Portland, Oregon

Portland is Oregon's largest city. Set near the peaks of the Cascade Range, the city is known for its relaxed pace (which is in contrast to its busy shipping port), Douglas fir trees, high-tech industry, and generally liberal political bent.

Landscape

Portland is located in the Pacific Northwest on the Willamette River, just south of its intersection with the Columbia River. The nearby terrain is marked by the dramatic peaks and valleys of the volcanic Cascades mountain range. Mount Hood, just 50 miles east of Portland, is the tallest peak in the range, at over 11,000 feet. Mount St. Helens, 65 miles northeast of Portland, stands at 8,363 feet, more than 1,000 feet shorter than it stood before its peak was blown off in the massive 1980 eruption.

Portland is 145 miles to the south of Seattle, Washington, the other major city in the Pacific Northwest. The city is just over 250 miles from the Canadian border, about 60 miles from the Pacific coast, and about 535 miles north of San Francisco.

Portland occupies an area of approximately 145 square miles (375 square kilometers), and the hilly terrain ranges from a height of 1,073 feet down to sea level. The climate is moderate, with an average high temperature of 79 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer and an average low of 37 degrees Fahrenheit during January. The region's rainfall, however, is anything but moderate. The intersection of the mountains and winds off of the Pacific dump about 43 inches of rain on Portland each year, mostly in the winter months, when the city is known to be chilly, windy, and wet.

All that rain makes for huge tracks of forestland. The area is known for its towering Douglas fir trees. More than 40 percent of Portland sits under a canopy of trees, as compared to 15 percent in Los Angeles or 11 percent in Chicago.

Portland began fighting urban sprawl as early as 1974 and has thus retained its density and surrounding agricultural areas. The city's environmentally conscious residents are famous for planting green roofs on the tops of their buildings. Common in European countries, such roofs of grass and plants reduce runoff into city sewers and add insulation to buildings.

People

Portland continues to expand in population. From 366,383 in 1980, the city's population grew to an estimated 635,067, according to 2022 US Census data, making Portland the twenty-sixth largest city in the United States.

An estimated 68.3 percent of Portland's population was White as of 2022. Another 8.4 percent was Asian or Asian American, 5.9 percent was Black or African American, and 9.2 percent was multiracial. Approximately 10.3 percent of the population identified as Hispanic or Latino, regardless of race. City neighborhoods include the formerly industrial, now-gentrified Pearl District to the northwest, the upscale West Hills area to the southwest, and the ethnically diverse north and northeast neighborhoods.

Portland benefits immensely from its reliance on alternate forms of transportation. Walking, biking, light rail (the Metropolitan Area Express, or MAX), streetcars, and buses are all used by area commuters for more than one-quarter of work-related trips; the popularity of working at home has also grown. The benefits include cleaner air, less congestion, and better fitness among residents. The reliance on alternate forms of transportation is made possible by the area's density and its mild climate. Bicycling magazine, which has consistently ranked Portland in the top five American cities for cyclists, named it to the number-one spot in 2002 and 2012.

Economy

Portland's origin is linked to the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The intrepid adventurers put the town on the map as they neared the end of their journey from St. Louis to the Pacific, spurring on the gold rush that focused on nearby San Francisco, California. Portland was called on to provide supplies for the advancing hordes of prospectors.

Portland soon became a shipping center for lumber and agriculture products headed for California and other markets. The port remains one of the largest exporters of grain, particularly wheat. It also handles the most shipments of American-made automobiles coming through the West Coast. Other major exports include electronic parts, aerospace and aviation equipment, and agricultural chemicals.

By the 1990s, silicon had outpaced both lumber and grain as Portland's top export. As of 2023, computer chip manufacturer Intel was the Portland metropolitan area's second largest employer, with more than 22,000 employees in the region. The city's largest employer was Providence Health & Services with more than 23,000 employees. Other large employers include Oregon Health & Science University (19,603), manufacturer Nike (15,522), and Legacy Health (13,087).

Other highlights of the economy include the area's numerous colleges and universities, including Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Portland State University (PSU), Lewis & Clark College, Pacific University, Reed College, and the University of Portland. Nike is headquartered in the Portland suburb of Beaverton, and the area has a growing reputation for winemaking, with Oregon second only to California in total number of wineries. According to the Oregon Tourism Commission, 11.9 million tourists visited the Portland region in 2022, generating $5.2 billion in direct spending and supporting 32,700 jobs.

Landmarks

In a very green city, one of the largest landmarks is the green swath of Forest Park. Sitting on an eight-square-mile piece of land, the park retains a Douglas fir wilderness within the city. Another park, Washington Park, is home to the Hoyt Arboretum's nine hundred varieties of trees and shrubs, the five-acre International Rose Test Garden, a Japanese garden, and the Oregon Zoo.

A 1974 revitalization effort removed a freeway to create Waterfront Park, which runs the length of the downtown riverfront. The downtown and metro Portland areas contain various revitalized buildings that house the largest number of small breweries in the world.

Portland's Lan Su Chinese Garden, which claims to be the largest garden of its kind outside of China, runs the entire length of a city block. The quiet four-thousand-square-foot retreat includes a lake and a teahouse.

On the east side of the river, the Rose Quarter holds the Oregon Convention Center and Moda Center, formerly the Rose Garden, home to the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team. The team and the Moda Center are owned by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft and one of the richest individuals in the United States, although the city also kicked in $35 million for the construction of the arena in 1995.

The tallest towers in Portland are occupied by banking firms. The Wells Fargo Center and US Bancorp Tower both climb more than forty floors.

History

President Thomas Jefferson's western exploration team of Lewis and Clark made it to the site of Portland in 1805. The confusing trend of duplicating New England names in Oregon, including Portland and Salem, is due to the fact that town founders Amos Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove were both from New England. The original price of the claim to the Portland settlement was 25 cents. The town was founded in 1845 and incorporated as a city in 1851.

In the mid-1800s, settlers took advantage of the lure of free land to make the perilous trek from Independence, Missouri, by wagon train across the entire western United States, including the Rocky Mountains, on what was known as the Oregon Trail. Rights to land were contingent only on the requirement that settlers farm the land on which they settled for at least four years.

The Willamette River was first dredged in 1868 to provide a clear channel to the Columbia River, which leads to the Pacific Ocean. At that time, Portland grew quickly by supplying lumber and foodstuffs to the prospectors of the California gold rush, and later the Alaska gold rush.

Portland's reputation as a city with a large number of pubs was earned early in its history. Lumber workers claimed that there was not enough clean drinking water in the area and that therefore, they had to drink beer during the day. The water fountains installed by lumber tycoon Simon Benson to combat this problem may still be seen in the downtown area.

Farming activity grew quickly in the area as settlers poured in off of the Oregon Trail. The railroad also arrived at Portland in 1883. By the late nineteenth century, Portland had become one of the world's largest wheat-exporting ports. The population of Portland exploded in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, growing fivefold, as the city became one of the nation's busiest ports. Continued growth across the United States led Oregon to become the nation's leading lumber producer by the 1940s, which again gave a boost to the Port of Portland.

World War II launched Portland as a major shipbuilding hub and also brought about the federal internment of residents of Japanese descent in 1942. In the postwar years, Portland was swept up in other national racial policies as well such as redlining and urban renewal.

Between the late 1940s and mid-1980s, Portland undertook a number of large-scale infrastructure projects. Its electric trolley system was dismantled to make way for car transportation, and three bridges (Morrison, Marquam, and Fremont), the Bull Run Dam 2, and the Columbia Blvd Wastewater Treatment Plant were all constructed during that period as well. Its light rail system was inaugurated in 1986.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Portland became a significant tech destination, attracting electronic component and computer manufacturers to the area.

Trivia

• Portland is known as the city of bridges and bookstores. Ten bridges span the Willamette River. Powell's Bookstore in the downtown area spans an entire city block and lays claim to being the largest independent bookstore in the world.
• The city is called Rose City in reference to the huge rose garden in Washington Park and the annual Rose Festival. Portland's Rose Garden arena (now Moda Center), built in 1995, features 29,088 square feet of exterior glass.
• Other nicknames for Portland include PDX (for the airport), Little Beirut (for the politics), River City, Rip City, Puddletown, and Stumptown.
• It is 65 miles from Portland to the nearest glacier, Palmer Glacier on Mount Hood.
• There is no sales tax in Oregon.
• City streets feature half-size city blocks, creating more corner lots, which allows more light to hit the streets and makes the city seem more pedestrian-friendly.

Bibliography

Abbott, Carl. Portland in Three Centuries: The Place and the People. Oregon State UP, 2011.

Chandler, J. D. Hidden History of Portland, Oregon. The History Press, 2013.

Dille, Ian. "America's Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities for 2012." Bicycling, 18 May 2012, www.bicycling.com/rides/advocacy/americas-top-50-bike-friendly-cities-for-2012. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

"Major Employers Ranked by Employment." Greater Portland, 2024, www.greaterportlandinc.com/research-center/major-employers/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

"Market Research and Statistics." Travel Portland, www.travelportland.com/about-us/market-research-and-statistics/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

"Portland (City), Oregon." QuickFacts, US Census Bureau, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/portlandcityoregon/PST045222. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.