Gentrification of a Baseball Stadium

          Portland is a city that has been transformed by gentrification. While a complex issue that is as highly nuanced as it is emotionally charged, gentrification is perhaps better described than defined as it was in a classic PBS “Point of View” article on the documentary Flag Wars:

Although there is not a clear-cut technical definition of gentrification, it is characterized by several changes.

Demographics: An increase in median income, a decline in the proportion of racial minorities, and a reduction in household size, as low-income families are replaced by young singles and couples.

Real Estate Markets: Large increases in rents and home prices, increases in the number of evictions, conversion of rental units to ownership (condos) and new development of luxury housing.

Land Use: A decline in industrial uses, an increase in office or multimedia uses, the development of live-work "lofts" and high-end housing, retail, and restaurants.

Culture and Character: New ideas about what is desirable and attractive, including standards (either informal or legal) for architecture, landscaping, public behavior, noise, and nuisance. [1]

A number of once run-down and dangerous neighborhoods have been taken over by those trendy urban re-development people with mixed results. When the wealthy and powerful move in and take advantage of the disadvantaged and voiceless former residents. It is true that property values climb rapidly as undervalued properties are acquired and flipped by investors, but increased tax assessments often force long-time residents from their homes, churches and community without their having a voice in the process. It has been the heavy hammer of social injustice. As young, hip, wealthy, mostly white people crowded out the existing low-income and often ethnic communities, these changes also impacted America’s pastime…sports injustice.  

We should have seen it coming. Re-development always bites someone. Our class A Portland Rockies baseball team was moved out when Civic Stadium was redeveloped into PGE Park in preparation for the arrival of the AAA Portland Beavers. It really was a very nice, family-friendly, baseball venue in the historic heart of the city. But the developers were not through. In Portland, soccer is hip, soccer is cool, and soccer is supported by the downtown power elite. A new MLS franchise was used to push a very popular and family-friendly minor league franchise out of the city. The deal was supposed to include building a new baseball stadium elsewhere but in the face of obstacles that part of the agreement was abandoned. PGE Park was remodeled again into the soccer-and-football-only JELD-WEN Field and the Beavers were relocated to a former spring training stadium in Tucson, AZ then later moved again to El Paso, TX. It has now been three years since the Portland Timbers Soccer team forced our AAA Portland Beavers baseball team out of their stadium home. While not a hater, I must point out that the Timbers are the darling team of the gentrification crowd.

            I recently attended the home opener our new Class A minor league baseball team, the Hillsboro Hops. I was absolutely amazed to sit in a crowd of people who seemed to be finding their voice again. It was like a huge family barbeque celebrating the return of baseball yet without the constriction of the old venue with no parking. At the same time, the new stadium is currently not serviced by transit after games due to its “being on a low ridership route.” I know what that really means. It means that “since you baseball fans are not urban hipster gentrified microbrew swilling soccer zombies… so we feel no need to work with your kind of people.” Even without Portland-based development cooperation baseball is back. Despite the traffic, and having to work out the new venue issues, it seemed very liberating experience for young and old alike as they rediscovered the game they love and made new friends that somehow seemed like old ones in the process. I know I did.

Picture 1 Double Rainbow at Hops' Opener

            Sure there may be larger crowds of MAX-riding, chanting hip white people occupying Timbers’ games, and Portland may be featured on national television for it. I’m happy for them. But is the change better? Perhaps it is. But it was painful nonetheless. Yet out of pain and a community of shared sports suffering there came a beautiful evening in June, where all the storms and clouds only served to make it more beautiful. One sports writer commented that “if the Hops home opener was any better it would have had a double rainbow…and it did.” I agree and took a picture of it. With the light show of a sweet sunset in the west and black clouds with rainbows in the south, it’s almost as if God joined in the celebration.  

 

Picture 2 Hops' Opener Under the Lights

            It was a stirring time for this baseball fan, and a symbolic one as well. But after seeing the celebration of a community of hard-working families regaining their voice, while encouraging an international group of young ball players on a cool Monday night in June, I began to long for a time when the dislocated poor and ethnic communities of Portland might enjoy the same sense of homecoming and more, for their suffering goes longer and deeper than three years. Until then, they are welcome to come to Hillsboro and watch minor-league baseball with me.

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[1]  http://www.pbs.org/pov/flagwars/special_gentrification.php