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As gentrification rolled through close-in Portland neighborhoods, many African American residents moved out between 2000 and 2014 (top map) as whites moved in (bottom map). For example, in 2000, the Interstate Corridor and Martin Luther King Jr.-Alberta areas were home to half of Portland's African American population, or 22,000 out of 44,800. By 2014, only 13,000 of the city's 52,500 black residents lived in those areas. Portland officials are now embarking on programs and projects designed to enable hundreds of African Americans to return to the area. Read the full story here.

The maps below show the percent increases and decreases in population by race.
Reds indicates population declines and blues indicate gains.
Black alone or in combination with one or more races

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As gentrification rolled through close-in Portland neighborhoods, many African American residents moved out between 2000 and 2014 (top map) as whites moved in (bottom map). For example, in 2000, the Interstate Corridor and Martin Luther King Jr.-Alberta areas were home to half of Portland's African American population, or 22,000 out of 44,800.

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Priced Out  | Portland’s History of Segregation and Redlining - Full Documentary

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In the United States, a large number of African Americans moved from the South to the North and West during the 20th century, particularly during World Wars I and II. This…

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Portland’s Dark History: Sunken City of Vanport

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Public Domain Image courtesy City of Portland

Vanport, Oregon was the largest WWII federal housing project in the United States, and as such, attracted national attention to the region. At its peak, Vanport was home to over 42,000 residents, making it the second largest population center in the state. The housing project was "hidden" beyond Portland's city limits. For many long-time Portland residents, Vanport was known as the "Negro Project" despite the fact that African Americans were no more than 25% of residents at any given time.

Portland had become, in early 1941, one of the major shipbuilding centers in the United States. The primary shipbuilder, Henry J. Kaiser, fearful that workers would leave the area due to a lack of housing, purchased 648 acres of land outside of Portland city limits to build a wartime housing complex. City officials were unhappy with Kaiser's independent approach, but the contractor had become impatient with the inevitable slowness of municipal government.

Construction began in August 1942 and before Christmas the first families were moving into apartments. Despite the fact that Vanport was built with federal funds and constructed after Executive Order 8802, local officials enforced de facto segregation. In Vanport, only three sections, a total of 50 buildings were allotted to black residents. Moreover Vanport was one of only two housing projects in the Portland area that accepted any blacks.

At the end of the war, approximately 5,000 African Americans continued to live in Vanport with another 5,000 crowded into Northeast Portland. Black residents of Portland continue to believe that local officials kept Vanport open because they did not want more African Americans to move inside city limits. However, on May 31, 1948, the Vanport Flood washed away the temporary city and forced the city to accept its residents.

Despite its short life span, Vanport helped create several "firsts" for Oregon and the Portland area. The first black teachers and policemen in the state were hired in Vanport during the war years. The Vanport Interracial Council worked to establish a Portland office of the Urban League. Vanport College was the precursor to Portland State University where many veterans used the GI Bill to get a new start on life. In the end, Vanport became part of the story of civil rights and African Americans in the West.

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Public Domain Image courtesy City of Portland Vanport, Oregon was the largest WWII federal housing project in the United States, and as such, attracted national attention to the region. At its peak, Vanport was home to over 42,000 residents, making it the second largest population center in the state.

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It had been nearly nine years since the first class opened its "temporary" doors in Vanport City. Students and faculty celebrated with a parade from Old Main through downtown Portland and back. Students were elated that they no longer needed to transfer to other state institutions to obtain a bachelor's degree.

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The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, two young Black men who met at Merritt Junior College. The party was their response to centuries of disenfranchisement of American Blacks and routine police violence in local Black neighborhoods. The BPP's ten-point platform lists their goals of equality in the realms of employment, housing, and education, along with freedom for political prisoners and an end to police brutality.

In April 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Blacks across the nation took to the streets in grief and anger. In Portland, where the public disturbance was minor compared to the riots in Chicago and other cities, a group of about twenty disillusioned young Blacks began meeting to study the writings of Malcolm X and the Little Red Book of quotations from China's chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

In June 1969, one of the members of the study group was beaten and jailed. Upon his release on bail, Kent Ford held a press conference on the steps of the Portland police station at Southwest Third and Oak. "If they keep coming in with these fascist tactics," he announced, "we´re going to defend ourselves." With this public pronouncement, members of the original group, now down to about half a dozen, retooled themselves as a chapter of the BPP. Technically, no chapter could be founded without the blessing of Huey Newton, and Ford traveled to California later that year to secure official approval. The chapter opened an office on the southeast corner of Northeast Cook Street and Union Avenue (present-day Martin Luther King Boulevard), the first of four locations.

By the end of that year, the Portland Panthers had started a Children´s Breakfast Program at Highland United Church of Christ-where they fed up to 125 children each morning before school-as well as the Fred Hampton Memorial People´s Health Clinic, extending free medical care five evenings a week at 109 North Russell to anyone of any race. In February 1970, the BPP opened a dental clinic at 2341 North Williams. When their medical clinic was condemned and razed to accommodate a planned expansion of Emanuel Hospital, the chapter moved their Monday and Tuesday night dental practice to the Kaiser dental clinic at 214 N Russell and their medical clinic to the former dental clinic space on North Williams.

"It felt good," Oscar Johnson recalls. "We were doing something. We had the respect of the community." New members were attracted to the social programs, and the Portland chapter grew, though it never exceeded fifty members, about a third of whom were women. Original members included Johnson, a former U.S. Marine; Percy Hampton, who joined while still at Jefferson High School; Tommy Mills, a decorated Vietnam War vet; Joyce Radford, who volunteered for the medical clinic; Sandra Ford, whose work at the medical clinic launched her in a new career; and Kent Ford, captain of the Portland chapter, who had turned down a college scholarship in order to support his mother and siblings in Richmond, California. At the time of Ford's much-publicized arrest, he was running a crew that sold candy door-to-door and sending money home.

Meanwhile, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the BPP a threat to national security. In August 1967, he issued an internal memorandum directing the FBI´s counter-intelligence program to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize" the party. The result nationally was the assassination or incarceration of many party members, including Fred Hampton and Geronimo Pratt. Many former Panthers remain in prison or exile today.

Despite the persecution, BPP chapters-forty to forty-five of them-sprang up in major cities across the nation, including one that opened in Eugene, Oregon, in 1968 and operated for over a year. Portland BPP members were tracked by the FBI and characterized by the two major newspapers as criminal; yet they were spared the violent attacks party members suffered in other cities, perhaps because so many local dentists, doctors, and nurses-nearly all of them white-helped with their social programs. George Barton, a neurosurgeon, was their first volunteer physician, and Gerry Morrell was their first volunteer dentist. As head of Community Outreach for the Multnomah Dental Society, Morrell persuaded many others to join him.

The Portland chapter lasted a decade, finally closing the medical clinic in 1979. "We decided we just couldn´t keep going," says Sandra Ford, a founding member who worked in the health clinic as a medical assistant. Those who volunteered in the social programs, Black and white alike, remember their work with pride, and former Portland Panthers are still stopped on the street by children whom they fed in the breakfast program.

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The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, two young Black men who met at Merritt Junior College. The party was their response to centuries of disenfranchisement of American Blacks and routine police violence in local Black neighborhoods.

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Let's Talk About The Black Panther Party

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The Black Panthers' Overlooked Health Programs | The History You Didn't Learn | TIME

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wo years ago, Dianne Causey's landlord died and her rental house in Portland, Oregon, went up for sale. She was forced to move from the city's historically black neighborhood where she'd lived since 1978, into an apartment further east, nearly an hour away by public transit. "The apartment was way out in the boondocks. I was miserable," she said.

But in December, Causey, 66, was able to return to north Portland, when she bought her first home through the Portland housing bureau's preference policy, or "Right to Return" as it's been called, the first of its kind in the US.

The program gives down payment assistance to first-time homeowners who were displaced, or at risk of displacement, from the city's north and north-east neighborhoods because of urban renewal; it falls under a city plan that delegates how $20m will be spent on affordable housing, in an effort to atone for the sins of gentrification.

Dianne Causey bought her first home through Portland's 'Right to Return' policy. Photograph: Melanie Sevcenko/The Guardian

Last fall, the housing bureau received some 1,100 applications for the policy. With enough funds to subsidize 65 households, the bureau has so far succeeded in moving five families, including Causey, into their new homes. Forty-eight applications are in the pipeline to becoming mortgage-ready. And in February, under the preference policy, hundreds applied for rent-subsidized apartments in two buildings in north-east Portland, slated to open this year.

"I love it, because it's mine," said Causey, who purchased her house with her son with support from the African American Alliance of Homeownership. "I feel like I've come back home."

In order to qualify for "preference", applicants score points through their previous or current address. The greater the urban renewal activity in your area, the higher the points. Top priority is given to those whose property was snatched by the city through eminent domain. Applicants can add additional points if they can prove that their parent, guardian or grandparent lived in these affected neighborhoods.

It's the ancestral clause that makes Portland's Right to Return groundbreaking. Other policies that have tried to combat gentrification, include San Francisco's "anti-displacement" policy back in 2016, which was supported by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and gave first dibs on affordable housing units in the city's Mission district to those heavily affected by gentrification.

Sue Popkin, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, says policies like these are an attempt to retain, or bring back, communities of color that the city once marginalized. "There's a lot of concern about what's happening to [Portland] in a way that is similar to San Francisco," said Popkin. "And a grave concern is losing the historic minority populations altogether."

In Portland, redlining and other discriminatory housing policies restricted African Americans to the Albina district, in north-east Portland, such that by 1960, 80% of the city's black community called the area home. Yet the years to follow would herald a storm of urban renewal projects, including a new highway and a hospital expansion, which razed the homes of nearly 200 families, predominantly black.

An apartment for rent in San Francisco, a city faces its own housing crisis. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

By the 2000s, both public and private-driven investment made the north and north-east regions of Portland desirable to people with means. White folks moved in, gentrification spread, and long-term residents - namely low-income and communities of color - moved out, according to Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives (PCRI), a low-income housing program. Between 2000 and 2010, about 10,000 African Americans were displaced in north-east Portland, sinking its black population to 15% of the neighborhood. Citywide, only 6% of Portland's population is black, based on census numbers.

"There's no doubt that there was a significant number of communities of color who have historically lived in that area and who have been impacted by city actions over time," said Martha Calhoon, the communications director of the Portland housing bureau. Over time, she added, those neighborhoods were some of the most diverse - meaning white, black, Latino and Asian households would all score high points of preference.

But not everyone is singing the policy's praises. The application doesn't include a box to identify race, a decision critics are calling cowardly.

I'd like to see them pay reparations to the families who had suffered generations because of corrupt policy

Jo Ann Hardesty, NAACP

"The discrimination did not happen in a race-neutral way," said Jo Ann Hardesty, the president of the NAACP's Portland branch. "So if you're going to correct it, I don't understand how you'd develop a policy that isn't race-specific."

"I'd like to see them pay reparations to the families who had suffered generations because of corrupt policy," she said. "If you really are committed to undoing the damage, that's the direct approach," adding that affordable housing means little in an unaffordable neighborhood.

Ultimately, she said, the policy is ineffective.

"We recognize it doesn't make up for what was lost," said Calhoon, adding that no one funding policy is going to rectify the past. Nevertheless, she said, "it's a starting point for those who want to come back, and an opportunity for those to remain in their neighborhood."

That's why the bureau said it's trying to be proactive in its outreach and marketing about who this policy is for.

Also, offering housing assistance based on race would violate the federal Fair Housing Act, the city said, which Popkin confirmed. "The city's hope, my guess, is that they'll accomplish the same thing without putting themselves in lawsuit territory," she said, calling the policy "very Portland".

"It's progressive and thoughtful. It's very interesting to see what happens. First they're assuming people want to come back and they're going to have to appeal to them."

The policy hasn't won over Alicia Byrd, a Portland librarian who co-founded the Emanuel Displaced Persons Association 2, descendants of Portland's displacement projects.

They recently conducted an online survey and specifically asked members of the black community for their input.

"Overwhelmingly, in terms of restitution, people did not feel that the preference policy is adequate atonement. It's insulting for several reasons," she said, adding: "In terms of affordable housing, it's a trick bag. You must report your gross income, you can't attend school full-time and you can't save any significant money. My question is, what's the end goal? It isn't about upward mobility, they're glorified projects."

Byrd's grandmother lost her house through the hospital expansion. Because of this, she might be eligible for the policy, but has no interest in applying.

In fact, she never expected to stay in the city as long as she has.

"When the opportunity presents itself, I plan on moving out of Portland," she said.

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Un-gentrifying Portland: scheme helps displaced residents come home

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wo years ago, Dianne Causey's landlord died and her rental house in Portland, Oregon, went up for sale. She was forced to move from the city's historically black neighborhood where she'd lived since 1978, into an apartment further east, nearly an hour away by public transit. "The apartment was way out in the boondocks.

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The Great Migration: Crash Course Black American History #24

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The arrival of federal agents in Portland three weeks ago to crack down on racial justice protests fueled tensions there, and helped push the city to the forefront of coverage of the nation's racial justice movement.

As one of the whitest big cities in the America, Portland's outsize role in the nationwide protests may strike some as surprising.

Oregon has a long history of entrenched racism, dating back to its statehood in 1859, when the state constitution barred Black people from entering or living there. Yet the recent protests in Portland are part of another long history of black and white Oregonians combating that lingering racism, says Lisa Bates, an associate professor of urban studies at Portland State University.

"As much as there is far-right activity in Oregon and Portland, there's also left activity," Bates says. "There's also always been a left movement here, and a history of pretty significant protests."

She points to the white anti-racist movements and the "Abolish ICE" protests in 2018.

"Portland is known as 'Little Beirut' because of its tendency toward uprising," she says.

Here are excerpts from Bates' interview on All Things Considered.
While many people think of the Ku Klux Klan as a Southern phenomenon, it had a huge presence in Oregon in the early 20th century. Tell us about that.
In the Portland area, many of the elected leaders, sheriffs, etc., were active members of the KKK, and that history of white nationalist organizing has persisted. In the '80s and '90s, Oregon was seen as a white homeland for people who believed in the idea of a racial holy war, and there are settlements throughout the state of people who are pursuing that kind of white homeland idea.
How has that deep legacy of racism played out in the last few decades?
After that history, we might wonder how did Black people really end up living in Portland. Black folks are about 6% of Portland's population, and many of these are families who were brought to work in the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II, and after World War II remained in the city - despite ongoing civil rights battles, particularly around police.

I would point to a couple of significant incidents in the 1980s where Portland police officers dumped dead possums on the door of a Black-owned business. In the mid-1980s, after [police killed] a Black man, [Lloyd] "Tony" Stevenson, with a chokehold, the chokehold was banned and the police union distributed T-shirts to officers that said "Smoke 'Em, Don't Choke 'Em," with the image of a gun.
Do you see these protests today as a direct outgrowth of, or reaction to, the long history of racism and white supremacy that has been the building blocks of Oregon history?
For some people, yes. I think that we've had a number of protests over 15 years here about the problem of white supremacy in institutions, and of course that's at the center of what's happening today.

Over the past two months, I've seen marches for Black trans lives, we've had movement around Black victims of intimate partner violence. There are actions happening here almost every day, not all of which are focused around the [Multnomah County] Justice Center and the federal [Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse], because there's movement-building that's happening - from youth to elders among Black, indigenous and other people of color here, as well as allies and accomplices.
Christopher Intagliata and Dave Blanchard produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Emma Bowman adapted it for the Web.

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How Portland's Racist History Informs Today's Protests

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The arrival of federal agents in Portland three weeks ago to crack down on racial justice protests fueled tensions there, and helped push the city to the forefront of coverage of the nation's racial justice movement. As one of the whitest big cities in the America, Portland's outsize role in the nationwide protests may strike some as surprising.

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An audit of the Portland Police Bureau's intelligence gathering practices during the 2020 protests found officers collected information about political activity without providing evidence a crime had been committed.

The audit, conducted by the city auditor's office, also found the Criminal Intelligence Unit did not limit access to their reports and kept them longer than they are supposed to.

"They need to have procedures and policies in place that acknowledge that this is a particular area of policing that is sensitive because it has the potential to step on people's rights and stifle free speech," Portland Auditor Mary Hull Caballero said in an interview with OPB.

The auditors reviewed 40 police reports related to racial justice protests and 33 Criminal Intelligence Unit reports. In five of the 40 police reports, auditors found officers collected personally identifiable information such as political, religious or social views without documenting criminal activity.

Police at protests in East Portland.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB

In one instance, an officer recorded protesters with his personal cellphone. The officer said the video was for his personal use. In other examples, officers took photos of protesters, video of organizers, recorded license plate information and saved photos and videos posted to social media without indicating any suspected criminal activity.

"The Bureau had no directives or instructions for officers specific to investigating criminal activity during (protests)," the audit report states. "Without guidance, officers used their individual discretion to decide how and what type of information to collect."

In six instances, auditors found the Criminal Intelligence Unit kept information about demonstrators that had no "substantiated criminal activity" longer than the permitted 30 days. The information was also available throughout the bureau, despite there being procedures in place that should have limited access to the information, according to the audit.

"Any officer from any agency that searches the Bureau's records system using the names will have access to the case information," the audit says. "Such searches commonly are conducted during routine traffic stops."

KC Jones, director of audit services in the Auditor's office, said the bureau is collecting sensitive information and needs a system that fulfills its obligations under public records law while also safeguarding people's privacy.

"When you have records that have sensitive political, religious information ... and you've decided they don't have a link to a crime, come up with a procedure for how you want to retain those and where those should live," Jones said in an interview. "Because we don't think those should live in the police records system where anybody who uses that in the region and pulls somebody over can see it."

The 2020 protests became a lightning rod for law enforcement suddenly facing an onslaught of scrutiny, budget cuts, and calls for deep cultural change. The audit cites studies showing officers view disrespectful people as more dangerous. It says the existence of that information can raise risks for the people named in the reports if, for example, during a traffic stop an officer sees a person participated in a Black Lives Matter protest or played anti-police music.

"A new directive regarding criminal intelligence will address the overall concerns expressed by the audit regarding the safeguarding of information," Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell wrote in a letter responding to the audit.

Technology

Throughout the 2020 racial justice protests, protesters speculated as to which intelligence gathering tools the bureau was using. The police bureau's air support unit frequently circling overhead led to unsubstantiated theories officers were using technology such as devices used to track cellphones, or high resolution cameras and facial recognition to surveil individual people.

Auditors reviewed the bureau's surveillance footage from those flights and also rode with the bureau's air support unit to see their capabilities first hand.

A demonstration held on the anniversary of George Floyd's death, May 25, 2021 in Portland.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB

A one and a half minute video from May 31, 2020 shows a crowd gathered on Southwest 3rd Avenue in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center, and includes radio transmissions with officers on the ground saying they were "taking aerial mortars."

Two other videos from March 27 and May 1, 2021 show what appears to be thermal camera footage of two different incidents where the police air support unit helped track a fleeing person.

The auditors said "the technology does not appear capable of capturing images in enough detail to identify individuals or vehicles."

The police bureau wasn't alone in the skies over Portland during 2020, however. In June, a plane once registered to the U.S. Marshals Service - and now registered to a company believed to be a U.S. Marshals front - circled over downtown. The agency never explained what information it was collecting, if any.

And in July 2020, an advanced U.S. Air Force surveillance plane was circling overhead, raising fears the military was sending surveillance equipment to Portland typically reserved for special operations units abroad. The Air Force later told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the Air Force was conducting a long scheduled test flight which had nothing to do with the violent federal protest response taking place on the ground below.

In Minneapolis, U.S. Customs and Border Protection flew a Predator drone over protesters. CBP said the flights provide situational awareness to law enforcement on the ground.

The Portland audit did not include any federal law enforcement agencies or their actions in Portland. In July 2020, Portland City Council voted to bar the police bureau from communicating with federal law enforcement deployed to the city in response to ongoing racial justice protests.

Portland police used other technologies to conduct surveillance and collect intelligence, according to the audit. In total, the bureau disclosed 37 different pieces of surveillance technology it uses. Hull Caballero said the bureau requested that list be kept confidential, though the audit identifies license plate readers, cellphone data extraction tools, traffic cameras and the bureau's online reporting portal as examples. OPB has previously reported on the lack of policies guiding cellphone data extraction technology used by police.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell speaks to the media on Aug. 27, 2021 in Portland, Ore.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB

The biggest issue around these technologies, according to the audit, is a lack of guiding policy. In 21 of 37 cases, the bureau does not give officers guidelines on the tools they are using.

The audit uncovered multiple instances of Criminal Intelligence Unit officers investigating people's social media, despite there being no clear criminal cause. It also found bureau directives "did not include instructions about how to use social media during investigations."

In his response, Lovell said the bureau agreed with many of the audit's recommendations. Those recommendations included suggestions the bureau adopt new policies providing guidance for collecting information while protecting civil rights, storage of sensitive information, and requiring City Council to authorize surveillance technology.

Lovell said the bureau is reviewing existing directives about protecting freedom of speech and has or plans to draft new directives for safeguarding intelligence information and social media use.

The bureau also plans to write policies governing the use of surveillance technology that would include prohibitions on indiscriminate mass surveillance, targeting a person based solely on race, ethnicity and other individual characteristics, harassing people or using the technology for personal reasons.

In a letter to Hull Caballero, Mayor Ted Wheeler said he would work with the police bureau to enact the audit's recommendations.

"I support these protections because of the very real history of shameful and biased surveillance practices by some law enforcement agencies in our state and nation," Wheeler wrote. "This history cannot be forgotten as we forge ahead with efforts to improve policing and work to earn trust between law enforcement and our community."

Hull Caballero said she's satisfied with the bureau's response to the audit.

"I appreciate that they agreed with the recommendations and they agreed to implement them, which is first and foremost always what we're looking for," Hull Caballero said.

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Audit finds issues with Portland Police Bureau's surveillance practices during 2020 protests

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An audit of the Portland Police Bureau's intelligence gathering practices during the 2020 protests found officers collected information about political activity without providing evidence a crime had been committed. The audit, conducted by the city auditor's office, also found the Criminal Intelligence Unit did not limit access to their reports and kept them longer than they are supposed to.

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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has decided to move forward with a controversial technology that claims to detect and pinpoint gunshots throughout the city.

The Focused Intervention Team's Community Oversight Group, or FITCOG, recommended the city adopt ShotSpotter in a July report. That report called the technology "a focused deterrence tool as part of the overarching gun violence response strategy" in the city.

In Thursday evening's FITCOG meeting, Stephanie Howard, Wheeler's director of community safety, said the decision to advance a pilot program with the technology was made that afternoon after Wheeler met with Police Chief Chuck Lovell to discuss the idea.

Portland police officers investigate a shooting on Oct. 26, 2021 in North Portland.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB

"Chief Lovell recommended exploring implementing ShotSpotter on a pilot basis and the Mayor agrees with that recommendation," Howard said. "We'll be working with council offices and making outreach to the community to determine the details of what that pilot might look like."

ShotSpotter claims it can identify and locate gunshots in real-time using a series of small microphones placed throughout a neighborhood. That information can then be fed to the police. The company claims its technology can differentiate gunfire from other loud noises like a car backfiring or fireworks.

The technology is controversial and a number of recent studies have called its reliability into question.

Vice News and Associated Press stories last year found ShotSpotter analysts modified alerts to help police in Chicago and New York mold evidence to better fit police narratives. In some cases, ShotSpotter audio was the sole piece of evidence used to arrest and incarcerate someone. ShotSpotter filed a lawsuit alleging the stories contained false and defamatory statements.

A study by the MacArthur Justice Center found that "more than 90% of ShotSpotter alerts lead police to find no evidence to corroborate gunfire when police arrive at the location ShotSpotter sent them." The Chicago Office of the Inspector General found that ShotSpotter led to a dramatic increase in stop and frisks.

And in California, prosecutors used audio conversations recorded using ShotSpotter microphones as evidence in criminal trials.

In an emailed statement, ShotSpotter Senior Vice President of Marketing & Product Strategy Sam Klepper said criticism that ShotSpotter made neighborhoods less safe was baseless and questioned the MacArthur study's methods.

"ShotSpotter is a proven tool that helps law enforcement respond to gunfire that often goes unreported and saves the lives of gunshot wound victims," Klepper said.

Klepper also claimed Vice and the AP had retracted their stories. While it is true the outlets changed some of the wording or issued a clarification, the stories still include the underlying claim that ShotSpotter employees have reclassified sounds as gunfire at the request of police.

In making their original recommendation in July, the FITCOG report leaned heavily on a ShotSpotter-funded study refuting the MacArthur study.

Portland's plan for the technology is the latest in a string of initiatives aimed at addressing a gun violence problem that has spiraled in recent years. On Tuesday, Wheeler announced the bureau was reconstituting its entertainment district detail, a team of officers who patrol Old Town on weekend nights. Portland police have also brought back units of officers focused solely on gun violence, but shootings have remained near record high levels.

As of Wednesday, police had counted 958 shootings this year and 290 people injured by gunfire. There have been 66 homicides, 57 of them involving gunfire.

Howard said the proposal will entail going over the city's gun violence data to determine the scope and location of the ShotSpotter pilot program before presenting it to the City Council for a vote. Howard said she hopes to have a timeline for the proposal in the next two weeks.

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Portland green lights hidden microphones to combat gun violence

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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has decided to move forward with a controversial technology that claims to detect and pinpoint gunshots throughout the city. The Focused Intervention Team's Community Oversight Group, or FITCOG, recommended the city adopt ShotSpotter in a July report.

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Racial Justice is Climate Justice | Our Climate Our Future SHORTS

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Federal Officers Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab People In Portland, DHS Confirms

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Agents are deployed in the Oregon city amid anti-police protests. Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli tells NPR the tactic is being used to move detainees to a “safe location for questioning.”

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Environmental Racism Is the New Jim Crow

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The Kmart store at the corner of 122nd and Sandy Boulevard had been a community fixture for nearly 50 years.

When the store shuttered four years ago, the property quickly became an eyesore. Windows were boarded up with plywood. A group of homeless campers settled in across the street.

Residents of the outer east Portland neighborhood hoped the empty lot near Parkrose High School could be reborn as a much-needed grocery store, a career center or even a homeless shelter.

Instead, they recently learned the former Kmart building would be demolished. In its place, a San Francisco-based developer plans to build a massive concrete freight warehouse, with 37 truck loading bays, bringing more industrial development to a part of town that already adjoins the city's industrial zone.

Clean-air advocates, school officials and some neighbors say the proposed warehouse, facing the high school's athletic fields, will bring significantly more pollution to the low-income minority community - despite the city's stated commitment to "social justice, racial justice (and) environmental justice."

"It sends the message, once again, that they're disposable, that their health and quality of life and neighborhood isn't a priority for the city," said Elizabeth Durant, who chairs the Parkrose district school board and has two young children in the district, including one who has asthma. "It's about profits."

Portland officials say they can do nothing to stop the warehouse from being built. They acknowledge the city has a history of racist land-use decisions that burdened minority residents with pollution and traffic but that its aspirations to reverse these past inequities have yet to catch up with the city's zoning rules and economic objectives.

"We have some of the strongest policies in the state, in terms of geographic equity, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice," said Eric Engstrom, deputy director of Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. "But by no means have we reached a decision or a solution on exactly how to implement those policies. We have a long way to go on that work."
POLLUTION BURDEN
A building boom for warehouses and distribution centers is underway throughout the U.S., spurred in part by the dramatic increase in online commerce during the coronavirus pandemic. In recent years, multiple warehouses have been constructed in North and Northeast Portland, bringing a lot of heavy-duty trucks with them - major producers of diesel pollution.

But diesel is toxic to humans and Oregon has done little to regulate it. Diesel particulate matter, also known as black carbon or "soot," can cause asthma attacks, respiratory disease and cancer. It's especially harmful to children.
MORE: How Oregon fell behind in regulating diesel.
While diesel emissions are everywhere, they don't affect everyone equally. The fumes congregate around highways and industrial corridors, exposing Portland residents in these areas - typically lower-income and people of color -- to much higher concentrations than those in other neighborhoods.

The higher level of pollution in poor, minority neighborhoods has deep historical roots in Portland. For decades, land-use practices pushed Black and other minority communities into undesirable parts of the city and targeted them for industrial development but not tree-planting, sidewalks and other neighborhood amenities. Poor white residents and newly arrived immigrants also moved into these neighborhoods because they were affordable.

"Where we sited industry, highways and rail lines was directly related to who lived in those places, and the legacy of that continues," Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

These neighborhoods have higher rates of asthma, pulmonary disease and other illnesses linked to pollution, researchers have shown.

Clustered around Parkrose High School and the fields of a historic urban farm, the Parkrose and Argay Terrace neighborhoods feature sprawling apartment complexes mushrooming along Sandy Boulevard, with small, single-family houses spreading south. Within the 3,000-student Parkrose School District, 70% of the students are not white. All students receive free lunches due to high poverty rates in the district, including prior to the pandemic.

Poor housing quality that lets more pollution seep indoors is one of many problems local residents face. Because the area mostly consists of tree-less asphalt and older, low-slung buildings, temperatures can climb up to 20 degrees higher than in leafy inner Portland, said Portland State University urban-studies professor Vivek Shandas.

And the Northeast Portland neighborhoods are encircled by industrial pollution. Hemmed in by Interstate 84 and Interstate 205 freeways, both massive sources of diesel fumes, they adjoin the city's industrial zones just north of Sandy Boulevard. Nearby industries include two recycling centers and another warehouse, the 138 Logistics Center. More warehouses line nearby Airport Way.

The fumes add up. Modeling from a recent diesel study by Portland State University shows that the Parkrose-Argay area where the warehouse project is located already experiences diesel pollution that's four to six times that of Oregon's health benchmark for diesel particulates. And that's a conservative calculation, Shandas said.

"My estimate is that the surrounding area is doused with diesel," Shandas said.
GROWTH VICTIMS
The proposed warehouse - a structure of 244,000 square feet, above average for large warehouses - would be built by Prologis, one of the world's largest owners of warehouse space.

Public records show the warehouse property is leased to Prologis by RFC Joint Venture, part of the New Jersey development company Garden Homes, which in turn is owned by the wealthy Wilf family. Mark Hoffman, Garden Homes' director of development, said Prologis is in control of the building process and would take the lead on community concerns.

While this part of Portland has a lot of industrial buildings, the proposed warehouse is different. Unlike other industrial development to the north of the railroad tracks, it would be built on the residential side of Sandy Boulevard, abutting numerous apartment complexes and streets where children walk to school.

In 2017, this area was added to a city enterprise zone, which gives companies property-tax exemptions for up to five years.

Prologis, which already has built several warehouses in the Portland area, declined to comment on how many trucks and of what size would serve the warehouse, who would lease it and whether it would run around the clock.

Jacob Klesalek, a father of three who lives a few feet from the wall separating Hidden Oaks Apartments from the former Kmart lot, said he was angry another warehouse would be built in outer east Portland. Klesalek's 7-year-old son has respiratory problems, and additional diesel pollution could impair his breathing, he said. He also worries the trucks could make it unsafe for his children to walk to school.

"It's scary -- I don't want that kind of industry here," Klesalek said. "It's really close to the schools, to kids crossing the street, to all the apartments."

Durant, the Parkrose school board chair, worries about additional diesel pollution impacting her 5-year-old kindergartener, who has asthma. She said she's concerned about the safety of all students in the district, 500 of whom qualify for transportation services - not because they live too far from school, but because it's unsafe for them to walk to school.

"They're our babies," Durant said. "They deserve to be able to play outside and not be breathing bad air."

Parkrose School District Superintendent Michael Lopes Serrao said local students and families have been completely left out of the decision-making process for the warehouse development.

"I'm hoping there is a loophole, a way to slow things down," he said. "I know someone owns the property and they have a right to make money on it. But it sure seems more prevalent in Parkrose that these kinds of things happen. Our families are just victims of the growth."
EQUITY AFTERTHOUGHT
Despite the concerns of neighborhood residents, the warehouse is moving through to approval.

The city will issue a building permit once the plans meet all applicable building code requirements and the final permit fees are paid, said Ken Ray, a spokesman for the Bureau of Development Services. Because the warehouse proposal already meets all development standards and doesn't need adjustments, it didn't trigger a land-use review or neighbor-notification requirements.

"We're implementing the zoning code as it is written by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and approved by the City Council," Ray said.

But that code currently conflicts with the environmental-justice goals prominently featured in the city's 2035 Comprehensive Plan. The ambitious plan, adopted five years ago, outlines how the city should "specifically recognize, address and prevent repetition of the injustices suffered by communities of color throughout Portland's history."

This focus on equity is also baked into the city's Climate Emergency Workplan, released this summer. The plan prioritizes asking, "who benefits, who is burdened, and who is at the table?"

"Our actions must respond to the reality that Black, Indigenous and communities of color are being hit first and hardest by these [climate] events," the plan reads.

But right now, these are just words on paper. City officials acknowledge their equity objectives haven't yet led to any changes in zoning or other requirements for developers in low-income and minority communities. The idealistic goals don't override existing city codes.

"It's not an instantaneous thing where we can turn the switch and make those policies (immediately) implemented in a specific way," said Engstrom, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability deputy director.

Engstrom said the bureau is in the early stages of researching how other cities are pursuing environmental-equity goals. Approaches could include so-called environmental-justice zones, green zones or the low-emission zones that are increasingly used by cities in Europe.

The city council also will vote next month on an ordinance to phase out petroleum-based diesel sold in the city and replace it with a blend of renewable diesel and biodiesel.

The solutions won't always be clear-cut, Engstrom added. While protecting vulnerable communities is one priority, the need for economic growth is a competing goal.

In the case of the former Kmart property, Engstrom said, it was rezoned in 2018 from commercial to light industrial as part of the 2035 Comprehensive Plan because it's a large lot sandwiched between industrial and residential areas that could serve a job-creating purpose.

Local residents say they weren't made aware of the rezoning. City officials pointed out public hearings were held about the citywide plan.

To Shandas, the PSU professor, the lack of specific rules to go along with Portland's high-flown environmental-equity statements is no surprise. Like most other municipalities, the City of Roses has yet to come up with a new way of planning and zoning that actively accounts for the environmental impact on communities already overburdened by pollution.

"It's a systemic problem in the planning of our cities," Shandas said.
GOOD NEIGHBOR PACT
For now, the only recourse for Parkrose-Argay residents worried about the proposed warehouse may be a good-neighbor agreement. Such voluntary agreements are typically reached between a business and a neighborhood group to offset potential environmental harms or other concerns.

Most good-neighbor agreements are the product of old-fashioned grassroots organizing, said Mary Peveto, executive director of Neighbors for Clean Air. Her organization has negotiated three agreements in the Portland area related to air quality - with the ESCO steel-parts manufacturing plant, Intel and shipyard operator Vigor Industrial.

In the case of Prologis, an agreement could limit truck idling, require the warehouse developer to install solar plug-ins for diesel trucks while they're loading and unloading, add more trees or reduce operation hours to limit traffic and emissions, Peveto said.

And while the city can't deny a building permit to a development that meets the established requirements, government officials can play a role in bringing about a good-neighbor agreement, she added.

Peveto said the city has the power to require Prologis to negotiate in good faith with the neighborhood on an agreement as a condition of its permit approval.

Engstrom said an approach along those lines is a possibility.

"We can call the development and say, 'Look, you're generating a decent amount of concern from neighbors, how about you voluntarily try to reach an agreement,'" Engstrom said. "We can acknowledge that we don't have the power to force it, but we can mediate, we can put some energy into just trying to encourage the parties to meet and see what they can do."

Neighborhood leaders in Argay and Parkrose said they haven't yet pursued a good-neighbor agreement because first they wanted to explore all avenues for stopping the warehouse development. But they also admit they don't know how to approach and negotiate with a multimillion-dollar company like Prologis. It's also unclear whether enough neighbors in the area are ready to oppose the warehouse - most appear unaware of the building proposal.

Prologis wouldn't comment on whether it would be willing to enter an agreement.

The company said its warehouse would include conduits for future electric vehicle charging, a heat-reducing roof and will be LEED Silver Certified (a global standard for environmental and energy efficient design).

"The community can expect Prologis to... build a modern and sustainable logistics facility," Prologis spokeswoman Mattie Sorrentino said via email. "This project will create new local jobs and support the community by helping people receive the goods they want and need."

- Gosia Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka
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East Portland residents, school officials say large warehouse will bring more pollution, despite city's commitment to 'environmental justice'

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Neighbors and clean-air advocates say a large warehouse project across from Parkrose High School will bring more pollution and dangerous traffic to a diverse, low-income community that is already overwhelmed by these concerns. Portland officials insist they can't do anything about it, despite the city's stated commitment to "social justice, racial justice (and) environmental justice."

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by James Gregory

This is part 2 of the sequence on the Black Great Migration out of the South. It follows a short introduction to the several Black migrations. The interactive maps and data tables below provide detailed information about the movement of African Americans out of the South from 1900-2000. Use them to investigate volumes and directions. The first map reveals decade-by-decade the number of southerners living in northern and western states. Select a state of origin and see where people went. Another map shows similar data for each metropolitan area where Black southerners settled. A third allows us to highlight a northern or western state and see which southern states contributed the most migrants. Or start with a southern state and see where its people went. Finally an interactive table provides the data behind these visualizations. The maps are hosted by Tableau Public. If slow, refresh the page. Here is more information about The Great Migration .

Move between six maps and tables by selecting tabs below

Source: These maps are based on research published in James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). The U.S. Census data is from the Minnesota Population Center's IPUMS USA: Steven Ruggles, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Josiah Grover, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 6.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2015, the following samples: 1900 1%, 1910 1%, 1920 1%, 1930 1%, 1940 1%, 1950 1%, 1960 1%, 1970 1% Metro FM1, 1980 1% Metro, 1990 1%, 2000 1%.

Maps and calculations: James Gregory.

The Great Migration out of the South slowed in the 1970s. Since then, Black Americans have been moving to the South in large numbers, in some sense reversing the Great Migration. But the story is more complicated than the slogan. The Great Migration was largely from the rural South while the new migration has little to do with rural areas, or with states like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana which saw so many leave during the exodus. The big cities of Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina have attracted most of those participating in the Move South and typically this has not been a return migration. Some elders have returned home, but a strong majority are newcomers to the South, including many children or grandchildren of the exodus generation. Others are immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. Here are interactive graphics and maps that allow us to track the migration south

Who settled in the big cities of the North and West? Three interactive maps show the answers decade by decade.

The relocations of African Americans have been among the most consequential migrations in American history. Historians refer to one sequence as the Great Migration, referring to the exodus of more than seven million people from the South to states in the North and West in the decades between 1910 and 1970. But Black mobility began in the 19th century and continues into the 21st. Here are interactive graphics and maps that allow us to track the changing population of each state decade-by-decade since 1850. Select a state and see where people were born, both other countries and other states.

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Mapping the Great Migration out of the South (part 2)

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This is part 2 of the sequence on the Black Great Migration out of the South. It follows a short introduction to the several Black migrations. The interactive maps and data tables below provide detailed information about the movement of African Americans out of the South from 1900-2000.

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The 260,000 square foot transfer station would be built on the old Kmart store property across from Parkrose High School.

PORTLAND, Oregon - In Portland's Argay Terrace neighborhood, cyclone fencing surrounds the old Kmart building on Northeast 122nd Avenue and Sandy Boulevard. The big box store, which shuttered in 2018, is covered in graffiti. Looking at it now, it's tough to imagine what the property once was, but what it may soon become is upsetting many who live in and near the neighborhood.

San Francisco-based industrial real estate developer Prologis is leasing the site, which it plans to turn into a 260,000 square foot freight distribution warehouse.

"The idea of that being blighted by a 38-bay diesel truck transfer station just blows my mind," said Breylan Deal-Eriksen, who lives in nearby Maywood Park.

On Feb. 28 he started a petition opposing the warehouse project. After one week, nearly 3,000 people had signed it.

"North Portland where I work, they get a Green Zebra and a New Seasons Market," Breylan-Eriksen said. "We get a diesel transfer station. Doesn't feel equitable."

Breylan-Eriksen said his top concerns are pollution from all the diesel trucks and safety, especially for kids. The proposed site is across the street from Parkrose High School, Parkrose Middle School and several sports fields.

"This area already has the highest level of diesel emissions and we just don't need anymore," said Kate Lamb, whose grandkids attended Parkrose schools. "We are a food desert and a restaurant desert down here, and I know the community would support something like that."

Prologis hopes the community will support their vision once they learn more about it. That includes plans to spend $39 million on redeveloping the property, which they say would be LEED certified. They're also planning street improvements to increase pedestrian safety including room for a 6-foot bike lane and a 6-foot sidewalk along 122nd Avenue.

Prologis shared this statement with KGW:
"We are making a significant investment to convert the idle vacant site and build a modern, sustainable logistics facility that will create new jobs and support the local economy. We will continue to engage with the community on this project (which is zoned for industrial use), including any concerns around traffic, and work with the city to obtain the necessary approvals. Prologis has been a member of the Portland business community for 30 years with employees who live and work here."
"It's not a done deal," Lamb said. "They can't do anything until they get the permits."

For that reason, Lamb and other neighbors said they'll keep fighting plans for a warehouse as long as they can.

The Parkrose School Board of Education has also raised concerns about the warehouse project. Board Chair Elizabeth Durant told KGW they too are concerned about potential health and safety impacts on students.

"As a community that already faces significant barriers to livability and thriving," Durant said, "Parkrose School Board asks the Portland City Council to honor the city's commitment to environmental justice for historically underserved communities."

Last month, the board asked the city to issue an emergency moratorium on developing logistics warehouses in east Portland that are bigger than 250,000 square feet. That's similar to the 6-month moratorium the City of Vancouver recently enacted on building large warehouses. They'll use that time to study the impact those facilities might have on several fronts including the environment, neighborhoods and the economy.

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Northeast Portland residents oppose plans to turn abandoned Kmart into freight warehouse

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The 260,000 square foot transfer station would be built on the old Kmart store property across from Parkrose High School. PORTLAND, Oregon - In Portland's Argay Terrace neighborhood, cyclone fencing surrounds the old Kmart building on Northeast 122nd Avenue and Sandy Boulevard. The big box store, which shuttered in 2018, is covered in graffiti.