a place I retreat to when I need to get away from the foggy bay and bathe myself in the seemingly constant rains of the Pacific Northwest.
In a lot of ways, Portland is strikingly similar to a bygone Bay Area. The Bay Area of small businesses, cheap rents and part time jobs. The type of shit you hear people talk about when they came of age in the ‘60s,’70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, or even to a lesser extent the early aughts.
In my estimation, there’s a reason for this. It’s not because Portland is better or the Bay Area is worse. It’s because Portland has a significantly smaller corporate presence than San Francisco does.
The landlords in the PDX aren’t more ethical, it’s just the ultra wealthy are fewer in number around Portland so the local market can’t sustain the exorbitant rents of SF, LA or Seattle. And that’s why Portland thrives in a completely different way than its west coast counterparts.
In terms of organic culture, SF, Portland and Seattle share a lot of similarities. They historically have been hotbeds of artists, working class rebellion and just general weirdos who come to cities with the intention of standing out in a way that comfortably blends in.
However they diverge when it comes to contemporary corporate capture. San Francisco and Seattle allowed tech companies to take over with the intent of drawing high-income employees to the cities. This allowed landlords to jack up the rents on everyone, pushing out the people that make them what they are.
Here’s a video of Channel 5’s Andrew Callaghan explaining what happened to Seattle culturally and economically as a result of them hosting Amazon’s corporate headquarters.
If you replace the name Seattle with San Francisco and Amazon with Twitter or any of the other large tech companies that have called San Francisco home, it’s the exact same story. Portland, while it is home to Nike and Adidas, hasn't completely been dominated by them.
There’s a reason for this… It’s because the people of Portland haven’t allowed it. Portland, like the Bay Area, has a long history of protests and radicalism, but it has found more recent success in Portland than in many other cities.
In 2017, the city divested from corporate stocks and bonds; and passed legislation to tax corporations higher rates if their CEO-to-worker-ratio is too high. This was due to intense pressure that included protests and even (gasp!) vandalism.
In 2018, the city passed a 1% tax on all corporate retail profits to fund clean energy. This tax also allows small businesses to better compete with large corporations. As a result of the tax, many corporate businesses subtly raised their prices, eliminating some of the price advantage large corporations have over mom and pop shops. This keeps money in the community and out of Wall Street. Just this year, the city banned algorithmic-based pricing in the rental market to keep rents stable and affordable.
These factors have led to corporate frustrations and cultural preservation in Portland. Portland feels like a place where a Daniel Lurie could never be elected. Because Portland doesn’t pretend it says no to big corporate money, it has a history of actually saying no to it, and San Francisco could gain a lot if it learned to do the same.
Until then, enjoy the rising rents, unchecked ICE raids and Daniel Lurie’s obsession with Labubus.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK HERE
FOLLOW MY WRITING ON INSTAGRAM HERE
FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON FACEBOOK HERE
FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON INSTAGRAM HERE
PURCHASE MY BOOK HERE
