A few years ago the New York Times was praising Portland as the “city that loves mass transit” (meaning it loved to spend money on mass transit, not actually ride it) and the city where people were willing to live lightly in 400-square-foot apartments. How the mighty have fallen: Last Saturday, Portland rated most of the top half of the Times front page with an article about homelessness, drug addiction, and death.
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The article and accompanying photos jump to fill two entire interior pages of the newspaper. At around 3,500 words, the article qualifies as a long read, especially for a newspaper. But for many people, including Jack Bogdanski, the article was more notable for what it didn’t say than what it did. Continue reading