It’s so Joever
Forumlurker161
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« on: January 23, 2021, 11:40:47 AM » |
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Obvious Safe D county is obvious. It probably last voted Republican in like, 1972 (depends on Dade college tho) It’s probably just as safe on the local level.
As for primaries, I am guessing that Clinton just barely beat Sanders by a tiny margin (maybe only a few votes)
Biden likely won but would have certainly lost the primary to Sanders had it been before Super Tuesday.
Name: Kent County, Oregon
Location: Northern Oregon, in between Portlandia and Mount Hood (but closer to the latter)
Population: 47,199
MHI: 44,000$
Economy: Agriculture, Tourism, Logging
Demographics: 42% White, 37% Asian, 10% Mixed, 11% Other (self identified)
History:
Originally Kent County was nonexistent, being a part of Clackamas.
(When Multnomah was created in this timeline, it did not absorb some of its Eastern parts.)
A few “pioneers” from the East Coast did end up moving here, although most left for the better terrain of the nearby valley or one of the towns along the Columbia River further downstream.
The town seat was really a small hamlet called Melbourne.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the 1877 Chinatown riots were a lot worse than otl, with over 40 deaths and the entire neighborhood completely destroyed.
A few thousand Chinese families, disillusioned with their neighbors, decided to say screw it and fled to the Melbourne area.
Although a few locals protested, they were outnumbered and themselves had little attachment to the area. Over time, Melbourne became majority Chinese-American. Other than a few strange white settlers, and some logging activity, the area was left alone for the most part. More development occurred in the Williamnette valley where far more people were and Portland was close enough to distract from the town itself.
Melbourne (and what would become the county itself) was isolated in many ways, only being connected by some poorly managed roads for decades to the rest of the area. Overtime the Chinese in Melbourne developed their own unique culture, with a weird dialect of Chinese plus pidgin languages emerging.
The families were largely impoverished subsistence farmers, and the area remained poor and undeveloped for years.
Due to the trauma of the riots, the local Chinese were very hostile towards outsiders (ironically enough) and developed an insular culture, not having much contact with anyone else (other than the remaining whites who integrated/adapted over time)
Efforts to separate from the rest of Clackamas County were unsuccessful for a long time (somewhat because nobody wanted to give a bunch of Asians their own county) until the 1950s.
Kent County was created from what was Northeast Clackamas. Around the same time, a major highway was built through the area. The locals objected, again out of suspicion, but their concerns were ignored.
Even so, Kent County remained relatively small and insular until the tech boom of the 90’s in neighboring Portland.
While at first Kent County was not influenced much, over time hipsters took note of the strange character of the town of Melbourne and the area began to be a tourist destination for a quick trip from Portland/stop on the way to Mount Hood. Local hotels and boutiques popped up around the Main Street, although the attempted gentrifiers were met with great suspicion/borderline hostility by the local Chinese and Whites alike.
This tension continued to grow over the 2000’s, and a new element was added when exurban growth began along the Western parts of Kent and in the vicinity of the highway.
Today Melbourne is still the largest town, but the exurbs are swelling rapidly and continue to push into the county further each year. Some have embraced the tourism in Melbourne as a way to make money, but many others have viewed it with hostility, seeing it as destruction of their culture (along with historical biases)
Melbourne lies in the Southern central part of the county near the highway, the exurbs lay along the Western edges, and the rest of the county is relatively empty (with only some logging activity and a few tiny villages)
The exurbs are upper middle class while Melbourne is mixed. The majority locals tend to be lower income while the transplants obviously are wealthier. Basically a gentrifying area.
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