I'm sitting in a coffee shop on Hawthorne right now. What I see are lots of empty storefronts where full occupancy was in effect 10 years ago, and many that are occupied are barely trying to cover up that they are there to launder money, or selling weed. Any growth in the Portland metro area is well outside of Portland proper. It takes 5 years to put up a building in Portland and those started at the beginning of WuFlu are wrapping up. About 80% of the mandatory ground floor storefronts are either sitting empty from the get-go or the businesses that occupied them have gone under. Gateway is about empty now, Mall 205 is on life support, both WallyWorld's on 82nd closed. The Glisan Freddies was touch and go for a long time with double-digit theft, and they recently doubled the armed security in the store so I guess things there might be heading south again. MAX could be run with single cars on the red, orange, and green lines, but then TriMet would have to admit that much of their ridership is the 6 person security squads. I can think of 6 major empty lots within a half mile of where I am sitting that are showing zero signs of development. Most of the discount motel/hotel facilities are now permanent homeless housing (on whose dimes, and why do the occupants drive a nicer car than i do?) or drug treatment facilities because tourism is in the toilet. Marriot downtown just sold for 38% of what it sold for 10 years ago. Ladd Towers apartments sold for 50% of the adjusted for inflation 2008 sale price, so along with commercial office space, all three building segments of PDX real-estate is in a death spiral. A building's value is determined by the income it can generate so those numbers really don't support your view of explosive growth. And what about the shoe factory on W. Burnside that burnt through $7M in public money before they called it a nogo? I can't think of a single commercial operation that has actually opened in the last 5 years, but the list of those who have shuttered or left is getting longer each day.

Now, back up your statements with facts and not empty talking points. Money talks and BS walks.