Good rant and well understood.

Don't take it personal - this whole "go back to CA/WA/Boston/NY/South/East Coast/Mid-West/etc." bullshit you keep hearing is completely meaningless. It's just bored, passive-aggro, not-all-that-serious, so-called "natives" having a jab. It's sort of like when football nerds refer to a game b/t two same-state teams as a "civil war".

The fact is, unless you belong to an aboriginal tribe, NOONE here can claim to be NATIVE.

TL;DR. LEARN TO PARAGRAPH BREAK.

I hear ya. You're welcome here, truly. It's like the quote from Eugene Debs: "I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world."

Well said, PdxNelson.

Being FROM somewhere is nothing to be proud of. Making the decision to BE somewhere is. That being said, you do need to go back to school.

I am a native. So I can say this post is as BS as they come. Uuuuh, running away from the law and then moved to Portland. Uuuuh, how cinematographic, and righteous.

Such unusually mushy comments. Group hug e'ryone?

1. Displaying a lack of ability to differentiate between "your" and "you're" (among other horrendous writing composition errors) is not a great way to prove you're "not an idiot."

2. Your story sounds ridiculous to anyone who actually understands how housing, development, government and the real world work. It sounds like your mom's heart was in the right place, but I have a feeling she's probably in the Greatest Hits of the Mayor's Voicemail that this newspaper publishes quarterly.

3. I frankly do not believe that a mayor of Portland told your mother she should move out of town for her own safety. Unless this was happening during the Terry Shrunk era. Then, maybe.

4. Go back to where you came from.

Re point #2 above: It sounds like this person is just giving pretty basic description of gentrification and "redevelopment" that has played out in most major cities: e.g., developers using HUD money in a way that creates a shortage of affordable housing and displaces low-income people. But maybe you could back up your "ridiculous" criticism with something, since you're one of the ones who actually understand how the real world works. Wow.

#3 I,A didn't say it was the mayor of Portland; (s)he was describing what happened in Reno. It wasn't even the mayor of Reno who said this, it was allegedly developers and their lawyers during meetings in the mayor's office.

#4 Why? What possible reason should this person have to leave Portland to go somewhere they don't want to live after a family move here 7 years ago?

Re #3 again, oops, it was indeed a mayor who said that, but the mayor of Reno, not Portland. That was a really unclear sentence. I,A, if you work on writing, spelling, and using the shift key, then I guess maybe you can stay.

Who gives a fuck about this person's grammar? How exactly does poor grammar and/or spelling totally nullify the content of their story, or somehow render it meaningless?

I can see being a little bothered if their grammar is so atrociously bad that it resembles text-message shorthand, but this IA wasn't nearly that awful.

Can't people stop using the grammatical flaws of others on internet as a straw man for just a little while? I mean, seriously, I can't be the only one who thinks that the knee-jerk Grammar Nazi response is getting tired and worn out, can I?

-It's sort of like when football nerds refer to a game b/t two same-state teams as a "civil war".-

Or when a team declares war on other team without even them realizing or believing it was indeed real since they where "same state friend team". It says you suck nothing more than waking up in 2012 and realizing you're fucked.

@11: I don't know if you were directing that at me at all, but was just joking about "if you work on your writing, you can stay." I see where you're coming from, but I also think it's inconsiderate to write something in a way that's hard to read and expect people to read it and then sympathize with one's position. It's also frustrating that, in general, most people seem to have no handle on their/they're/there, it's/its, your/you're, etc. It's especially an issue in the many cases (this not being one of them) that an I,A is written by some arrogant jerk who clearly things he's the shit and yet writes like a 7th grader who's getting a D in English.

One thing is for sure, the education system in Nevada and California needs some work.

@geyser: I'm pretty sure, after re-reading, that everything after Sentence 2 is in Portland.

Back up my criticism? She claims developers were trying to build massive apartments under the "demise" of affordable housing. Even assuming IA meant "guise," that's a ridiculous statement. You can push off the affordable housing requirements of an URA, but there is no way in hell to build big apartments while conning HUD that it will be affordable housing. Those determinations are made extremely early in the process and legally binding.

As to #4, I was joking, because that was IA's thesis (and headline).

@Snagglepuss: Straw man? I didn't use it as a straw man. I used it as I usually do: as an indicator of how seriously to take someone on the internet. I do the same thing with resumes.

Plus, to both of you, wasn't the IA blog created for daily flaming? Maybe I missed something, but I'm pretty sure there's even a Full-of-Shit Meter around here somewhere.

#13 - My comment wasn't necessarily directed at you, specifically, so much as it was directed at the general tendency to dismiss as irrelevant the postings and comments by people whose grammar is lacking.

Like I said, a post or comment that looks like it's written in text-message shorthand (with plenty of abominations like "ur" "y u no" and so forth) should be doomed to instant dismissal, in my opinion. But, even though correcting others on their misuse of your/you're/there/their/they're is practically an internet meme of its own (and I do it sometimes, myself), I feel like it's starting to get a little tiresome seeing it pop up in comment threads. I find it especially tiresome when it constitutes someone's entire contribution to the conversation (which you did not do, thankfully).

I guess I'm a little more concerned with the content and apparent earnestness of the post in question (or any post, really), than the grammar (unless the grammar is atrocious).

#15 - Yes. Straw man. To create an object/subject to attack that is not the original object/subject under discussion. Often enough, it seems like questioning someone's grammar in lieu of actually discussing the merits of the content of their post is a straw man (or of some likeness to one). I didn't say specifically that you did that, although a re-read of my post certainly makes it look that way, even to me.

"I used it as I usually do: as an indicator of how seriously to take someone on the internet."

While I don't think this is a bad idea in general, I'm reluctant to agree with it on a categorical basis. Not everyone has decent grammar. Plenty of people with educations as expensive as most of us Blogtown trolls (and certainly even more without) still have a substandard grasp of grammar. It irritates me to see it, too, but I try not to let it bother me so much that I'll instantly dismiss a post because of it.

"Plus, to both of you, wasn't the IA blog created for daily flaming? Maybe I missed something, but I'm pretty sure there's even a Full-of-Shit Meter around here somewhere."

Point taken.

TL;DR

Look, honey, I'm sorry about all that, if it's true. But the thing is, the more people who move here -- for whatever reason -- the more housing prices escalate. It's already happening.

And even worse, the more crowded it gets. Population density is what ruins great places like Portland. It's like this: If you love the rainforest, don't tear it down to build a house in it.

I am in solidarity with this post. I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, TX, and I don't want to go back either.