,
6 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
"Portland is super progressive," some said before I moved there (for white people, I guess?). Well ... Let's just say that it's true that "some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses."
I love living in Portland so far, but a truly progressive city would have ended the homelessness crisis & related housing affordability crisis by now
The degree to which local-govt electorates don't match the population they govern is one reason why I strongly favor moving local elections to the highest turnout date of federal elections. All economic (or racial, etc.) segments of society need to vote for democracy to work
Portland isn't bad about this! This thread details how my adopted city needs reform, but I want to be clear it's far from bad (otherwise I'd have not moved there!). But oh man, do we need ways to encourage renters & young people to vote in local elections
And it continues to disappoint yet not at all surprise me how badly Portland & Oregon itself have dealt with their racist histories (kind of like everywhere). For one of many reasons, I left the South because of how racist it felt, & I want my adopted home to be better than that
Sorry, I should've made clearer that Portland is good about this. But it's unfortunately way too common for many U.S. cities to have awful turnout for local elections, where homeowners are dramatically more likely to vote than renters, thus distorting policies
