Seattle, Portland, Hottest Cities of 1990s, Seeing Growth Slow in Maturity
Seattle Skyline
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The skyline of downtown Seattle, Washington.
The skyline of downtown Seattle, Washington. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Tow-truck operator Matthew Gowen moved from Dallas to Seattle three years ago, landing a gig riding a bicycle rickshaw that he expected would be temporary.
“Here I am, still sitting on the same bike,” said Gowen, 29, shifting his pedals outside a Starbucks Corp. coffee shop in Seattle, the largest city in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, centered on Washington and Oregon states.
The region that was a darling of the 1990s, when companies including Starbucks and Microsoft Corp. hired workers by the thousands and influenced the popular culture, is still drawing migrants like Gowen, according to 2010 Census data released yesterday. It’s the jobs that are scarcer.
“People move here because they really want to live here,” said Charles Rynerson, senior demographic analyst for the Population Research Center at Portland State University, referring to the Northwest’s scenic beauty and pace of life. “To some extent they may have to accept less opportunity.”
Washington’s population increased 14.1 percent to 6,724,540 between 2000 and 2010, census data show. While that was above the national average of 9.7 percent and enough to gain an additional seat in the U.S. Congress, it was the slowest growth for the state since the 1930s.
Oregon’s population rose 12 percent to 3,831,074 since 2000, the slowest pace since the 1980s, census figures show.
Northwest Remade
After decades in which lumber, fishing and airplane manufacturing were mainstays of the regional economy, the Northwest remade itself into a technology powerhouse through the growth of companies such as Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corp.
Hillsboro, a town west of Portland, expanded with lofts and brownstones for workers commuting to two Intel computer- chip plants. Intel’s Oregon workforce rose to 18,000 by 2006 from 14,000 in 2001 -- and it has more employees in Oregon than any other site in the world. Today, the company employs 16,000. Microsoft boosted employment in the Puget Sound region surrounding Seattle by 83 percent to 40,337 at the end of last month from 22,013 in January 2001, company figures show.
The population of Redmond, east of Seattle, grew 19.6 percent to 54,144, census data show.
Stalwarts Flagged
More recently, the region’s stalwarts flagged. Microsoft undertook its first companywide layoffs in 2009 as the recession sapped demand, and rivals including Google Inc. made inroads in the software market. The company’s stock has declined 5.5 percent in the past decade as of Feb. 18.
Starbucks, whose shares jumped almost six-fold from 2000 to 2006, said in 2009 it would cut 6,700 jobs and curtail growth after expanding from a few Seattle espresso stands to more than 10,000 U.S. stores.
The company has since resumed opening stores, if at a slower pace. Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz said in November the company will open 500 stores in the fiscal year that began in October, with 400 outside the U.S. It opened 1,669 stores in fiscal 2008.
Boeing Co., founded in Seattle in 1916 by lumberman William E. Boeing, moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2001 and said in 2009 it would start an assembly line for its 787 jetliner in Charleston, South Carolina, instead of Everett, Washington. Boeing employed 73,800 people in Washington last month, down 5.6 percent from 78,200 in January 2001, the company said.
Washington’s jobless rate was 9.3 percent in December, just below the national average of 9.4 percent that month. In Oregon, it was 10.6 percent in December, seventh-highest in the nation. Both states had jobless rates of 5.2 percent in December 2000.
Collapse in Housing
Construction is one reason for higher unemployment. Portland and Seattle are both lagging the national recovery from the collapse in housing prices. Seattle home prices fell 6 percent in December from a year earlier and Portland’s fell 7.8 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Index.
Bend, the fastest-growing Oregon city of more than 50,000 in the past decade, experienced a reversal as the construction industry weakened. For years, Bend locals prospered building second homes for Californians who came to ski in the Cascade Mountains and play golf in the high desert to the east, beyond the soaking Oregon rain.
Unemployment in Bend more than doubled to a seasonally adjusted 14.5 percent in December from 6.3 percent in January 2008, according to the Oregon Employment Department. The population in Bend rose to 76,639 in 2010 from 52,029 in 2000, a 47.3 percent increase.
‘Portlandia’ Parody
Newcomers to Portland, whose population climbed 10.3 percent to 583,776, also weren’t deterred by a decline in jobs. An Independent Film Channel show called “Portlandia” parodied the city this year as the place “where young people go to retire.”
The cable show, created by Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, a guitarist for the now- defunct Portland rock band Sleater-Kinney, portray a slacker utopia. Characters raise organic poultry, manage feminist book stores, and scavenge food from dumpsters to minimize waste in America.
The parody hits the mark, said Paul Maziar, who moved to Portland in 2009 from New York City, where he was working at a marketing firm. Maziar, 30, said he fell in love with Oregon during a four-month visit, and moved without a job. Now he’s a valet and bellhop at the luxury Governor Hotel in downtown Portland while he puts his energy into writing poetry and hosting monthly readings.
‘Hard Everywhere’
“The economy isn’t what it should be, but it’s been hard everywhere,” said Maziar, who savors the city’s bike-friendly culture. “I got a boost from Portland for my soul.”
Dylan Reiff, a disc jockey for dance parties, decided to move from Chicago after working on an event in Portland -- and having an all-night bar-hopping political discussion.
“I knew there weren’t jobs,” said Reiff, 28. “It’s the people, the nature and the culture.”
Reiff has been in Portland since November. He worked for two months playing music at a strip club and left, he said, because dancers were stingy sharing their tips. He’s still looking for a full-time job while on contract as an emcee of video-game tournaments around the country.
Growth has added pressure on the region to pay for the roads, bridges and schools that all its new residents require. In Washington, which is borrowing about $1 billion a year for transportation projects including a new car tunnel beneath Seattle, debt is $2,226 per capita, eighth in the country and more than double the $936 national median, said Jim McIntire, the state treasurer.
‘Level of Debt’
“It’s not Michigan; we’ve been a pretty attractive place,” McIntire said in an interview. “But in the past decade, we’re reached a level of debt that’s going to require that we exercise greater fiscal discipline.”
So far, income growth has compensated for the borrowing and helped maintain the state’s bond rating. Total income in the state rose 45 percent since 2000, 5 percent faster than the nation, McIntire said in a December report.
Moody’s Investors Service rates Washington’s bonds Aa1, the second-highest rating. Standard & Poor’s also has assigned Washington its second-highest rating, AA+.
There are signs that employment is stabilizing now, and the state will benefit from higher exports of agricultural goods and airplanes because of a weaker dollar, said Arun Raha, the chief economist for the state of Washington.
“We’re lagging the nation, but we’ll catch up,” Raha said. “I think by 2012 we’ll be ahead of the nation.”
Balancing on his rickshaw in downtown Seattle, Gowen said he’s come to another conclusion about his adopted state after sending out dozens of applications for jobs that might offer medical benefits and pay more than $3 a ride.
“It’s a great place. We’re just overpopulated.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Robison in Seattle at robison@bloomberg.net; Anthony Effinger in Portland at aeffinger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page