9 years ago
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How Oregon's Second Largest City Vanished in a Day
The mere utterance of Vanport was known to send shivers down the spines of "well-bred" Portlanders. Not because of any ghost story, or any calamitous disaster—that would come later—but because of raw, unabashed racism. Built in 110 days in 1942, Vanport was always meant to be a temporary housing project, a superficial solution to Portland’s wartime housing shortage. At its height, Vanport housed 40,000 residents...
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This was a very interesting read. The title was actually almost anti-clickbait in a way. The title could very easily have been something along the lines of Portland's Racist History: The loss of Oregon's Second Largest City but they went in the opposite direction. I wish there would have actually been more information about the flood and the cleanup after the flood.
Fascinating!
I always shake my head in disbelief when I see people usually those pontificating traditional values and some such nonsense and commenting about the good ole days of USA, land of the free and whatnot, while conveniently leaving out the systematic and pervasive discrimination.
Just as you would ignore the U.S. world leadership in stamping out said "systematic and pervasive discrimination". Some "values" have great merit, others not so much, nebulous generalizations.....none.
"The mere utterance of Vanport was known to send shivers down the spines of "well-bred" Portlanders"................Just who/what is a "well bred" Porlander?
interesting story.