The Portland Public Market lasted less than a decade as a market and within 40 years the whole thing was torn down–this building was a boondoggle. An illuminating boondoggle, though, showing how public-private partnerships are often nothing of the sort, just a convoluted way for the wealthy and connected to generate privatized profits and socialized losses. In this case, the private company who built the market went to court to force the city to buy the white elephant they developed, succeeding despite a decade’s worth of corruption allegations, indictments, and a recall election. It also reveals the intense, almost tectonic, pressure it took to reshape American cities in favor of cars–by replacing the old Carroll Public Market with a new, auto-friendly hulk here city planners could redesign Yamhill Street to prioritize cars–but also the fight back for livability, with the demolition of the Market Building and Harbor Drive in the 1970s the first example of freeway removal in the US.
