Saturday, May 18, 2013

Portland Is Dying

Latest blog post is up at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Attempting to explain why Portland's labor force dropped by 25,000 people, year-over-year, after years of robust growth.

Subject Article: "Bureau of Labor Unemployment Statistics" for Portland, OR via Annalyn Kurtz.

Other Links: 1. "'Portlandia' Is No Joke: The City 'Where Young People Go To Retire.'"
2. "Seasonally Adjusted (Before 2000: CWIA,Since 2000: BLS) Pittsburgh MSA Labor Force - Monthly January 1970 to September 2012."
3. "Field Of Dreams Portland."
4. "Building Industry Clusters Via Brain Drain."

Postscript: The sensational claim of "x place is dying" stirs up controversy. That is unless we are discussing a Rust Belt city. We intuitively know those places are dying. The contrast between Pittsburgh and Portland is ironic. Concerning the metric of labor force, Portland (not Pittsburgh) is dying.

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