A Tale of 2 Cities (sort of)

More people might be looking for jobs in Portland, but you wouldn't know it at first sight.

I just returned from a week in Portland, Oregon. As many of you know, I live in the Phoenix area and I can tell you the cities are quite different on a number of levels.

The unemployment figure here in AZ is 9.7%, not great, but in Oregon that has jumped to over 12%.
Although I once lived in Portland (for 19 years) and noticed that Oregon seemed to be one of the last areas to pull out of any past recession, I noticed a few surprises after a week there.

For one thing, even at 12% UE, I didn't see all the closed shops, stores and businesses in my travels all throughout Portland metro. There were those few in the main city core, but they appeared to be businesses that had been closed and buildings for lease for probably a year or more. Of all the neighborhood areas, I had to look hard to see closed businesses or empty shops and buildings for lease. I certainly expected many more as here in the greater PHX area, including Tempe, Mesa and even toney Scottsdale, you can't drive more than 2 miles without seeing several empty buildings with businesses that have gone under. In south Scottsdale there are entire city blocks with entire businesses that have vanished, leaving empty shells behind. Didn't see this in Portland in all the neighborhoods and suburbs I drove through.

Another difference is mass transit. In this age of local government cost cutting, we've seen PHX who just inaugurated their new light rail system this past summer, now faced with potential cutbacks because of higher AC expenses and other unforeseen costs. Not a good sign, but understandable in this economy. Portland, on the other hand, just successfully inaugurated a NEW 8 mile line (the Green Line) a few days before we arrived. Their light rail and bus transit system is getting heavy usage and is quite popular as we spent one afternoon riding from one end of the light rail to the other end. Not bad for a state that has double digit unemployment.
How they do this in this economy, I don't know, but more power to them!

Lots of other differences that are not germane to this article, but (and I don't pretend to be an economist or urban planner) but it appears that this economy seems to be affecting cities differently, perhaps due to their infrastructure as well as the other more obvious reasons.

The things you discover when you travel in this country.