Mainstream journalists in New York City love to fly to Portland and report.
It’s become a quite a habit for gumshoes in the employ of The New York Times. Now The Wall Street Journal is picking up the ball.
photo by Sean Flanigan of The Wall Street Journal
The Journal’s piece is neatly framed by its title and subhead: “‘Youth Magnet’ Cities Hit Midlife Crisis: Few Jobs in Places Like Portland and Austin, but the Hipsters Just Keep on Coming” and artfully rendered by Sean Flanigan’s telling images. It’s far from a glowing report on any front. The fact that highly educated people migrate here and then find little or no work is a common, if not a somewhat self-reinforcing fact of life in Stumptown. The article picks up on that and runs with it until there’s no more track.
I don’t believe the Journal’s portrayal is wrong. You do need to be a willing and resourceful pioneer to make it here. It’s the price of passage on The Oregon Trail, now, as always.
Knowing that you have to prove yourself worthy is, no doubt, daunting for the comers, but what good materializes without a meaningful sacrifice of some sort? I can’t think of any. Can you?
For more on this subject, see the discussion at Silicon Florist.