Dear Pearl,

Dear Pearl District,

I grew up in Portland and was very surprised you started to exist. I can understand the existence of places like Beaverton, Lake Oswego and Vancouver, for not everyone is suited for city life, but want the easy access to Portland’s urban center. You, on the other hand, do not make sense to me at all.

I walk through you to get to work on the other side of the 405, which is your most western boundary. I walk from under the Broadway Bridge and up Marshall, and sometimes to mix things up I walk up Lovejoy, and walk by your coffee shops, salons, apartment lobbies and boutiques. Sometimes I walk through you to Powell’s bookstore which unfortunately is right at the gateway of your urban make believe world. I have to walk by your breweries, fancy bars and boutiques to find my city of books being surrounded by meat market taverns disguised as sport bars, unnecessarily expensive outdoor clothing and near Whole Foods whose owner gave money to libertarian and republican candidates while its your shoppers park their Subaru with Obama stickers.

I have to tell you, I don’t like your existence. I guess I need to let you know why I’m seriously disappointed in you. When I first started exploring your little eco-system, I liked what I saw. It was a little more European. It was pedestrian friendly.

Now I have hung out with you long enough to know; you are a suburb in the middle of the city.

Cars twice in the pearl have hit me and nowhere else in the city. Cars have almost hit me more times than I can count. Your locals and your tourists don’t know how to drive through the one ways and how to navigate cross walks. I see you trying to parallel park Rhode Island sized SUVs while not taking the time to hang up your phone. I have seen you run stop signs and hit bicyclists and pedestrians in a part of town that is probably the most congested with those.

Not that I think the cyclists are exactly innocent. They bomb through the stop signs with their entitled ways making old people freeze like deer in headlights in the middle of intersections. I know, you are on your way to LA Fitness or 24 Hour Fitness or one of the many gyms in the neighborhood, so get the fuck out of my way, less than healthy person. You have to adhere to the road laws too, Armstrong.

Shit! There is dog shit everywhere. You love you little Shith Tzu? You still have to take a bag and pick up her little pile of hot steaming shit and put in a garbage bag. I have seen the ‘I’m on the phone so I didn’t notice my little puppy wuppy do a little poo poo’ trick too many times. Get a fucking cat if you you’re too lazy to keep a dog in a condo and walk it down mostly cement sidewalks.

Also, while I’m on the dog thing, you still have to train your dog and be a responsible owner. Your dog has sat in your Ikea cataloged flat all day while you checked Facebook for two hours at Barista rode your bike to the gym and had some happy hour at Bluehour. Your dog is going to be energetic and is stoked to find a bunch of other dogs pissing in the fountain that all the kids play in during the summer. Your dog is going to want to play. Some dogs think its fun to bite and pin other dogs. Don’t just stand there pretending to be a J Crew model, scold your fucking dog!

Speaking of dogs, your fucking kids are ridiculous. First off, your stroller does not need to be the size of Volkswagen Bug. You walk slowly down the sidewalk and your stroller goes from building to curb while you talk on you IPhone about these boots you wanna by, but your husband might get them for you when you get back from you yoga retreat up in the San Juan Islands. I have to wait till its safe enough to jump out into the street and speed walk around you small pathetic world and your crying baby.

There are too many dessert places in the Pearl and all of them cater to spoiled rotten kids. Ice cream, gelato, a couple of cupcake shop all create clusters of kids who are earning their diabetes stripes.

You build this urban paradise right off of Burnside and you look down disgusted at the panhandlers? You wanted a loft in the Pearl because it was artsy and urban. Go back to your safe little strip mall oasis on the other side of the ridge. You get to live right next to a section of town where people are dying of addiction and hunger. People are wandering the streets that should be in mental institutions, but aren’t because you don’t want to pay those taxes. You want artsy, ask the person mumbling to themselves and smells like your dog’s shit you don’t pick up, who they are talking to.

The buildings that you put up are ugly. You must have thought they were so modern and slick to replace all those beautiful old warehouses. They look like shit. I think I see the designs of architectural school drop outs who took acid and tried to have sex with the 3D printer while it spit out your condo & retail masterpieces. You are still building them and taking the ugliness further and further north.

Most of the art I see in your galleries are shitty. There isn’t a lot happening in the Pearl that hasn’t already been done for the last sixty or so years. If you were showing cutting edge art that actually challenged people, maybe I would ever call you an ‘art district’, but all I see are over priced frame shops.

I’m sorry, Pearl, I have kept this resentment in too long. You had to know. I walk through your pretend city watching your citizens play city life and I get infuriated. I get on the streetcar and everyone in their North Face jackets and CK jeans pretend they didn’t know they had to pay when the fare inspector comes on. It’s me and the undesirables who pay the fares while your folks and the tourists take advantage. I want to scream at them. You can afford those Nike running shoes, but you can’t afford a dollar for a ten block ride?!?

I know you’ll tell me that all that was there was abandoned warehouses. Those warehouses, water towers and loading docks were real. They weren’t this fake idea of what a city is. Keep running with your ear phones in, keep going to the gym on your expensive road bikes, keep eating fig rolls and drinking Starbucks and keep looking down at the street root vendors, but I know who you really are. You are a suburbanite playing urban person. You ain’t from the city.

Thanks for listening, Pearl. I know you won’t do anything to change, but I’m sure you’ll get worst. Something better will come along and all your little souls will abandon you for the ‘next’ thing. I watched the 23^rd Avenue die a slow horrible death, so I don’t see why you’d live any longer.