The July 4th issue of Willamette Week has a very interesting article about changes in the Eliot and Boise neighborhoods.

The author, Nancy Rommelmann, is a relatively new Portland transplant who lives on Northeast Cook Street between Rodney and Williams. She talks about the significant demographic changes she’s seen on her block in just the few years since she bought her house. I appreciated her nuanced attitudes about change and the wide range of people she quoted.

Coincidentally, the day before Willamette Week published the article, I bicycled along that very stretch of Cook Street. I noticed two houses next door to each other, both porches full of loud, revelers. One group was African American. The other was white. I thought it was a telling snapshot of our changing neighborhood.