What is Niketown, U.S.A.? It isn't Portland; the shoemaker hasn't been based there. And it isn't Beaverton, despite appearances; Nike's campus is outside the city limits, and Nike lobbied the legislature heavily, and successfully, to prohibit Beaverton from annexing Nike's campus. The measure, Senate Bill 887, prohibits Beaverton from annexing any unincorporated islands that its city limits surround. It also prohibits any city, for the next 40 years or so, from annexing property that meets certain qualifications.
What kind of qualifications? Here's an example: industrial property of at least 150 acres, under single ownership, with no electors living there, and assessed at more than $12 million with private, on-site security services. Here's another example: land within the Portland urban growth boundary of at least 14 acres on which an Oregon-based business has been operating for at least 40 years and which has at least 300 employees on the property. The bill has two other similar exemptions. It doesn't take much work to figure out that one is Nike, one is Tektronix, and one is Columbia Sportswear.
Beaverton had talked about annexing Nike's campus, which would have increased Nike's property taxes by several hundred thousand dollars, and Nike went to the legislature for help. And Nike won.
The problem, however, if you're Nike, is that Nike didn't think of everything. Just to the east and north of Nike's campus is the neighborhood of Cedar Hills, with its fiercely active neighborhood association that has kept it out of Beaverton, and proudly unincorporated, since it was developed 50 years ago. Beaverton would like to annex Cedar Hills, but Cedar Hills doesn't want in. (And it hasn't had to run to the legislature for help, either.)
But suppose Cedar Hills wanted to incorporate as a separate city? Senate Bill 887 doesn't protect Nike from becoming part of a new city -- and because no one lives on the Nike campus (otherwise Beaverton could annex it; see Senate Bill 887) Nike wouldn't get to vote on it. The Cedar Hills homeowners could petition to hold an incorporation election, include Nike in the city's boundaries, and get (by my figuring) about 70% of the new city's tax revenues from Nike. Wanna build a park? Hold a bond election; if it passes, Nike pays 70%. Wanna build a gym? Hold a bond election; Nike pays 70%. Wanna give economic incentives to Reebok? Hold a bond election; Nike pays 70%.
Ordinarily big cities in the area don't like new small cities to incorporate near their borders. Beaverton would have a right (if I recall correctly) to veto the incorporation of Cedar Hills, as it did the incorporation of Aloha some years ago. But I'm guessing that the councilors of Beaverton just might be irritated enough with Nike to forget to object to the formation of the City of Cedar Hills -- or, as they might name it if they have the Laquedem sense of humor, Niketown.