Portland’s $30 Million Container Shipping Folly Cargo cults are a well-documented sociological phenomenon: Cargo cults were religious movements that emerged among indigenous people in Melanesia during the early to mid-20th century. The cults were inspired by the arrival of European colonizers…
Once again, Portland loses container service: the economic effects will be minimal. Economic development has long been obsessed with “cargo cult” thinking: the idea that economic prosperity is caused by ports and highways moving raw materials and finished goods. That…
A central message of the highway building sales pitch is that traffic is ever-growing and ever worsening, and that we have no choice but to throw more money at expanded capacity. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) claims that traffic…