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Californians are ruining Portland! That's what almost every article about the gentrification problems currently plaguing Portland seems to imply. Some especially militant types have even taken to putting "No Californians" stickers on For Sale signs in front of houses that have gone on the market recently.

It's a simple problem to explain, really. Housing in Oregon isn't cheap, but compared to California it certainly is. So people from the Golden State are flocking to the Nike State in droves to live in houses with yards and dye their hair blue and live in exactly all of the other ways people do on Portlandia.

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It's obnoxious, and the people of Portland have had enough! That's how articles like this one happen. If you don't have the time or patience to click the link, it's basically an editorial in the Portland Mercury from a lifelong resident that lays out in great detail all of the things people who move to Portland are and aren't allowed to talk about, how long they're supposed to wait before talking about them, and, of course, the myriad transgressions for which this newfound immigrant class should apologize. After all, they're the ones responsible for ruining Portland, right?

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Sorry, Portland, but nah. You not only brought your current situation on yourself, you practically demanded that things be this way. See, there's a detail about the Portland gentrification problem that lifetime residents consistently leave out when demonizing California for all of their city's woes. In 1999, home builders in Portland pressured the Oregon Home Builders Association to lobby the state senate to impose a ban on something called inclusionary zoning. What's that? Oh, just a type of zoning regulation that requires developers to dedicate a certain percentage of any new construction project to building affordable housing for residents. Here's a handy chart that explains it in more detail, albeit in a font that's way too small to serve any constructive purpose here.