Impacts of gentrification as a tourism placemaking strategy to portlandoregon local communities and businesses over the course of the past few years

The tourism industry is more than an economic booster alone; tourism promotes a variety of other vital societal facets such as the sharing of art, culture, and heritage among people of diverse backgrounds. Due to these and much more other tourism benefits, many countries are ever implementing ingenious tourism placemaking strategies to capitalize on tourism effectively. The United States of America being no exception; the majority of states’ economy in the United States highly rely on tourism as a main or partial reliable revenue regeneration source. Some of the renowned states which economically benefit from tourism include Nevada, New York, Florida, California, Massachusetts, and Washington among various more. However, despite the numerous economic benefits which tourism promises for these states. For the past couple of years now, the city of Portland, Oregon has and still is witnessing a tremendous increase in tourism attraction as compared to its last decade or so.

This remarkable increment in tourism can be ascribed to a wealthy number of factors which include but are not limited to the city’s bold tourism placemaking exertions such as the momentous increment in gentrification seen all around the city, the city’s cultural diversity and heritage. The city’s notable gentrification has dramatically resulted in the postmodernism of the entire city in general. The said tourism increment has been a double-edged sword to the town, bringing with it a high number of both beneficial/positive and negative outcomes/impacts to the city’s local communities and businesses establishments. This paper examines the after effects (both negative and positive) brought forth by tourism placemaking in the city of Portland, Oregon local communities and local businesses ventures.

To sustain and further promote this new found trending economic shift, the city’s commission government has implemented several tourism placemaking tactics which include the city’s post-industrial gentrification among a few others. Socially, from the beginning of the 20th century and throughout the 21st century the city has been and still is the home of hipsters social culture, the city is also known for its high lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population. Tourism Placemaking in Portland City Tourism increment in Portland has not just occurred spontaneously contrary to what the mass media and social media will have one belief. The road to making Portland city an idle tourism destination has been a long one to state the least. Portland city tourism placemaking has always been in a continuous evolving motion ever since the beginning of the 20th century and rapidly gaining its momentum in the beginning 21st century.

Many businesses in Portland, the likes of its famous coffee shops, microbrewers, antiquities and art stores, are the brainchild of the hipsters’ contemporary subculture. These stated businesses ventures among others have been and still are a major tourist attraction of the Portland city. This is an observable fact that is widely known to many individuals, but non-more than the city’s commission government which knows this for a fact, the city’s commission government as greatly exploit the publicity which is associated with the city’s peculiar culture as a tourism placemaking tactic. Compared to gentrification as a tourism placemaking strategy, the contemporary subculture tourism placemaking strategy offers little to no negative side effects/impacts. With gentrification a lot is left undesirable, according to a news article by The Guardian newspaper, gentrification of the city has made it a more attractive tourism destination.

Tourism as also ensured local traditions such as the Waterfront Blues festival and Oregon Brewers festival are not only kept alive but are full of vigor. The revenue generated from tourism also goes into protecting and maintaining the city’s gardens and parks. An improvement/upgrade of public infrastructures (gentrification) is also another added advantage associated with the increment in tourism numbers within the city. The city’s local commission government in their efforts to maintain/sustain the tourism levels being experienced in the city opt to invest highly on vital public infrastructures such as roads, hospital among many more useful public structures which in turn benefits not only the tourist alone but the locals as well. Many of these positive implications of tourism are shared universally in the tourism industry of many given countries and states in the United States.

1), the housing emergency being experienced in the city is a growing course of concern which if not dealt with soon stands to grow out of proportion and threats to destroy all that which the city’s local commission government has been working towards (the transforming/gentrification of the city into an ideal tourism destination/tourism placemaking of the city). All over the news, Social Media, and the entire internet in general stories about the Portland housing emergency seem to be ever trending. The situation has grown dire to the point where many local individuals are reported to be displaced or homeless (Wilson 2015, p. Discussion Although gentrification presents some undesirable somewhat semi unavoidable outcomes such as displacement of the locals of a given tourist destination(s).

Gentrification as a tourism placemaking tactic/tool holds a lot of promising potentials mostly in post-industrial economy based tourist destinations. In the pursuit to become the best tourist destination of choice, many city and other tourist destinations are every day implementing intrepid city gentrification to make their city/ tourist destination more tourist accommodative. This has proven to be successful at many tourist destinations. However, this said success to attract more tourists (successive tourism placemaking) has not come without its fair share of unwarranted impacts mainly affecting the local the given tourism destination(s). The High number of tourism to any given destination does not only mean beneficial profits to its economy alone, with an increment in tourism comes an increment of undesirable impacts.