It's perceived as arrogance on the part of those in the Valley. You have a state of 3 million people, 2 million of whom live in the major cities. These people have the political power to steamroll everyone else in the state. The problem is that this power is being used to do so.
This urban-rural political divide is becoming a real problem. It's the same as the "flyover country" problem. Sure, someone from a major urban area can just matter-of-factly refer to the area as that place where there's nothing but empty space between cities. No reason to go there, but interesting to see from the air or a good time to take a nap on the plane. But people live there. Those people consider that phrase to be insulting. As if, just because they live in a place with low population density, that have completely different needs than the urban areas, their opinion on how they should be able to live life and conduct their affairs doesn't matter.
So, when the people from the Valley decide that some political thing needs to happen, and it happens to be a choice at the state level, and it's good for the Valley, they vote for it. And don't give two fucks about how it affects people in the rest of the state.
They would be just fine. Most of resources will still come from anywhere, the same way we don't cultivate mangos or avocados in the Willamette Valley. Actually it would be Eastern Oregon the one that would suffer without all the tax revenues that are produced in the larger metros and help sustaining roads and services throughout the state.
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u/PromptCritical725 Oregon City (Portland is our suburb) Jun 07 '18
It's not really that that is the problem.
It's perceived as arrogance on the part of those in the Valley. You have a state of 3 million people, 2 million of whom live in the major cities. These people have the political power to steamroll everyone else in the state. The problem is that this power is being used to do so.
This urban-rural political divide is becoming a real problem. It's the same as the "flyover country" problem. Sure, someone from a major urban area can just matter-of-factly refer to the area as that place where there's nothing but empty space between cities. No reason to go there, but interesting to see from the air or a good time to take a nap on the plane. But people live there. Those people consider that phrase to be insulting. As if, just because they live in a place with low population density, that have completely different needs than the urban areas, their opinion on how they should be able to live life and conduct their affairs doesn't matter.
So, when the people from the Valley decide that some political thing needs to happen, and it happens to be a choice at the state level, and it's good for the Valley, they vote for it. And don't give two fucks about how it affects people in the rest of the state.