Portland, I love you, but lately you confuse me. I know neither of us are as young or as cool as we thought we used to be, but we still care about the same things, don’t we? We still value the same things, right?

I remember we used to go for walks and stop in a quaint coffee shop and just watch the wonderfully weird people pass by the window on their way to do something that we were sure was too cool for us to even know about. Or we’d see the guy at Alive at Five with the fancy suit on and thought, “Whoa, that’s a real grown-up.” Well, I’m probably the same age as that real grown-up now and I own one suit, but it has a stain from sitting in something weird.

Anyway, I hear you’ve been talking to Live Nation?

I get the appeal, I really do. You look at a project that promises to give you $44 million a year and you think “Wow, no one has ever loved me like that before,” but you’re wrong. You’ve been loved like that right under your nose for decades, you just never valued it.

Sure, you would write about it in your brochures along with talking about our amazing independent restaurant scene. Remember in 2006 when Hooters wanted to come in and you put a moratorium on the project then changed the zoning so that it couldn’t come in at all? That was great. You used to really stand for something.

But I guess I wonder what’s changed. Is it me? Is it my friends? Or is it you? I mean, my friends all moved out of town because they just couldn’t afford you anymore, so it can’t be them. You said it was all in the name of progress, and I believed you. I didn’t agree, but I trusted your judgment.

It can’t be me. I’ve been nice to you, I’ve paid my taxes, supported your businesses, played a show or two and generally tried to make you a better place in whatever ways I can. It must be you.

Your current involvement with Live Nation is really at odds with who I thought you were. When I met you we were both a little rough around the edges, figuring out who we were, but one thing was for sure — we had character. You even named a whole district after how artsy you thought you were.

Venues came and went, but they always lived or died by the work that was poured into them. It certainly wasn’t because of the money, but because it was all we knew how to do.  Sometimes they died because you let the rich people who bought condos downtown tell you it was too loud, but that’s another story not worth relitigating here.

You seem to be going all in with Live Nation, but do you really know them? You know that they’re being sued by the federal government and 40 state attorneys general, right? They’re being sued for doing exactly what we’re all afraid they’re gonna do here. I know they said that they wont do that, but you believed them? I thought you were smarter than that.

Will you at least think of the other businesses that will be affected by this? All those businesses that made this place the kind of place that they want to exploit? Before handing over a set of keys to our cultural identity, just think about who got you here. The businesses that give back to you because they care about the community even though you don’t give back to them.

You love talking about the arts, and with good reason. Our creatives are incredible both in skill and determination, but you do know that you provide less funding for the arts than other similarly sized cities?

Getting back to the district you named for the arts, it seems like there’s a lot of talk recently about how many of the stores there are closing and leaving vacancies. Can you imagine what it will be like when empty storefronts become empty performance halls and theaters? Doesn’t really sound like much of an arts district anymore, does it?

Some people call what we’re talking about “The Walmart effect” and while this is similar, Walmart has just that, an effect. Live Nation has intention, and their intention is to consolidate your little artsy things into several caverns of unrelenting consumerism. I know you’ll just say they’re good at business. You do respect a good hustle, but the government calls them a criminal enterprise.

See, we all knew things would change. Portland wouldn’t always be ours. Soon the secret would be out about our little rough around the edges city by the sea. We knew that was a risk when we invested here. Whether it was our time, our talent or our money, we left it all on the field for you and we were happy to do it.

Don’t let us be another victim of success. We deserve better. You deserve better.