Trader Joes booted out of NE Portland by activists.

[frazzled]

5. What a mistake

I'm a big advocate of public input on development projects, but I've seen as many good projects get killed like this as I have seen bad projects get built.

It seems to me PAALF was wrong on two counts: first, the loss of African American residents they were bemoaning had already taken place. Still, there is a 25% AA population in the neighborhood, and to suggest that a Trader Joe's would be "gentrifying" and further push them out is an insult, imo, to African Americans.

I shop (not exclusively, but often enough) at a Whole Foods that was built, maybe six or seven years ago, on the edge of the South Side of Chicago, on Roosevelt Road. It's not like they were going into the heart of the ghetto—the store would draw on young, mostly white people moving into the South Loop as much as people from the near South and West sides it also serves. But it was a relatively bold move at the time as far as upscale grocers go.

That Whole Foods store is always crowded, and the shoppers are at least 50% African American, if not more. They buy organic vegetables and meats and all kinds of vitamin shit and Greek yogurt just like everyone else. They have craft beer and protein powder and rainbow Swiss chard in their carts. In fact, the store is so popular it survives where the giant Dominick's grocery chain across the street died recently.

Trader Joe's is hardly as "gentrified" as Whole Foods. It would have really helped that neighborhood. Sad that it couldn't happen.