How Oregon's Second Largest City Vanished in a Day | Hacker News Reader

How Oregon's Second Largest City Vanished in a Day

smithsonianmag.com

97 pointstestrun12 comments

As a resident of Portland, I was surprised at the historic levels of racism, though I wasn't surprised at the decreasing population of minorities. We have become a mecca of white hipsters, it's kinda crazy watching the transformation of various neighborhoods in human-scale timelines. We are talking 12 or less months to take a cheap/quiet neighborhood and have it turn into a new hotspot with new multi-story apartment buildings. See Division street for the latest.

Another note: the historic city of Vanport is now a racetrack, owned and operated by the city. PIR circumnavigates the old town perimeter, you can see in these two photos:

http://www.corvetteracing.com/tracks/trk_img/portland/portla...

http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/ac/46/ac46ca81...

How bad is the racism in Portland, Oregon?

My girlfriend is Japanese and doesn't speak a lot of English. We were thinking of moving there, but I'm worried about this. She is a ballet dancer, so I assume artists mostly everywhere (in the US--and Canada--I'm originally from Canada) are more welcoming. But I understand there are less minorities in Portland than where we are right now (Los Angeles).

Racism is not apparent unless you are good at picking up subtle/subconscious racism. Meaning overt racism or hostility is very rare.

Essentially it's a non-issue, come enjoy all the good things about the city!

Racism is not apparent if you're white, it is probably more accurate to say. You have to really dig to learn about the experiences of people of color, living here. Having such a tiny black population helps reinforce this; there just isn't much chance to see or interact with (or see someone else behave badly toward) someone of color if you're white in Portland.

It's not that bad, especially in the downtown/PSU area. I know quite a few Chinese/Taiwanese immigrants and I believe they're doing just fine.

Super interesting, Portland has always seemed fairly diverse, when I have visited (mostly crashing with friends in NE Portland). N Mississippi seems relatively diverse, just walking around and taking the bus and stuff.

Mississippi is the Albina neighborhood mentioned in the article. Used to be 90+ % black, now it's 50% or so and dropping pretty fast.

Got, I had never heard that area called Albina before. Seems like the rebranding of Bushwick in NYC as East Williamsburg...

Likewise. I spent 18 years there and hadn't known about Vanport. When I encountered racism I'd usually classified it as random, vestigial pieces of the past, or perhaps redneckery (while we're judging), and I do remember a few encounters with skinheads. But this paints a much more damning picture of institutional racism. The bit about the schools at the end paints a hopeful picture, though.

Having grown up near Portland, I too was surprised about the historic levels of racism. Though in retrospect it is believable, considering the percentages of minorities is (or at least seems) so much lower than anywhere I've lived since.

My recollection growing up was that seeing a minority was a noteworthy occurrence, because of it's rareness. That changed when I moved into Portland proper, but I never really noticed racism there.

What kind of racism are you thinking about/describing, when you say you never noticed any? Like, guys in hoods? Confederate flags? that kind of thing?

I'm curious, because it seems like, if you're not a minority, you're going to miss out on all of it unless it's the Hollywood-ish in-your-face kind of racism.

poor division street :( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAXLlVnL72Q

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