Apartment Choice

Leesha Posey remembers cutting across a vacant lot in North Portland on her way to Harriet Tubman Middle School . "It's been empty since I was a little girl," says Posey, 41. That was three decades ago. But the lot still sits empty—a rarity in a city where vacant land is coveted, especially in the red- hot North Williams Avenue corridor . Its emptiness is a reminder of what the city and its urban renewal agency , Prosper Portland , took from the black community . In the 1960s, the city-owned agency, then known as the Portland Development Commission , condemned vast tracts of inner North and Northeast Portland . The takings—including the still-vacant block at the northwest corner of North Williams Avenue and Russell Street—allowed urban renewal, including construction of parts of Interstate 5, the Oregon Convention Center and Legacy Emanuel Hospital . But in the process, the agency gutted neighborhoods and dispersed the black community . In a belated ef...

There were many aspects of the four- site Capitol Hill transit - oriented development the East Design Review Board liked, but confidence was not high enough to clear it for permitting on Wednesday. Situated above the light rail station , the transit- oriented development will be Capitol Hill’s largest construction project to date, creating more than 400 apartment units in a superblock that borders Broadway , 10th Avenue, East John Street and East Denny Way. Each of the four buildings will be seven stories. Three will provide around 20 percent of their apartment units at affordable levels, while the Capitol Hill Housing B-North site will include 110 units at affordability rates of 30-60 percent of the area median income . The East Design Review Board ’s last assessment of the development, which is being led by Portland- based Gerding Edlen Development (GED), was in December. Board members agreed developers responded to the guidance provided at that time, but didn’t feel every r...

By Jessica Suerth CNN (CNN) -- More than 150 years after the Civil War ended , the Confederacy is memorialized with statues, monuments and historical markers across the United States. Some say they mark history and honor heritage. Others argue they are racist symbols of America's dark legacy of slavery. A nationwide debate surrounding this issue has been underway since Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston church in 2015, in an effort to "start a race war." And it flared up again after white nationalists marched last weekend to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one woman was killed amid violent clashes between demonstrators. The National Register of Historic Places does not keep a detailed list of Confederate memorials across the United States. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 1 ,503 Confederate "place names and other symbols in public spaces" across the nation, but admit...

Leonnel Davis sees change in Rochester and wonders what it means for her new neighbors. "I see growth in the community but not growth around where I live," she said. Up until about three months ago, Davis was living in a home in northeast Rochester, which she was hoping to buy through a contract for deed. However a pending divorce changed her plans, and she moved with her two grandchildren, one 12 and the other 15, to a three-bedroom apartment in the Andover Apartments complex in southeast Rochester. It wasn't the first choice for the 53-year-old grandmother, but searches for three-bedroom apartment kept coming with price tags as high as $1,900 a month in buildings near the city's core. "Who are they building that for? They couldn't be building it for me," she said, noting she pays $900 for rent in her new apartment as she points to needed repairs and cites safety concerns . "I'm on disability, and I'm a single grandparent....