twistedcobra

California is turning into a rat race; the cost of living has sky rocketed here in the past 2 years. In the city where I live, privately owned businesses are closing down like crazy and everywhere I look a new Starbucks/Jamba Juice complex is opening up. I don't even hardly see anymore artsy or fringe people downtown anymore because they moved to the ghettos because rent is getting so high. Property management companies are buying out all the privately owned apartments and then raising the rent so high that all the current tenants have to move out, this is happening at a massive scale, it is sick to force poor people to lose their homes so richer people can move in. California definately puts the $ above integrity or any kind of humanistic interest. If we are in a recession, where are all these people with money coming from? Are they just living off credit? How can they afford to buy all those big excessive jumbo gas gussling SUVs that are designed to drive in rough terrain and they live in a concrete suburban paradise?
I am originally from Seattle, and I saw how money tore the art and culture from that city. I think it all started with that grunge thing that the big record companies and Target got a hold of. (I'm not blaming Kurt Cobain).
Tons of Californians were moving to Seattle at that time, and it looks like they brought that California ethic that I described earlier with them.
So now, my girlfriend and I have been planning to move to Portland OR to get away from this cultural wasteland. But guess what? Now tons of Californians are moving to Portland, and I so hope that what happened to Seattle will not happen to your fair city, (this time instead of grunge, it will be "indie") and we will all be able to go to Target and get stuff that the Strokes and the White Stripes are wearing. (Market researchers of corporations pick up on that stuff right quick!)
So all I'm asking is this, my girlfriend and I really want to move to Portland, and I lived in Seattle for the first 13 years of my life and my girlfriend is originally from Virginia, so please don't judge us as Californians. We are both artists and have wonderful things to contribute to your city and I am fully opposed to Portland being exploited like what happened to Seattle. I would just like to see creativity, art and lifestyle flourish over opportunists.
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