I can get behind every line in that article except "Rents were too high for minority businesses." Should rents be based on race? How exactly would that work? Is he saying that minority-owned businesses can't be as successfull as white-owned businesses, and therefore deserve lower rents?

Preferential treatment is the way to ensure equality.

@Reymont: There are a lot of factors there, here are two:

1) Minorities tend to be poorer in the first place. Say what you will, but most money is actually inherited in one form or another: My parents payed for me to go to college, my parents could afford health care, when I need a loan the first place I go to is my parents, (although I did buy my house through the bank, although again not without some help from my parents,) I did well in school because my parents could afford a computer, to put food on the table, and the fact that my parents went to college and could help me with calculus homework, etc, etc. In theory discrimination is eliminated now, (although see #2,) but historically that wasn't true and so if you great great grand parents were illiterate slaves who obviously had no money and were considered property, it is going to take a few generations to catch up with the people that went to elementary school and owned a few acres, and even more to catch up with the upper classes...

2) Discrimination still exist at everything from the bank to the suppliers to the landlord, and so for instance, while they won't just straight out deny you loan if you are African American, your application will get more attention than one from a white customer, and more attention tends to result in higher chances of them finding something wrong with it. So if a few white mortgages slip through the cracks, but a few black ones don't, that isn't strictly discrimination under the law, but it is still discrimination. "Rents too high" may actually be code for "The whites are getting better deals; when they are late on the rent, they can talk their way out of the fees and we can't, but we can't prove it that it is deliberate and based on race."

How to solve this problem: Lowering the rent for minority owned businesses is certainly one way to do it, although tends to be unpopular with the whites, (Let me guess "D is for diploma" is probably white,) but my favorite suggestion is to do targeted outreach: If you want a very successful example of that, look at TriMet's yellow line: They didn't just put out a notice for bids to the few companies they'd used in the past, they hired several people who went out to local businesses in the community and told them about the project and encouraged/helped them submit bids. For instance, there are a whole lot of people that own one dump truck, and there are a few companies in town that own 50 dump trucks, (and drivers.) TriMet needed 50, but instead of just asking the three companies who owned 50 to submit bids, they pulled up the list of everyone who owned a dump truck from the DMV/ODOT, and talked to them all. And they got enough of them to submit bids to get 50 dump trucks. There was more overhead because TriMet had to manage the 50 trucks themselves instead of the company they hired doing that, and they had to deal with 50 different contracts, and the time they spend contacting those people in the first place, but the trucks themselves were quite a bit cheaper. So after accounting for all that, TriMet saved ~30% by doing that instead of hiring the company with 50 trucks. Likewise, a lot of the steelwork at the stations came from a company in Kenton. They knew how to do the job, but they'd never submitted a bid for a government contract and didn't know the steps. In addition, they needed a loan to buy more equipment to do the volume of work that was required. There was a problem with that, because they couldn't get the loan without the contract, and they couldn't get the contract without more equipment, so TriMet wrote them an acceptance letter that it was contingent on them getting the loan. They then went to the bank with that letter and immediately got the loan. Of course, there is another story with that company: When the TriMet outreach people were helping them figure out the government bidding process, the company did the math and got a number that was about 25% of (i.e. 75% lower than) what TriMet was expecting to pay. And the outreach people looked at that and told them that they were supposed to actually make money on contracts not just keep from from starving, and they talked the company into submitting a higher bid, (still way below what TriMet was expecting.) The company has since raised their prices on all contracts and can now afford to offer health benefits to its employees and is flourishing.

(Yet another post that is too long, by Matthew.)

Cordish is the wrong choice for Portland. Period.

As I've commented on this blog before, I've been to the Louisville monstrosity. I spent my 21st birthday there, after throwing up in the parking lot of the Maker's Mark distillery. It's a spot where folks go to patronize the few chain businesses in the indoor-but-outdoor-mall-pavilion-thing and then leave. It seems to have no real connection with its neighborhood, other than being a terrible eyesore.

Portland can do better.

@Matthew D -

Your #2 response, there, is an entire page based on something you had in your head, NOT what the quote in the article says. He doesn't say that minorities weren't able to get bank loans, or that they weren't able to talk their way out of fees, or that business went to people who had 49 more dump trucks. He says, very simply and clearly, that rents were too high for minorities. All your points were interesting and are probably correct! But - what he SAID was that rents are too high for minorities, and I don't get the impression he was speaking in code, as if he felt he somehow couldn't mention any other problems, which is what you're implying. He clearly thinks that minorities should get reduced rent. That seems...inexplicable?...to me.

For #1, above - my experience doesn't match yours. Had to pay my own way through college, pay for my own cars and my own house, have never taken a loan from my parents. Father didn't go to college - Mother did, but regretted it as wasted money. So...should I qualify for the "reduced minority rent," then, under your justifications?

I am from Kansas City. Do NOT let Cordish invade Portland. They own sidewalks here. I believe there is one business involved that is not a chain. There are marches against their racism all the time not being reported in mainstream media. FIGHT THIS.