Editor’s note: This is the second in an occasional series about how East Portland neighborhoods are experiencing district representation in the city’s new government. Find our previous reporting here.
If you asked where downtown Portland was on a map in the early 1980s, a young Steph Routh would have pointed to Gateway Shopping Center.
“For me, it was the city center,” said Routh, now 49, who grew up walking distance away from the commerce hub at Northeast Halsey Street and 102nd Avenue. Routh remembers running into friends in the parking lot and the bustling mom-and-pop storefronts. “It was just full of treasures — a bead shop, a music store. It was where you wanted to be.”…