NY Times on Portland: All the kombucha you can drink, but no jobs.

Kari Chisholm

After years of glowing coverage about Portland, the New York Times Magazine turns the screw and starts musing out loud that Portlandia's "where young people go to retire" riff might have some basis in reality.

But after the provocative lead, the NYT's take is actually quite good:

Portland is not a corporate town, as its neighbors Seattle and San Francisco have become. While there are employment opportunities in the outdoor-apparel business (Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear are all nearby) or the semiconductor industry (Intel has a large presence in Hillsboro), most workers have far fewer opportunities. According to Renn, personal income per capita in the city grew by a mere 31 percent between 2000 and 2012, slower than 42 other cities, including Grand Rapids, Mich., and Rochester. And yet people still keep showing up. “People move to New York to be in media or finance; they move to L.A. to be in show business,” Renn said. “People move to Portland to move to Portland.” Matthew Hale may have all the kombucha he can drink, but he doesn’t have a job.

But the most compelling bit is a small note from David Albouy, economics professor at University of Illinois:

Albouy told me that he has always wondered why Portland doesn’t invest more in its institutions of higher education. If you took Portland’s quality of life and citizens, he said, and added Pittsburgh’s universities, you would come out with a world-class city.

Yup. That's exactly right.

It has always been striking to me that Portland is the only major city on the West Coast without an R1 research university. Seattle has UW. SF, Oakland, and San Jose have Berkeley and Stanford. Los Angeles has USC, UCLA, and Cal Tech. San Diego has UCSD.

Sure, Eugene has UO and Corvallis has OSU -- and Portland has OHSU -- but that's not the same thing as a top-tier undergraduate and graduate university right in town.

After all, top-tier four-year universities attract (and retain) talented young people to the region, which in turn attract major employers and breed startups.

Oregon has to get serious about investing in Portland State.

I've been flabbergasted why we're not doing that. Is it alumni loyalty to UO and OSU that punks PSU at the State Legislature? Is it just a lack of imagination or ambition? Whatever it is, it's hurting Portland.

You know, if it requires changing Portland State to UO Portland or OSU Portland, in order to get this ball moving, I'd be OK with that.

By Kari Chisholm Sept. 17, 2014