Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Portland: more bikes, fewer black people


In Portland's heart, diversity is dwindling
by Nikkole Hannah-Jones
The Oregonian
Portland, already the whitest major city in the country, has become whiter at its core even as surrounding areas have grown more diverse.

Of 354 census tracts in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties, 40 became whiter from 2000 to 2010, according to The Oregonian's analysis of the 2010 Census. Of those, two lie in rural Clackamas County. The 38 others are in Portland.

The city core didn't become whiter simply because lots of white residents moved in, the data show. Nearly 10,000 people of color, mostly African Americans, also moved out.

And those who left didn't move to nicer areas. Pushed out by gentrification, most settled on the city's eastern edges, according to the census data, where the sidewalks, grocery stores and parks grow sparse, and access to public transit is limited...

The rest of the story here.

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Mirkarimi and the law enforcement community


Fog City Journal still hasn't commented on the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Even the leftist Bay Guardian and Beyond Chron have checked in with their muddled, ambivalent reactions. It's more important for Fog City to feature Mike Hennessy's endorsement of Ross Mirkarimi for sheriff.

It's hard to see how Mirkarimi will get any support from the city's law enforcement community. He supported anarchist Josh Wolf, when the latter withheld from the Grand Jury his video of an anarchist demontration during which a city cop had his skull fractured by Wolf's comrades.

Mirkarimi had some typically ill-chosen words on Wolf's bogus martyrdom: "I am here tonight in support of Josh Wolf and everything this illegal incarceration represents. The incarceration and persecution of Josh Wolf could not be more un-American."

Mirkarimi and Wolf's supporters have never even mentioned the cop---Peter Shields---who had his skull fractured. It was all about Wolf's imaginary right to withhold evidence from a Grand Jury. Mirkarimi went on to suggest that maybe it was time for a revolution in the US!

There was of course nothing illegal about sending Josh Wolf to jail. If you withhold evidence from and/or lie to a Grand Jury, you're going to pay a price. Ask Barry Bonds.

Mirkarimi also sponsored a resolution urging California's Attorney General to drop charges against possible cop-killers before a hearing could be held on the charges.

And Mirkarimi voted for a Board of Supervisors' resolution calling on Philadelphia to give cop-killer Abu Mumia Jamal a new trial.

I've been Supervisor Mirkarimi's harshest critic, but I'm the one who has been the closest follower of his career on the Board of Supervisors. He's been an awful supervisor, representing everything that's wrong with San Francisco's "progressive" political culture.

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