Houses in the tiny Riverdale School District, sandwiched between Portland and Lake Oswego and consisting mostly of the Dunthorpe neighborhood, have commanded high prices for decades, partly because most of the area is spacious and forested, and partly because of the elementary school itself, which has the best student-teacher ratio of any regular public school in the Portland metropolitan area. The neighborhood also has one of the highest concentrations of income in the area, if not the highest; Riverdale may be the only school district in the state that usually has no in-district students who are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch. And in all but the very worst times, houses there usually sell fast.
Driving by recently, I noticed a lot of “for sale” signs, more than I’m used to seeing in that enclave of the economic elite, and more than I saw in an established and expensive portion of Lake Oswego. Then I remembered that all but four houses in the Riverdale District have one flaw: they’re in Multnomah County and their occupants must now pay the county income tax. That explained why the “for sale” signs stop at the county line. And it explained why house prices in my corner of suburbia (not by any means the equal of Dunthorpe) have shot up this year. I owe the Multnomah County commissioners a campaign contribution.