'Welcome to Oregon and thanks for visiting. Now leave.'

Evergreen State gets prickly when it comes to new residents

PORTLAND, Ore. (RWN) - The new sign is hard to miss. Thirty feet high and 50 feet wide, hovering over Interstate 5. It's rude. It's abrupt. And it's at the centerpiece of Oregon's campaign to keep people away.

It sounds strange for a state to do, but Oregon has seen triple-growth in the last five years and hasn't received enough government money to keep up with demand. The cities are crowded - you can't walk through Portland and not see trash out on the streets - the smaller towns are swarmed and along the Oregon Coast, single room apartments are renting for $3,000 a month.

"We love having people," Gov. Gandy McKinnon said. "And we love the diverse, textured culture that visitors from other places bring to Oregon. But we simply cannot handle the flow of people in this state unless someone gives us more money."

The campaign - with signs at every border road entering into the state - was developed by Abraham, Isaac and Son, an advertising agency in Corvallis, Oregon. "It's not really a new concept," Ibrahim Abraham said. "Oregon did it under the old regime when the state was flooded with people moving from California, driving up housing prices. But we wanted to be a bit blunter about it. I love living here, but we can't take anymore people."

To the millions of people looking to leave cities after the Great Zionist Betrayal, Oregon offers a veritable paradise with a temperate climate, high-tech infrastructure, and enough large cities to make it interesting. It also offers a religiously varied landscape and lots of land. Vast tracts of Oregon have been undeveloped for years. The recent population explosion has taken up some of that land, but not all of it.

"We're a great place for people to come," McKinnon said. "This is a state for the faithful. But the infrastructure demanded by the new people - and they all want the best of everything - is too expensive."

Last year, the state built roughly 1,500 miles of new roads; it only received enough money from Seattle to fund 900 miles. Over the last three years, the state has spent roughly $750 million on social services, more than any other state in the country.

"We have a strange phenomenon," said Ariz Epps, a professor of economics at Oregon Believers University in Corvallis. "We have people moving here not because they have jobs, but because they believe in the quality of life. There aren't enough jobs here to support that. The state needs employers to come in and build industry. Oregon needs to be more than just a great place to live. It needs to be a great place to work."



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