Talk:Portland, Oregon/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

"thousand-unit high-rise public housing projects"

Removed reference that "thousand-unit high-rise public housing projects" are being built in Northeast. There are no projects of this size being built anywhere in Portland that I'm aware of. For comparison, the Meriwether, a huge private development in Southwest, has 245 residential units. Station Place Tower, a 14-story low-income building for senior citizens in Northwest, has 176 units. Removed statement that "No development occurs anywhere in Portland without significant involvement and approval by the city and one of its major agencies, the Portland Development Commission (PDC)." This one is weasely. Sure, the city must be "involved" and "approve" in that they issue permits, but clearly the author is trying to get in a dig at the PDC. The PDC and large high-rise developments are controversial and deserve their own (NPOV) section of the article. Other sections of the article aren't the right place to expose the folly (or not) of City agencies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nate Silva (talk • contribs) 09:11, July 7, 2005

"NoPo"

Actually used frequently. Anybody object to a revision to the part of the article that refers to the "Peninsula"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benkay (talk • contribs) 17:39, July 10, 2005

Rose Quarter Neutrality

The section on the Rose Quarter refers to the fullscale demolition of a minority neighborhood to make way for it. However, Memorial Coliseum was not built until 1960. I have a 1957 map of Portland that shows nearly the entire Coliseum area as the "Exposition Recreation Center." If indeed the "Exposition Recreation Center" was built over an ethnic neighborhood (as Portland State University was), than this paragraph is misleading, as it leads the reader to think that the more recent structures (such as the Rose Garden) caused the displacement, rather than obsolete (and racist) 40s/50s urban planning policy. If on the other hand there was no forced minority displacement, than this text is outright fallacious.

I have not changed the paragraph, I just added the DISPUTED tag. I'll leave that change and research to someone else... ---Switch Notorious

Well, those references are gone now, for whatever reason, so I've removed the tags. They can go back if there was another reason for them, but the section seemed pretty innocous to me. --Icelight 00:13, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Need a separate metropolitan area article

I just completed a pass (six checkins under two different IP addresses) of a clean-up of the current article. I think what's really needed is to move some of Portland, Oregon into Portland metropolitan area. I did what I could in its current form by moving more about the metro area into the intro so that a new reader isn't surprised when a given section chooses to focus on the city proper or its metro area. There's plenty of precedence for fleshing out the Portland metropolitan area article:

• Greater Los Angeles Area vs. Los Angeles, California
• New York metropolitan area vs. New York City
• Greater Boston vs. Boston, Massachusetts
• San Francisco Bay Area vs. San Francisco, California
• Houston Metropolitan Area vs. Houston, Texas

Once fleshed out, the current links to Portland need to be reviewed so that the metro area article is referenced where appropriate. I'll get around to doing this myself at some point, if no one beats me to it. - 66.167.253.224 00:08, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

New Portland Page

Hey all, I've created a page specifically dedicated to "Downtown Portland". Check it out, make any revisions. I know some of you already have! I saw that Seattle had one, and I couldn't let Portland go unnoticed... Not only that, Ours is way better :) Alphalife 20:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I added a link to a Hawthorne district/neighbourhood page I created, but could someone please expand on it? Karlkatzke 04:33, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Transportation

In the past couple of weeks, there are now both a Portland, Oregon#Transportation and a Transportation in Portland. How would a contributor with transport-related information know which to add to? Having both a subsection and an article is already leading to random divergence. For example, the Portland, Oregon#Transportation section talks more about Hillsboro's airport than it does about PDX, while the Transportation in Portland article doesn't mention Hillsboro airport at all? With the detail in the right place now, I cut back on the version in Portland, Oregon#Transportation.Why not revert to this: See also: Transportation in Portland - 66.167.138.171 06:39, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Something needs to be mentioned in the main article about transportation in the city. It shouldn't be too long, but should cover the basics about airports, mass transit, and roads. The complete details in the Transportation in Portland section cover a lot more information that is just not necessary to include in the main article (e.g. lists of all highways and bridges, info about proposed projects, alternative transportation info, and such). That's why the separate article is there. I have added more detailed info about the airports to the separate article now as well. Dr. Cash 15:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Generally, this is bad form. Having a section (or subsection heading) with only a See also link in it just looks bad. If you're going to do something like this, it's better to put all these extra links to other articles in the main See also section near the end. But the topic of transportation is important enough that something should be mentioned in the main article, even if it's a summary of the secondary article. Dr. Cash 15:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I reduced the detail from the section and tried to make it more apparent that Transportation in Portland is the main article. 66.167.138.54 01:52, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Sources for statement about strip clubs in Portland

Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the nation. Here are some sources: [1] [2] (16th paragraph, 3rd sentence) [3] [4] (Third paragraph, last sentence) [5]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newager (talk • contribs)

Ok, the only one of the above links that even tries is the second one, in which the Williamette Week reporter compares Portland with Las Vegas and San Francisco using completely different methods to count strip clubs in each city, so that's basically worthless. The rest are just hearsay of Portland's favorite factoid. It's hardly statistics. What's certainly true is that the claim is often-repeated, widely held to be true, and laced with either pride or chagrin, depending which local you're talking to. GTBacchus 19:33, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's Williamette Week:

Our Internet survey of Las Vegas, the gold standard of urban debauchery, reveals 30 clubs, which works out to 5.85 strip joints per 100,000 residents. San Francisco, that legendarily libidinous burg, is estimated by SF's adult weekly, The Spectator, to have 17 strip clubs, or 2.2 per 100,000 residents. By comparison, Uncovered and Exotic list 41 strip clubs within the Portland city limits. With a whopping 7.74 clubs per 100,000 residents, Portland solidly trounces these two centers of vice in number of brass poles per citizen.

So, they used the internet to count strip clubs in Las Vegas, the SF Spectator to count them in San Fransisco, and two sex industry specialty magazines to count them in Portland. Is it really any wonder that P-town won? I'm not saying that Portland doesn't have the most strip clubs - I both suspect and fondly hope that it does - I'm just saying that it does not have "established fact" status, so let's not report it as if it does. GTBacchus 20:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

As far as Willamette Week is concerned, I wouldn't put much grain of salt in anything they publish. As a weekly magazine, they're not even in the category of major newspaper. Most weeklies publish pop culture and entertainment related articles, with very little content that would even be considered publishable in a major newspaper. Plus, comparing the number of strip clubs to only two other cities in the country isn't even fair to begin with! I would bet that a city the size of New York City would have far more strip clubs than Portland! I would also expect that cities with a large military population, such as Norfolk, Virginia or San Diego, California would have a large number of strip clubs as well. Dr. Cash 21:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Newsflash, dweebs -- whether you like it or not, The Oregonian, Willamette Week, ESPN, [Portland Mercury], are all more reliable and trustworthy and respected sources than Wikipedia editors. Get a fuckin' life and try to accept reality. This is a well known fact about Portland. Anyone who lives there knows this. You're a bunch of arrogant, no-life prudes. Edit the information out if you want, computer geeks. I don't give a fuck. My comments were completely on-topic and I provided sources. And if my contributions to the nickname list are "not encyclopedic," then how the fuck is "Stumptown" encyclopedic? And why, by the way, do the other nicknames not need sources? And why after providing sources for the often-used nicknames I added, are they not acceptable? You wanna know why? Because of your stupid subjective opinions. And as for this talk about it "not being encyclopedic," what a laugh. How many of you have contributed to REAL encyclopedias? Any editors of Encyclopedia Brittanica here? I doubt it. Fuck off and delete. I don't give a shit! You're a bunch of stuffy no-life dweebs who don't want to accept the reality of what most Portlanders know. Millions of dollars every years are made from the Portland strip clubs, and Portland is famous for Suicide Girls. Your egos are actually the things getting in the way of this being an encyclopedic entry. Newager 07:48, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Newager, dude, friend, cool person, please... calm down. Cashman can speak for himself; me, I have no problem with the nicknames "Pornland" and "Potland" being in the article. I have no problem with strip clubs. I live in Portland, and I've shared bills with burlesque shows. I've gone to several of Portland's strip clubs. I really dig that Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city, and like I said above - I believe it is true. It's just such an "everybody knows" factoid that I would really like to see it checked competently, as in actually see the numbers. Then it'll be a proper fact, and the research will be done and documented for anyone else who questions it later. This is a good place to have that sort of thing happen. I don't think I'm asking for much, nor is it unreasonable to say that Portland is "reputed to have" more strip clubs per capita, in the meanwhile, as that much is certainly true - like you said, ask anyone in Portland, like me for example. There's really no need to call anyone names. This is the talk page - we can talk about stuff instead of getting mad - it's a cool thing about Wikipedia. GTBacchus 08:11, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't want to throw gas on this fire, but the "Potland" quote -- strictly speaking, all of Oregon legalized medical marijuana, not just Portland. And my 2 cents is that I've heard the sex clubs reference often though never 'Pornland' or 'Potland'. I've lived in PDX for 30 years (and am regrettably now too old to hope to meet a Suicide Girl). I don't, however, dispute the references for the former. -- Gnetwerker 08:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I have lived in or near Portland all of my life, probably among a different set of people than Gnetwerker. The "Potland" name is used, but rarely. I think I have heard it a half dozen times or so. "Pornland" I have also heard, but only once before seeing it here. Neither of these comes close to the use of "Stumptown" or even "Puddletown".-- WormRunner | Talk 21:29, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Newager, please relax a bit. It's not personal. My primary concern is to organize the information presented in wikipedia as professional and articulately as possible. While I may never have written for an actual encyclopedia before, I am the author of several primary publications, so I am experienced in that regard. Anyway, in reference to the "Pornland" and "Potland" info, after thinking about it, what I really didn't like was the way it was stated. I thought it was a bit verbose and long-winded, and could be shortened a bit; especially since it's mentioned with the nicknames in the opening paragraph. We need to try and keep the opening paragraph to short and concise statements about the city, to entice readers to read more in the article. Also, in a general publication sense, it's bad form to include references in the opening or introductory paragraphs. Extravagant details about things should be contained in later sections of the article. I've rephrased the section a bit, and moved it to before the colloquailisms statement. I think that reads a bit better. Dr. Cash 15:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Newager, I don 't consider these to be authoritative sources. For example, the MSNBC piece that you're referring to was in the travel guide section and not a news story. You shouldn't assume that news organizations verify every fact, especially for these cutesy things that are just supposed to give the story "flavor". I doubt that MSNBC looked at strip club statistics. Instead they quoted the conventional wisdom, probably found in one of the other (equally casual) sources that you mentioned. Local legends are common in newspapers. For example, The Columbian used to report that Fort Vancouver had "the largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi." Some local official probably said it, and they quoted it. Then people like you saw that "the newspaper said it," so it must be true. It eventually became the conventional wisdom. --Nate Silva 05:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Portland Category clean-up

Category:Portland, Oregon has grown quite big. I think that some of the articles should be moved into existing and new sub-categories. For instance: KOIN Center is in both Category:Portland, Oregon and Category:Portland, Oregon Skyscrapers. I think one category is enough for this and many other articles. I propose just having it listed in only the Skyscrapers category. For more notable things, or stuff that doesn't fit into a sub-category yet, they can stay (and be listed in more than one Portland category in the instance of notable things or people) where they are. Changes so far:

• All the articles about Portland mayors, neighborhoods, and skyscrapers have been fixed hopefully.
• Added "Buildings and structures in Portland, Oregon" to round up architectural stragglers such as the Oregon Convention Center, etc... that don't fit into the skyscraper category. Skyscrapers are also a subcategory of the buildings category now.
• Added Category:Education in Portland, Oregon" and put all Portland colleges, Universities, High Schools, Private Schools, and School Districts there that I could find (limiting this scope to whatever is inside Portland City limits hopefully).
• Left Vera Katz, Tom Potter, and a few other things doubly-listed, as they are notable Portlanders or Portland articles.

Sub-categories I haven't got around to making yet:

• Category:Businesses in Portland, Oregon
• Category:History of Portland, Oregon
• Category:Media in Portland, Oregon (newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations go here)
• Category:Brewpubs and Breweries of Portland, Oregon

--User:Ajbenj(9-21-05)

I was also working on trying to fix this article, including moving some stuff around (ie dense areas out of the quadrants section) and moving some stuff out (ie a bullet point listing SW suburbs to the metro article). In fact, the metro article is basically empty and this article doesn't really stay within the city boundries. But a "skyscrapers" cat seems too specific. Oh, and can we archive some of the stuff here on Talk: that seems to have been answered? --Jason McHuff 21:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Building heights

"Portland's city center does not cater to tall buildings due to the 200 ft. long city blocks and design codes that constrain building height" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cacophony (talk • contribs) 14:06, September 12, 2004

This statement is listed on Page 24 of The Portland Bridge Book. --Jason McHuff 01:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Removed wildlife paragraph

According to Dorie Welch (BPA fish and wildlife project manager) the climate is such to support vast numbers fish and wildlife species in and around the Willamette river, however, the greed and disregard by the local governments allows for various pollutants to be discharged throughout the river system leading to degradation in habitat in and around the river. "Sometimes when I walk a long the river I tear up a little and wonder how amazing this place must have looked before the logging, pavement, industry and population arrived."

This seems to have a POV. If someone thinks differently, they can put it back. --Jason McHuff 20:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality of article?

Does anyone else get a vibe of subjective praise in the article? (or not?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.100.2.13 (talk • contribs) 17:32, October 16, 2005

Well, I usually get the feeling that articles on wikipedia are praiseful - but prehapts you're right. We should add some negatives, I guess. We'll start with Seattle. Then we'll do LA. Portland eventually... Alphalife 04:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Geography

I for one have no clue where Oregon lies in the US, so therefore the little mapplet displaying the counties position in the state of oregon doesnt make sense to me. Is it north or south? I'd rather have a map of the USA. --145.99.202.92 11:44, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the article for Oregon it shows very clearly where in the United States it is located. Cacophony 19:46, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

No Climate info

Some climate information regarding yearly rainfall averages, seasonal temperatures, etc. would be helpful! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcoops71 (talk • contribs) 13:53, December 9, 2005

The 'Geography and Climate' section seems pretty thorough now. Good job 71.111.84.74 Ehurtley 20:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I was just wondering since I sort of live in the portland area and I don't know if "Portland summers are very pleasant with abundant sunshine." It seems to me that it rains all the time with occasional droughts depending on the year. And I think its overcast most of the time too...I might be wrong and its just in my head but... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jess523s (talk • contribs) 18:28, January 22, 2006

Dude, that is totally in your head. Do you really live in pdx and have no concept of what the climate is like? This isn't "official" but I am pretty sure pdx has a :seasonal: climate with mild, rainy winters and warm, dry summers. The annual rainfall is something like 35 inches a year. Rain tends to fall as "drizzle", hence the common sentiment that it rains all the time in portland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.9.250.61 (talk • contribs) 06:57, February 15, 2006

Technologically advanced city?

I had read Portland, OR to be the most Wi-Fi (wireless internet connected) city in the nation, as well as one of the most thoroughly internet connected in general. Maybe some source confirmation and addition to the article is warranted? Nagelfar 12:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I would have to dispute the notability of this. Wi-Fi is a pretty hot topic today, and there is an abundance of articles all over the net on cities building municipal wi-fi cities, as well as on the availability of non-municipal, free wi-fi. Due to the rapid propogation of wi-fi currently, just because Portland **might** be the most wi-fi connected city in the country one month, does not mean that some other city might beat it next month. I'd also have to dispute the status of "most Wi-Fi city in the nation" for Portland, too. What about Mountain View, San Francisco, CA? Boston, Cambridge, MA? New York? Who's judging? Dr. Cash 17:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Regardless, it is among the most internet connected in general, per capita. That should warrant some mention. Nagelfar 11:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Portland destroyed... in pop culture fiction

Just of note, in at least two fiction works; the 1955 short film "A day called X" and the book/movie "The Lathe of Heaven", the city of Portland Oregon is attacked/destroyed. In the former it is evacuated after a nuclear attack; this was somewhat a government movie made to spread awareness & readiness about the assumed possible threat of a cold war nuclear assault, an 'educational' more than 'hollywood' film, which is interesting. In the latter, Portland is destroyed by aliens that come to earth, and this a fairly popular work of fiction. There's another, a book "Violence of Action" by Richard Marcinko, wherein Portland is the target of a nuclear bomb attack by terrorists. Nagelfar 12:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It has been a few years since I read it, but I believe Portland took a pretty good beating in L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series (don't remember exactly which volume). In this case it had to do with Mt. Hood erupting. --StuffOfInterest 14:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Maybe this could become a little 'discussion page' project finding this kind of information. Nagelfar 22:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Police car photo

I don't see photos of police cars for other cities like Seattle, New York City, San Fransisco, Denver, Eugene, Oregon, Boise, Baltmimore, Charlotte, Miami, so why does one belong here? Cacophony 19:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, 1) the image isn't properly licensed and 2) it's watermarked WIKIPEDIA ONLY. Seems inappropriate--I've already asked on the uploader's talk page about it. --Lukobe 21:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the watermark really bugs me -- don't know why. If we really wanted it here I'd walk outdoors and take one to put in the public domain -- but I don't think it's really needed. I'd like it gone. -- Gnetwerker 06:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

External links

Acknowledging the Wikipedia external link standard, it nevertheless seems to me that complexity of a city suggests that things should be directly linked when the item is mentioned and not in a foot-note section with 50+ external links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottrainey (talk • contribs) 00:19, February 3, 2006

Porkland

To the anon who keeps posting "Porkland" comments: Please provide a source or citation. It has zero hits on google. -- Gnetwerker 06:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

In that case, it should be removed from Tom Leykis too. I'll just do that, and if anyone else wants to keep an eye out... -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Just so no one gets mad, I should be precise: the search ("porkland" "other white meat") gets zero relevant hits. "porkland" gets a few hits by itself, but not clear if they relate to Portland, OR or Leykis, and none are from reliable sources. -- Gnetwerker 08:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Wanted to know Something

Is it true that Portlanders who use electric cars,can park their cars at no cost,and charge it for free too?Prateek01 18:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen an electric car parking spot in Portland, so I'm 99.9% certain this is not true. The way things are going with Portland General Electric, I'd be shocked if they gave anything away. First they need to pay their taxes (that were collected from the customers but never paid to the govermnet). Cacophony 21:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I have seen dedicated electric-car parking spaces (without parking meters), but not recently, and since I cannot remember exactly where I saw them, I wouldn't want to put it in the article until verified. -- Gnetwerker 23:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I know that there's some kind of "Electric Car Charging Here" type sign on the Old Town/Chinatown Smart Park... haven't investigated it, though, as my car runs on dinosaurs. -207.173.201.195 09:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, around here the electric cars run on salmon :-) -- Gnetwerker 22:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's something. Somewhere on these guys' walking tour, one of the sights they show off is "A free electric car charging station". -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I ended up hearing something about electric car parking spots near the World Trade Center. I'll take a look next time I am riding through there. Cacophony 01:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Meth Problem

Okay I heard that the biggest distrubetar is Portland Oregon when it comes to Meth.

Certainly there is widespread meth usage in Portland. There is also a problem with many many other drugs, and those tend to get a lot less publicity. The Willamette Week ran a really good story titled Meth Madness: How The Oregonian manufactured an epidemic, politicians bought it and you're paying that is worth reading. Cacophony 04:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

citation needed templates

Would it be allright to remove some of the {{Fact}} tags everywhere? Their abundance makes the article less readable. Maybe a template at the top of the page would get the message across without detracting from the article? Cacophony 05:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, the best way to remove them is one at a time, while adding citations. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they need to stay. The point of the article is not readability, it's meeting WP:V. So we need to work on this. --Liface 05:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)