One of the State’s Leading Economic Observers Says Oregon’s Growth Is Over

This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project , a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.

As Oregon’s political and business leaders prepared for a summit later this year, they asked John Tapogna, the former president of the consulting firm ECOnorthwest , to survey the state’s current condition and take a look at its future. What Tapogna found is sobering—more Oregonians are dying than being born, and those being born are entering an educational system whose test scores have plummeted, despite new spending. In short, the boom days are over.

Tapogna identified five major challenges the state faces: a housing shortage; lousy K–12 schools; wildfires; overreliance on income taxes; and ambivalence about growth. He notes that the one that scares him the most—wildfires—is the