Can we cure what ails us?

Portlanders offer ideas – quirky and otherwise – for igniting city’s economy

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Feb 18, 2010 (8 Reader comments)

Barbara Dudley, a PSU professor and co-founder of the Working Families Party, is leading the charge to form a state bank in Oregon, modeled after the one in North Dakota.

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Philip McGarry, an unemployed Portland pipe fitter, has a brainstorm to bring new jobs to the city.

What if the freeway loop around downtown were closed temporarily – including the Fremont and Marquam bridges – to stage an auto race for electric vehicles and those powered by vegetable oil, hydrogen and other alternative fuels?

McGarry figures his idea for a “Portland Green 500” would make the area a mecca for alternative-vehicle enthusiasts and companies.

“If the race is here annually, they’re going to come here and work on their stuff and communicate to each other, and set up a cottage industry,” McGarry says.

“I figure the Portland Green 500 would be like the Indianapolis 500 for the 21st century. I drove through Indianapolis, and that’s probably what made that town.”

At a time when Portland suffers from stubbornly high unemployment, and longtime manufacturers such as Freightliner threaten to leave town, it’s bleak out there in the job market. State economist Tom Potiowsky projected last week that Oregon would lose 1 percent of its jobs this year, and that the long-awaited turnaround in the jobs market won’t gather steam until next year.

So what can Portland do to get out of its economic funk?

How can the city and region foster jobs for the droves of unemployed and underemployed, the young Oregonians finishing college, and the 20-somethings still migrating here?

The Portland Tribune solicited ideas from readers like McGarry and consulted a diverse group of visionaries, business leaders, economists and venture capitalists.

Here are some of their thoughts:

• Year-round market

Experts say Portland should build on its strengths.

One is the lush soil of the Willamette Valley, and the voracious appetite for tasty local foods, as evidenced by the mushrooming number of great young chefs here, the bustling Portland Farmers Market and the rapid growth of New Seasons Market, which is opening two new groceries in the midst of the Great Recession.

Building the long-discussed James Beard Public Market – a year-round indoor-outdoor market for locally grown and prepared produce, meat, drinks and other products – could lead to 200 jobs just from the market stalls, says Ron Paul, consulting director for the project. The market also would support scores of other jobs in agriculture, food processing and construction.

Backers hope to locate the market at the western foot of the Morrison Bridge, which Paul says would revitalize a part of downtown now dotted with surface parking lots.

“Public markets are in a unique category in terms of catalyzing urban development,” Paul says, pointing to the impact of Pike Place Market in Seattle and Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver, B.C. Granville has far greater sales per square foot than a busy Nordstrom store, he says.

TRIBUNE PHOTO: L.E. BASKOW • Ron Paul and Amelia Hard say the James Beard Public Market, envisioned as a year-round outdoor food and drink emporium, would create hundreds of jobs. They identified many locally produced foods at New Seasons Market, whose chief executive serves with Hard on the board of The Historic Portland Public Market Foundation. Paul is the consultant for the endeavor.

• Buy local

The public market would take a few years to finish under the best of circumstances.

Those who want to stimulate Portland’s economy can have an immediate impact by spending their dollars on local goods rather than out-of-state or imported products. Nurturing homegrown businesses that respect their workers and the environment is one way to create good, stable jobs here, says Robyn Shanti, executive director of the Sustainable Business Network of Portland.

Angus Duncan, president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, says the local foods movement should be a model for other sectors of the economy.

Paul, citing the findings of two case studies of buying locally, says a typical $100 purchase at a store owned by a national company keeps $17 in the local economy, while the same purchase at a locally owned store keeps $54 circulating here.

• Bank with Oregon

Portland State University professor Barbara Dudley has a bolder idea to keep money in the local economy: a state bank modeled after North Dakota’s.

Dudley started researching the idea after hearing about the 2009 Oregon Legislature’s modest bill to stimulate the economy, which she saw as “pathetic.” She discovered that the state manages more than $10 billion in short-term funds, almost all of it deposited with huge regional or national banks.

“One of the main reasons why we’re having trouble with jobs is because there’s no credit out there,” says Dudley, who teaches public administration and sociology and is co-chairwoman of the Oregon Working Families Party.

A state bank could partner with Oregon-based community banks to generate more loans to homegrown employers, she says.

Big national banks are paid to underwrite Oregon bonds and earn a fee every time an unemployment check is disbursed in Oregon, she says, suggesting those and other functions could be handled by a state bank.

Some Oregon community bankers like the idea, Dudley says, as do some state lawmakers from both parties. Bill Bradbury, a Democratic candidate for governor, is making the idea a centerpiece of his campaign, but Dudley wants to keep it a bipartisan issue, in hopes of getting a bill passed in the 2011 legislative session.

• Super-fast Internet

Reader Jack Anliker suggests Portland should leap at the chance to be a test market for Google’s newly announced super-fast Internet-access system. Market researchers have long viewed Portland as a good place to test new products, he reasons, and the city has a net-savvy population that would put the system to good use.

Having a super-fast Internet system here would lead to other business opportunities, Anliker says. “Like the line from the movies, ‘if you build it, they will come.’ “

• Natural gas, liquefied

The local and state economy could get a lift now, and far into the future, if federal and state authorities approve a liquefied natural gas terminal to accept imported gas, says Duncan Wyse, executive director of the Oregon Business Council. There are three such terminals proposed in Oregon, but environmental concerns could hold up or nix the projects.

Natural gas will play an increasingly important role in the local energy supply as climate-change fears put a damper on the use of coal power, Wyse says.

Allowing an LNG terminal would provide immediate construction jobs, he says. More importantly, it would provide another source of energy here.

“It makes the Northwest market much more competitive, and that should lower gas prices,” Wyse says.

And that would cut homeowners’ and employers fuel costs, making the area more attractive for business expansion.

TRIBUNE PHOTO: L.E. BASKOW • North Portland pipefitter Philip McGarry, resting at the Broadway Bridge, envisions a Portland Green 500 car race on a loop around downtown, including the Fremont Bridge. McGarry figures the annual race would lure businesses here that are built around alternative-fuel vehicles.

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