
Portland’s Land Rush for New ’Opportunity Zone’ Tax Breaks - glassworm
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-portland-opportunity-zones/
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claudiulodro
I appreciate this in-depth reporting about the city I live in. It definitely
doesn't look good having pretty much all of downtown be an opportunity zone,
but most other areas of town are even less opportunity zones than downtown.

The west side is millionaire estates and nice suburbs where people that work
at Intel live.

North Portland has heavily gentrified into one of the most expensive parts of
town in the last few years.

The inner east side of Portland is industrial area, trendy part of town, and
historic neighborhoods.

IMO the best area would have been outer SE Portland along 82nd Ave, which is
where all the working-class people that can afford to live in Portland are,
but that area has always got the short end of the stick from the city so it
was never going to happen.

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RileyJames
> it’s not uncommon to see homeless sleeping in tents near a new food hall.

Sorry if it offends, but in my experience this IS the defining feature of
America.

That and people talking out loud to themselves in public.

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AimForTheBushes
Yeah it happens but to say it is the defining feature is laughable.

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zjaffee
Given rising interest rates, this seems like a decent model for encouraging
large scale real estate investment, especially when along side existing
affordability requirements. Ultimately, it seems like the best way to place
these sorts of zones would be in more well off locations in areas zoned for
residential, and in poorer areas that are zoned for industrial use.

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gammateam
> At the end of the day, the blame for projects that don’t fit the spirit of
> the law rests with Congress for enacting such a flexible set of incentives,
> says the Urban Institute’s Theodos. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

I would take that a step further, the idea that the legislature's constituents
still need to operate on a sense of fairness is ridiculous. It never ever ever
ever happens that way.

Someone wrote the Opportunity zone idea and shoved it into the tax law when
the consensus looked favorable. They sold it as a way to make things more fair
or deal with inequality or something, but why? Is that really necessary? It is
effective though, and the governors did their part.

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theandrewbailey
I found a map of these zones:
[https://eig.org/opportunityzones](https://eig.org/opportunityzones)

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anigbrowl
I have serious doubts about these 'opportunity zones'. I live close to the
edge of one and I doubt there's a lot inside it worth less than $500k.

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oh_sigh
The opportunity is for the land owners and developers.

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anigbrowl
My point being that it has little to do with the stated need of bringing
capital into areas suffering from a shortage of it.

