Year: 2013

Neglected eastside neighborhoods begin to attract political attention and grow new community-based business models.

Efforts to balance logging and environmental issues move forward in eastern Oregon as gridlock continues in the west.

Looking out the sixth-floor windows of the David Evans and Associates building in downtown Portland, a visitor sees numerous engineering projects the company has either helped build or rebuild.

After shelling out for acreage, machinery, landscaping, labor costs, bottling and marketing, budding vintners would be lucky to start a standard winery in the Willamette Valley for anything less than several hundred thousand dollars. But in Portland, another business model for wineries is sprouting that’s more like founding Facebook than starting a farm.

For the next four years, a niche bike apparel company with its U.S. headquarters in Portland will outfit the top-ranked pro-cycling team in the world. The London-based company Rapha announced in January its sponsorship of the British Team Sky, which claims 2012 Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins and several national champions among its ranks.

The state and local governments extend hundreds of millions of dollars each year in property tax waivers, corporate income tax credits, rebates and loans. Yet the question remains: Do tax credits and incentives actually create jobs?

Oregon is indeed a blue state, at least where berries are concerned.

Every package of Dave’s Killer Bread tells president Dave Dahl’s rags-to-riches story in small print on the bottom. “I was a four-time loser,” it begins, “before I realized I was in the wrong game.”

In many parts of Europe and Asia, mobile tickets and payments for transit are ubiquitous.

Three major international sporting goods companies are located in the Portland metro area: Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear. Nevertheless, fewer than half the 491 readers surveyed identified Oregon as a hub for the sporting and athletic goods industry.