Portland is a great place (to be from?)

[Por_sha911]

A Portland, Oregon, clothing shop permanently shut down this month after facing a string of break-ins that has left the store financially gutted, according to a note posted to the front of the store.
placeholder

"Our city is in peril," a printed note posted on Rains PDX store reads, according to KATU2. "Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins … we have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd."

The store’s owner Marcy Landolfo said that after 15 break-ins over the last year and a half, the business can’t survive the financial burdens the crimes have cost the shop.

"The problem is, as small businesses, we cannot sustain those types of losses and stay in business. I won’t even go into the numbers of how much has been out of pocket," she said.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/portland-store-shuts-down-posts-blistering-note-front-door-slamming-rampant-crime-city-peril

[flatbutt]

All is well there right?

"The city saw a 58% increase in homicides in 2020 compared to the year prior, and 2021 notched a 54% increase in homicides compared to the already violent and bloody 2020. The number of homicides in 2021 was a 238% increase from the numbers recorded in 2018."

[expatriot98]

This is all caused by racism and global warming. And conservatives.

[pwd72s]

A once beautiful small city turned into a sewer.

[908/930]

I would bet that most of the people causing the problems have arrived from other (colder) states. Same problems up here in Vancouver.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

All is well there right?

"The city saw a 58% increase in homicides in 2020 compared to the year prior, and 2021 notched a 54% increase in homicides compared to the already violent and bloody 2020. The number of homicides in 2021 was a 238% increase from the numbers recorded in 2018."

I'd like to see stats for other large cities. A lot of things changed starting in 2020.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by expatriot98

This is all caused by racism and global warming. And conservatives.

funny.

Off to PARF.

[LWJ]

As a 56 year native and resident (suburbs now), Portland is much maligned and denigrated.

We just voted out a very unpopular city commissioner a few weeks ago for a seemingly normal human.

Homelessness is terrible. This is the #1 problem. And it’s bad.

People know this and are working towards solutions. My oldest kid lives in Portland proper. I own property in Portland. I work in Portland. It’s a great city with some bumps.

I will say that Portland has attracted people whom I am not eye to eye with politically- and their ideas have seemingly backfired.

Give it a couple years, Portland is a lovely city.

[Rusty Heap]

Meth and Needles, Seattle is right behind for being a downtown dump.

[MMARSH]

I'm originally from a suburb of Portland. (Gladstone) Worked at a gas station in West Linn and a Mcdonalds in Milwaukee in high school. I ended up down in LA, 35 years ago after the military. Mom worked at Bonneville Power in Portland close to the Lloyd center.

Five life long buddies of mine(West Linn area) are all retired career Portland PD guys. The last one retired early after dealing with all the BS up there last year.....All of them couldn't get out of Portland quick enough and have all moved to Central Oregon. Soon as my wife retires, I'll be getting out of LA and moving there as well. Portland used to be a lovely city, but it has a lot of work to do.

[juanbenae]

Originally Posted by LWJ

As a 56 year native and resident (suburbs now), Portland is much maligned and denigrated.

We just voted out a very unpopular city commissioner a few weeks ago for a seemingly normal human.

Homelessness is terrible. This is the #1 problem. And it’s bad.

People know this and are working towards solutions. My oldest kid lives in Portland proper. I own property in Portland. I work in Portland. It’s a great city with some bumps.

I will say that Portland has attracted people whom I am not eye to eye with politically- and their ideas have seemingly backfired.

Give it a couple years, Portland is a lovely city.

well said.

problem is things have changed everywhere, i left the bay area because of it. the antifa came to portland and ruined it, the neo-****'s visited charlotte with they's torches, vests, helmets, pepper spray, that dodge running over all them folk and such changing it forever.

let's remember, there are good people on both sides...

[LWJ]

If you watch a certain news network, you will think Portland is a dump.

Come visit and have a readjustment.

Antifa and rioters simply DID NOT exist except for a number of protesters- and I think they all came from out of state.

And Portland police? Has been the lowest performing/ lowest educated law enforcement agency I have seen.

Multnomah County / Oregon State / other cities all have a police culture that is far healthier- my long opinion.

My uncle came to a similar opinion of Portland after a career of Portland Police service. My buddy and his wife worked for another agency (law enforcement) and happily still live in Portland with their kids after retirement.

Consider the bias.

My wife went to a talk downtown last week. Theater the week prior. My son’s girlfriend went to an event last week. They all went to dinner in the “low rent” part of town.

They had a no issue lovely time. Each time.

Gents, you are largely being fed BS.

Sorry for the rant.

[Baz]

Mom was born there in 1923.....but grew up in Seattle.

Ended up enlisting in the Navy in 1944.

Times were sure different back then!

[Frog76S]

I’m a native Oregonian and have lived in he suburbs most of my life. I lived in Asia from 2015 - 2021. Portland took a tremendous down turn during the six years I was away. My wife works for a Fortune 500 company and they recruit from all over the USA. They’ve had several prospective employees come to town to visit, find a place to live and ultimately decline decline six figure jobs after seeing Portland. My brother in law was a handyman at a Portland apartment complex which routinely had the washing machines vandalized for the quarters and he had his truck broken into. Portland is a dump! We plan to retire out of state, far away from this mess here!

[Rusty Heap]

Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the United States. With one strip club for every 11,826 residents, Portland far outranks Miami, New Orleans, and Las Vegas—larger cities with long-held reputations as meccas for adult entertainment.

Jul 6, 2022

[jyl]

Portland government has structural problems. Beyond the outdated "commission" form of city government, which was (in my opinion) not properly addressed in the recent charter reform vote, we have overlapping governments - City of Portland, Multnomah County, and Metro. Almost all the money available to deal with homelessness. mental health, drug abuse, housing, and other social problems is controlled by the county and Metro. Voters are furious at the city for failing to deal with those problems, which the city lacks the ability to tackle, while having little awareness of country and Metro, whose elected officials are thus largely unaccountable.

There is another problem, which is that Portland's political establishment is insular and tribal. I know many of the local political leaders and observe that they suffer from groupthink, judge people by if they are "in the club", think ideologically rather than pragmatically, and basically live in their little bubble.

An interesting conflict will emerge in the next couple of years, I think. Oregon is shifting rightward, from "deep blue" (Democratic) to purple (swing state). The reason is how Portland is viewed by the population in the suburbs. Oregon is blue only because of about nine electoral districts that comprise Portland and its suburbs. If a few of the suburban districts flip to purple, Oregon will flip as well, even if Portland/Multnomah County itself remains solidly blue. Those suburban voters' image of Portland is largely shaped by the profusion of homeless camps all over the place; they want to see tents off the streets, by any means necessary. Democrats at the state level know this (Tina Kotek barely won the governorship and her ads were all about how she's going to rapidly tackle homelessness) and they realize they need to quickly "clean up" (i.e. move to be out of sight) Portland's homeless camps or lose control of the state. Democrats in Portland/Multnomah County don't understand this and are sticking to their long-term "housing-first" strategy. Kotek needs the Multnomah Democrats' support to stay in office, but she also needs to radically change their approach to homelessness to stay in office. How she reconciles this conflict will determine her, and Oregon's, political future.

I'm fairly pessimistic that she will be able to thread the needle. I can't stand Kotek, had numerous run-ins with her office during my involvement in local politics and historic preservation, was on the receiving end of her "racist card" tactics.

The city's current proposal to build several large supervised camps and force homeless to camp there instead of all over the place is basically a "quick clean-up" effort. The local activists are all attacking the proposal, saying it won't address the root causes of homelessness. They are correct and they also completely miss the point. Watch to see which side Kotek comes down on.

[Racerbvd]

[island911]

To paraphrase James Carville - It's the drugs stupid.

What everyone needs to understand is Druggies have singular focus in life - getting more drugs.

Notice that cities with policies that encourage drug 'culture' turn to shi... sewers.

No job druggie? That's ok, we will not prosecute theft!

Need a place to flop? - use the street, or a park. Need to excrete bodily fluids? - anywhere!

Possessing illegal drugs? Not illegal if it's under a 30 day supply!

Need free clean needles? Crack pipes? a "safe" place to get high? You got it, because we care (for our drug cartels.)

Amazing times...

[Brown747]

[pwd72s]

Island summed it up well. Oh, almost forgot...a Soros funded D.A. in Multnomah County.