You're awful uppity for someone with NO INCOME.

I have to say, this Pearl District residents v. train story is getting under my skin, too. Not for the same reasons at Jack, though. I get the sense he hates the Pearl.

I, on the other hand, will be the first in the room to defend the Pearl. I think it's awesome, in no small part because it's one of our city's most urban neighborhoods.

And urban neighborhoods have noise, people, even at 3 am (and especially if you're adjacent to downtown, and on land that used to be a RAILYARD). Buy some damn earplugs if you can't sleep through it.

Kudos to the neighborhood association for recognizing that trains are a part of the neighborhood too.

Amy, the Pearl is NOT an Urban Neighborhood. That's just something the PDC said to get the tax breaks. It's a GATED COMMUNITY WITHOUT A GATE! Therefore, no non-residents after 9, and beddie-byes by 11. For everybody. Ear plugs?! No way! If you want to get all "urban", may I suggest a short walk to ChinaTown?

I agree with Matt... the Pearl is an example of the suburbanization of the city. Same thing happened in SF's SOMA district. People moved into a neighborhood with bars and nightclubs and then complained about drunks and noise. It's the kind of thing that happens when people decide to move to a metropolis after watching a few seasons of Sex and the City. Maybe its time to take Matthew Stadler's advice and move to Beaverton.

An alternative to the Mercury's vision for Portland?

http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1144968913134070.xml&coll=7

i used to live on 18th and morrison. i bitched about the crowds from the baseball games. or the drunks... but you get used to it. my friends used to live in those student housing apartmens RIGHT THE FUCK NEXT to the tracks. I swear, every time a train would come by at night and i crashed there, i would wake up thinking the end of the fucking world had come.

I'm glad to see my interest in Beaverton included in this debate. It's true that many of the virtues we extol as urban -- density, diversity, strangers mixing with strangers -- are more vibrant there than in Portland proper. However, I don't think that other parts of the city, such as The Pearl, are any less vital or interesting. Certainly The Pearl is less accesible (it's so expensive), but there are kinds of public life that can't be found anywhere else, no matter how artificial or stagey they might seem to skeptics. My hope is that we stop relying on the false division between city and suburb. It just doesn't wash any more. Arguing for more tall buildings or other simulacra of the old downtown won't get us any closer to urban living. While The Oregonian piece says a little about this (albeit with some regretably dropped paragraphs in the current online version) a second, related article I wrote for The Stranger is more on topic: http:www.thestranger/seattle/Content?oid=34043

Everyone needs to read Thomas Sieverts's book "Cities Without Cities." Then we can start having a really productive conversation about the future and not the past.

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Great! A serious debate! Here's the link to Matthew's article....

Sorry. HERE IT IS....

Thanks for chiming in Matthew.

Complaining about the noise from trains in a port city (is quiet just a cliche of the suburbs?) won't get us any closer to urban living either.

I don't think anyone can change my mind about the large developments (Pearl/South Waterfront/upcoming CEID). I agree with (film maker) Matt McCormick, who in one of the early CEID meetings said something along the lines that the most interesting neighborhoods in Portland were the ones that grew more independently, and the CEID was doing pretty well on its own. I'm all for density, but the big developments have the look of malls with housing on top (and higher end "anchor stores").

What intrigues me about your Beaverton article is the opportunity the "in between city" provides. Most of the things I like about Portland started or revolve around the idea of it being a cheap place to live/work. As PDX becomes more expensive, I wonder if the younger people will do what they usually do and look for another cheaper city, or if they will embrace places like Beaverton. I love the idea of artists taking over abandoned strip malls. It may be the last form of rebellion...your mom and dad retire to a 1/2 million condo in the city and you move to Beaverton!

When is the Mercury going to move its offices?
Will Matthew Stadler move there, and is a reading or residency at the Olive Garden in your future (I'm so there!)

I live in the pearl and I am all for the train to shut the fuck up between the hours of 10pm and 7am. What is the big deal about that? I highly doubt that there are people walking around the pearl at 2am hoping to hear the beauty of a train laying on its horn for 30seconds straight. People only care about themselves and if it doesnt affect them they will fight change. If you believe we need train noise at 3am to make the pearl be the pearl then you are an idiot.

wasn't that train there before you bought your condo?

Let me get this straight...you bought a condo next to a train station in a port city, complain about the noise, and other people are idiots?

If they ran all of those trains in the daytime, everyone would be bitching about having to wait twenty minutes everywhere a train crossed a street.

RIIGHHT....Silence the trains and have a car going back the east side at 2 in the morning get hit by one instead...sounds like a win/win situation for people in the pearl..doesn't it? sneaky peices of kosher shit.

Oh, sorry Pearlo Alto, I checked out for awhile. But if The Olive Garden is interested in hosting readings and/or symposia of some sort, I would be very happy to help. Are they on the MAX line?

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