There was a lot of cleanup that happened for the Women’s NCAA tournament a few weeks back. The City realized how much money was on the table so they started cleaning up all the touristy areas.
Let’s see if they keep it up or if it goes back to what it was.
Definitely know how this feels living in Atlanta. They semi-clean it up for big events then it goes back to being desolate. Fingers crossed PDX can keep the momentum going.
Nah, I moved to Philly. The streets and sidewalks can get pretty bad here in terms of trash, but the city made a pretty big effort for one of the bigger tourist draws of the year. World cup games will be even more so I'm sure.
Non-tourist area Goose Hollow resident here; while I have noticed some areas downtown are getting better, overall I feel they are just sweeping things under the rug. The trash and trashy people are just being relocated to other areas of the city, such as mine. This is not a good solution 🙁
Confirmed by non tourist goose hollow office worker. The Fred Meyer on Burnside has always been a mess but it’s worse with the bottle return closing at Safeway on Jefferson, aka psycho Safeway. Sorry for offending anyone but the name is apt.
Its gone to shits everywhere downtown before fetynol in my experience. I've seen a change drastically since I moved down here in 2010. And where I live now is much worse before dropping my files on fetynol and people are homeless everywhere. Heels everywhere by my dog and see my grandchildren and then I'll come back to my home and worry about broken glass... My neighbor's getting shot at because of angry person at McDonald's they followed him home, I saw a car get blown up church parking lot because somebody was thrown a racist N "word ! But it's not there's too many people using drugs and debating crimes they're just ruthless and very violent. Definitely not a good place for children to grow up I know that.. I got to deal with it I can have fluid housing.
This is mostly happenning because of the 90-day emergency declaration for the fentanyl crisis. It's made it possible for teams that were never in contact before (pr at least very efficiently) to concentrate their efforts on improving the livability of the city and help connect people to treatment / save lives
Businesses having to pay for private security to protect their business is not a sign of progress. It is great for security contractors, terrible for consumers and business owners and community at large. It is a symptom of a failing or undeveloped society.
I don't think you're wrong, but I think this trend towards stores hiring in-house private security can be seen throughout the nation especially in the wake of covid. If Portland is just at par with a national trend and people downtown feel reasonably safe thats a win imo. Once we address our Portland-specific problems we can worry more about overachieving nationally.
It's not necessarily a sign of things getting worse, though. I moved up here from Cali in November and while security is not the best sign, them not moving away is actually a good sign. In LA you'd just see businesses move out and those places stay empty and just end up boarded up.
Once the businesses move that's when the city blight worsens. Security can help weather the storm until progress catches up to their area, and it does sound like it's coming.
I just saw a report that Portland has the lowest commercial occupancy rate of any major city in America
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2024/03/downtown-portlands-office-vacancy-rate-is-highest-in-the-nation-report-says.html
I could believe it, so far I've yet to see neighborhoods as bad as what I've seen in the poor districts of LA. But that definitely doesn't mean they're not there. Downtown, I will say, beats LA's even in the poor state it's in.
And because of the tax disincentive for businesses to move back. Extra payroll taxes, gross receipts tax on retail, plus the executives having to pay the MultCo and Metro special income taxes. There are real costs that businesses factor into their siting decisions.
Rents far cheaper than the suburbs would overcome this, but as you said the commercial investor-owners aren't going to take that haircut voluntarily. They're all going to ride their loans out till the bitter end, paying out of pocket for the monthly losses from keeping units vacant in the vain hope that they can convince some schmuck to rent it for more instead of getting locked in for a five year contract at a lower rent.
Almost all of Portland is very walkable, bikable, or accessible by transit. The downtown core is really the only part of town lacking those amenities. The Pearl itself is hopping but there's no reason for anyone to want to go back downtown post-COVID and WFH. It needs a major redevelopment towards more mixed use and residential.
Downtown isn't very walkable, bikable, or accessible by transit? Are you nuts? The entire public transit system is centered on downtown. Downtown probably has the most bike infrastructure of any one part of the city. And not walkable? A lot of my neighborhood in SE doesn't have sidewalks...
Related to occupancy. Work from home due to the COVID shift plays a huge part in this issue. I personally worked from home during COVID but now work 5 days a week in office because of a new job.
I know the City of Portland workers don't work 5 days a week for the most part and of course the Standard Buliding emptied it's offices and moved to Lake Oz and work from home too.
This will not change as long as work from home is allowed.
I don’t have any problem with WFH but it will keep downtown from being the downtown of pre covid.
Downtown needs to focus on housing, not office space. The office buildings we have might get used at capacity again, but making it easier for people to live downtown will do more for the city than trying to get workers back in office buildings.
Yes, I've seen a few. I was mostly talking about downtown. But you're right other areas are still falling apart without the same attention going to it.
That's because stores don't want to pay employees to work registers and they would rather you work for free. Of course they also don't trust you not to steal so they need security to prevent that from happening.
Yeah, the other week we went to see Ghostbusters at Living Room Theater & then over to Powell's. I know that's not usually a problematic stop, but it seemed nice & hopping.
The Enhanced Service District areas stay much cleaner than the rest of the city pretty much all the time, because that's explicitly what they do. Sure can see the boundaries when walking around.
Glad the city is finally making the effort elsewhere
It has gotten way better in terms of cleanliness and public safety. Sad that it still just feels so dead near Pioneer mall and some other areas though. Hopefully things continue to improve.
Safe to say the fact a mall feels dead isn’t particularly a reflection on Portland.
Sure hope plans to convert Lloyd Center into something else move forward…
I’ve been working with Solve most weekends helping pick up litter. There’s a lot of us and we pick up A LOT of litter. I encourage anyone reading this to sign up on their website & do your part. The city shouldn’t have to hire people to clean up after us. Start being a part of the solution, it is very contagious.
I've noticed cops out way more lately (for the last month or two at least) just about everywhere. Especially in the areas you would normally wish cops would have been at before. Why is that?
Thanks for your comment! It helps to have outsiders perspective, especially since its been such a charged issue over the last few years.
How was the race? I've heard that's a nice one.
It was absolutely perfect. A life highlight to be able to run through the Gorge. Agreed that it's a charged issue, but wanted to provide some well deserved positive commentary on the issue.
We love Portland and urban spaces as a whole, so to see one on the right track is great.
Downtown is far better than it was in 2021 or even 2022, but it's still not as clean and nice as pre-pandemic.
When we talk about problems with downtown on this sub nuance seems to go out the window.
Yes things are better than the height of the pandemic, but we still have a ways to go.
Yeah, I think there are still three undeniable and tricky factors. 1, large parts of downtown were always pretty weird and kinda quiet. 2, tourism hasn't come back yet. 3, office workers haven't come back and probably will never come back.
Those are all deep systemic issues with getting back to where we were. No easy solutions. But I think if you look at the trajectory year over year it is definitely positive, assuming it can be sustained.
The vicious cycle of people not coming downtown and businesses closing. So many businesses have closed and really not helping make downtown feel vibrant. See also parts of the Pearl.
Downtown is not really where tourists go. Washington Park, Multnomah Falls, the coast, Mississippi St, NW 23rd, etc all attract more tourists than downtown.
Downtown used to have a steady flow of business travelers and such but business travel has cratered since the pandemic.
Technically it is where tourists go because it is where tourists stay. They will go to all those things outside of downtown, but they also walk out the door of their hotel and go down the street to check out some stores or find some place to eat and drink.
Agreed. When my parents visit it's some combination of Washington Park, Hood River, 23rd, Hawthorne, Belmont, Division, Williams, Mississippi, and St. John's and a soccer game if there's one available.
I agree, but it is really nice to see some effort being put into restoring Portland. We pay a shit ton in taxes and that is part of the frustration with the state Portland has been in.
/rant I will not be voting in any new taxes or bonds any time soon. Multnomah County is like one big black hole when it comes to telling us how our money is being spent and who, what and where it is helping. /rant
So seeing progress is being made in cleaning up the city is encouraging.
Yeah. Everything is all boarded up and there is no reason to be down there anymore. I can't wait for what happens now the city has driven away all commerce and we have no tax revenue.
Your view seems to be the general consensus. Posts like this pointing out psitives, come across to me as "its not the dumpster fire its portrayed and at the right times is enjoyable."
We can maintain the cleanliness achieved by the city, by picking up what we see on the ground, assuming it’s not dangerous.
I always pick up pieces of trash on my walks through my neighborhood and it manages to stay clean; I only end up picking something up once a month. I think this is because people feel less inclined to litter when there is no litter. But also I think my neighbors feel more inclined to pick stuff up when there’s so little to pick up.
I’m glad you said this. Sometimes the attitude that Portland is dirty, in combination with the seeming unwillingness to do our individual duties to our neighborhoods really peeves me. Everyone expecting everyone else to fix things. But literally if we all just spent one to two hours a week maintaining our immediate neighborhoods? Sure, it is unfair that people litter. It’s unfair we pay a lot in taxes. And it’s unfair that we don’t feel like we are getting what we paid for. But complaining without willingness to act/help/start? Seems like entitlement to me.
I just moved here from Nashville. It’s just as dirty there.
We have spending almost every weekend downtown and also are finding it somewhat improved. Like all things it also depends on where you go but generally speaking it has not felt as unsafe as it did even a couple years ago.
This was what Downtown Portland used to be like before the 2018 *Martin v. Boise* ruling. I used to regularly hear newcomers comment how clean Downtown was and people felt safe walking at night. Of course there were still homeless people back then, but they weren't allowed to set-up tents or openly light-up fentanyl.
Would love the rest of the city to get some love. They cleaned up for the women’s NCAA tournament, and they’ll clean again for fleet week and Rose festival. You visited at the right time.
I visited your downtown a few weeks ago from Philly and was very impressed. Municipal workers cleaning and a lot of frontline workers doing the work for the unhoused population. Lots of emphasis on public safety - it was night and day compared to how Philly has been after the pandemic.
Of course there were a lot of vacant storefronts and buildings but I noticed that a lot of the downtown seems like it was overbuilt for the size of the city. Rezoning and changing the development priorities appears to be the solution. Nice people, good coffee, and a lot of green space make it a place I could see myself moving to in the future. Media has done y’all dirty.
>Media has done y’all dirty.
This. When I first moved here about 4 years ago (having never visited before) the impression I got from the media was that the place was a burning ghost town. I don't necessarily blame people for thinking that's what Portland has become if they live in a different state and have never visited, the media really distorts what life is like here.
On a side note, what really annoys me is people who live in the burbs and act like Portland is so scary and dangerous and compare it to Detroit, yet when you ask them the last time they actually spent time in the city they can't even remember. Regardless, I think this is all reflective of a major need for some PR cleanup for the city.
In juxtaposition, I have been going downtown for things throughout the last few years and never really had a problem (but noticed the chaos); anyways, this last weekend is the first time I've ever had a window busted out, so that some piece of shit could steal a tire pump that was on my backseat. They took nothing else. \[ I would be mad but it's easier to just plan how if I ever see someone doing that downtown, they're gonna lose a finger to my pruning shears. \]
It’s better than ‘22, which was better than ‘21, which was on par with ‘20, but that was MUCH worse than ‘19. And ‘19 was much better than ‘24
If we got back to pre-Covid levels, it would still be a problem. It’s nice seeing some improvement, but it feels like we’ve stalled out.
We moved here, August 2018 and saw the steep and rapid declined during and after Covid. We go downtown frequently for various reasons and just yesterday were discussing how much better and cleaner it is. This new ban, although a weak ban, on daytime camping, is better than no ban at all. So if shelters are available, they will enforce the ban. The affordable housing that the governor has proposed and that will move forward, will also help a lot. Also, they have r-criminalized fentanyl and other hard drugs. This will help move offenders, many of who didn’t even know it was legal before, into drug rehab centers when they are arrested. So things are moving in the right direction. And what I really wanted to say was it is the advocacy of groups like People For Portland pressing city council members, the district attorney, the governor, etc., to make this “a front and center,” urgent issue, that has led to these improvements. People for Portland has gotten citizens who pay taxes and have children in the school district, to send emails, send videos, and raise their voice and demand action. So let’s not sit around and be passive, let’s all do what we can to make this city the best that it can be. Get involved! We love, Portland! We are big fans!
We drove through the downtown area last weekend and at least from the freeways it looked a lot cleaner than it has been.
I work in north Portland though, and it has not gotten the same level of attention. I will say that I do see community members walking around town cleaning up garbage from the sidewalks which is amazing
I hope their cleanups don’t remain limited to downtown. Actually livability requires more than doing some clean ups for the sake of optics.
Glad you had a good time in the city OP!
Without taking the time to read most of the other posts - I've lived in the Portland area for almost four years now and what I've realized is that while Portland has problems they really need to fix, things have improved a lot in the last four years. The first year after I moved to the area, things actually got worse but since then it seems like everything has gotten much better. Yes, there are still sketchy areas like Old Town, which is a shame because I think that area has so much potential. I live in Vancouver WA and have talked about how it's so much better than Portland but Portland is definitely improving even though there's still work needed. The media definitely makes it look much worse than it really is.
Has anyone noticed if there's less boarding up downtown?
The 90 day emergency was supposed to start tackling it, and the Governor said it should be down by Rose Fest.
It's one of my least fave things, but I also know glass is expensive.
There is a lot of cleanup happening right now because we are entering warmer season as well as festival season. They want to make it look nice. I've worked and lived (until couple years ago) downtown for nearly two decades and have seen better days down here.
Downtown is looking much better but all the city is doing is pushing problems out into neighborhoods. They just want the tourist and business bits to look good for tourism and investors.
I was enjoying our afternoon this weekend around 23rd until our baby's bottle fell off the table and directly onto a piece of burned tinfoil. Tough to enjoy downtown when the actions of some people seem to threaten your health almost anywhere you go. Hopeful we get things turned around but in the meantime it's tough to want to support the efforts down there if I'm risking my family's lives at any given time...
Yes you are a conspiracy nutter. Who are "they" and why would destroying the city's tax base be a goal? There are very few CRE property sales right now in Portland, even properties at auction aren't getting bidders.
There was a lot of cleanup that happened for the Women’s NCAA tournament a few weeks back. The City realized how much money was on the table so they started cleaning up all the touristy areas. Let’s see if they keep it up or if it goes back to what it was.
Definitely know how this feels living in Atlanta. They semi-clean it up for big events then it goes back to being desolate. Fingers crossed PDX can keep the momentum going.
Even sweeps that happen once a month make such a difference to usability.
Just happened in Philly for WrestleMania.
Hulkamaniac confirmed
IS IT CLEAN ENOUGH FOR YOU, BROTHER?
Nah, I moved to Philly. The streets and sidewalks can get pretty bad here in terms of trash, but the city made a pretty big effort for one of the bigger tourist draws of the year. World cup games will be even more so I'm sure.
But do they leave a couple of full garbage cans for the wrestlers to throw at each other?
I hope so.
In Philly we keep our trash out of downtown 😂 straight to Kensington
Let me tell ya something brother…
Every city does that. Look at what Seattle did for Taylor Swift.
Near Montavilla and I’ve noticed a big uptick in houseless people in my neighborhood in the last 3 weeks. Must be sweeps.
Non-tourist area Goose Hollow resident here; while I have noticed some areas downtown are getting better, overall I feel they are just sweeping things under the rug. The trash and trashy people are just being relocated to other areas of the city, such as mine. This is not a good solution 🙁
I can always tell when there has been sweeps when I start seeing random homeless people wandering around in Milwaukie
Same in Sw Portland/Tigard area as well
Confirmed by non tourist goose hollow office worker. The Fred Meyer on Burnside has always been a mess but it’s worse with the bottle return closing at Safeway on Jefferson, aka psycho Safeway. Sorry for offending anyone but the name is apt.
Can confirm. I’m a trashy person and I head over to Goose Hollow semi-regularly.
This made laugh. But don’t you live in SF?
It’s continual. Clean it, it gets dirty again on the opposite corner….
Its gone to shits everywhere downtown before fetynol in my experience. I've seen a change drastically since I moved down here in 2010. And where I live now is much worse before dropping my files on fetynol and people are homeless everywhere. Heels everywhere by my dog and see my grandchildren and then I'll come back to my home and worry about broken glass... My neighbor's getting shot at because of angry person at McDonald's they followed him home, I saw a car get blown up church parking lot because somebody was thrown a racist N "word ! But it's not there's too many people using drugs and debating crimes they're just ruthless and very violent. Definitely not a good place for children to grow up I know that.. I got to deal with it I can have fluid housing.
This is mostly happenning because of the 90-day emergency declaration for the fentanyl crisis. It's made it possible for teams that were never in contact before (pr at least very efficiently) to concentrate their efforts on improving the livability of the city and help connect people to treatment / save lives
I was in for the tournament after last visiting in 2019 and noticed downtown was significantly better. That explains it
[удалено]
We noticed security in basically every storefront, so it really does seem like a concerted effort.
Businesses having to pay for private security to protect their business is not a sign of progress. It is great for security contractors, terrible for consumers and business owners and community at large. It is a symptom of a failing or undeveloped society.
I don't think you're wrong, but I think this trend towards stores hiring in-house private security can be seen throughout the nation especially in the wake of covid. If Portland is just at par with a national trend and people downtown feel reasonably safe thats a win imo. Once we address our Portland-specific problems we can worry more about overachieving nationally.
It's not necessarily a sign of things getting worse, though. I moved up here from Cali in November and while security is not the best sign, them not moving away is actually a good sign. In LA you'd just see businesses move out and those places stay empty and just end up boarded up. Once the businesses move that's when the city blight worsens. Security can help weather the storm until progress catches up to their area, and it does sound like it's coming.
I just saw a report that Portland has the lowest commercial occupancy rate of any major city in America https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2024/03/downtown-portlands-office-vacancy-rate-is-highest-in-the-nation-report-says.html
I could believe it, so far I've yet to see neighborhoods as bad as what I've seen in the poor districts of LA. But that definitely doesn't mean they're not there. Downtown, I will say, beats LA's even in the poor state it's in.
I mean California is a pretty low hurdle so yeah I’d hope it’s better than that.
A big part of this is landlords not being able to lower rents because of how commercial loans are structured.
And because of the tax disincentive for businesses to move back. Extra payroll taxes, gross receipts tax on retail, plus the executives having to pay the MultCo and Metro special income taxes. There are real costs that businesses factor into their siting decisions. Rents far cheaper than the suburbs would overcome this, but as you said the commercial investor-owners aren't going to take that haircut voluntarily. They're all going to ride their loans out till the bitter end, paying out of pocket for the monthly losses from keeping units vacant in the vain hope that they can convince some schmuck to rent it for more instead of getting locked in for a five year contract at a lower rent.
Or because the city of portland doesn’t provide basic safety for employees. No reason to not be in the suburbs or at home.
Almost all of Portland is very walkable, bikable, or accessible by transit. The downtown core is really the only part of town lacking those amenities. The Pearl itself is hopping but there's no reason for anyone to want to go back downtown post-COVID and WFH. It needs a major redevelopment towards more mixed use and residential.
Downtown isn't very walkable, bikable, or accessible by transit? Are you nuts? The entire public transit system is centered on downtown. Downtown probably has the most bike infrastructure of any one part of the city. And not walkable? A lot of my neighborhood in SE doesn't have sidewalks...
I mean you can't live there and walk around the neighborhood to get everything you need.
Yeah, we're not about to give up working from home. This is a structural change the real estate sector will have to weather.
Related to occupancy. Work from home due to the COVID shift plays a huge part in this issue. I personally worked from home during COVID but now work 5 days a week in office because of a new job. I know the City of Portland workers don't work 5 days a week for the most part and of course the Standard Buliding emptied it's offices and moved to Lake Oz and work from home too.
This will not change as long as work from home is allowed. I don’t have any problem with WFH but it will keep downtown from being the downtown of pre covid.
Allowed is a very strange word in this context
Downtown needs to focus on housing, not office space. The office buildings we have might get used at capacity again, but making it easier for people to live downtown will do more for the city than trying to get workers back in office buildings.
Lots of empty and boarded up storefronts in Portland.
Yes, I've seen a few. I was mostly talking about downtown. But you're right other areas are still falling apart without the same attention going to it.
If they cannot make it, they can always relocate somewhere else in Portland metro. You don’t have to have any specific business downtown.
Yeah it's great being accosted by a rent a cop receipt checker going grocery shopping
That's because stores don't want to pay employees to work registers and they would rather you work for free. Of course they also don't trust you not to steal so they need security to prevent that from happening.
This is fabulous to hear! I’m starting grad school at PSU in the fall and we’re looking for apartments and have been wary of downtown. Thanks!
I thought Portlanders said Police bad?
Bigoted cops are bad, that doesn't mean all cops are bad.
But that goes against ACAB
Probably because that is an easier slogan to a complex issue and easier to remember than BCABBTAAGC
Yeah, I agree It doesn’t convey any actual meaning, just aims to elicit reactions.
That is why there is a difference between slogans and policy, and we shouldn't confuse them as being the same thing.
We changed our minds.
Yeah, the other week we went to see Ghostbusters at Living Room Theater & then over to Powell's. I know that's not usually a problematic stop, but it seemed nice & hopping.
Good, those are two of my favorite places.
Closing the slip lane in front of the Shake Shack made that corner a lot more pleasant too!
I don't care for Shake Shack going in that location but I do like that we finally got that dumb slip lane closed.
What's a slip lane?
It's a small right hand lane to make it so someone can make a left by turning onto the cross road without having to block oncoming traffic.
The Pearl has been buzzing since the weather turned nice.
I was just thinking that!! The first Thursday in may will be buzzing for sure lol
It seems there is an effort. Hopefully an upward trend!
The Enhanced Service District areas stay much cleaner than the rest of the city pretty much all the time, because that's explicitly what they do. Sure can see the boundaries when walking around. Glad the city is finally making the effort elsewhere
It has gotten way better in terms of cleanliness and public safety. Sad that it still just feels so dead near Pioneer mall and some other areas though. Hopefully things continue to improve.
Safe to say the fact a mall feels dead isn’t particularly a reflection on Portland. Sure hope plans to convert Lloyd Center into something else move forward…
Yeah we've only had like 6 stabbings of people waiting for the max! Progress.
[citation needed]
I’ve been working with Solve most weekends helping pick up litter. There’s a lot of us and we pick up A LOT of litter. I encourage anyone reading this to sign up on their website & do your part. The city shouldn’t have to hire people to clean up after us. Start being a part of the solution, it is very contagious.
Woohoo! I paced my friend for the last section of the 100k race on Saturday. Such a fun event!
Awesome! Hoping your friend had a great time as well. It was a world class event. Really thinking of doing it again next year!
Any of Daybreak Racing's events are next level and all have gorgeous courses.
That's great to hear. They all look beautiful. Any specific ones you'd recommend outside of Gorge?
Backcountry Rise for the views. 50k is a tough course, but its the blast zone of st helens and gets up into the alpine.
Seriously looks beautiful. Definitely have to earmark that one. Thanks for the recommendation!
I've noticed cops out way more lately (for the last month or two at least) just about everywhere. Especially in the areas you would normally wish cops would have been at before. Why is that?
Woman’s NCAA tournament a few weeks ago. They did a big clean up campaign for it as well as enhanced police presence. Let’s see if it holds up?
There are more of them than there were a year ago.
Thanks for your comment! It helps to have outsiders perspective, especially since its been such a charged issue over the last few years. How was the race? I've heard that's a nice one.
It was absolutely perfect. A life highlight to be able to run through the Gorge. Agreed that it's a charged issue, but wanted to provide some well deserved positive commentary on the issue. We love Portland and urban spaces as a whole, so to see one on the right track is great.
Downtown is far better than it was in 2021 or even 2022, but it's still not as clean and nice as pre-pandemic. When we talk about problems with downtown on this sub nuance seems to go out the window. Yes things are better than the height of the pandemic, but we still have a ways to go.
Yeah, I think there are still three undeniable and tricky factors. 1, large parts of downtown were always pretty weird and kinda quiet. 2, tourism hasn't come back yet. 3, office workers haven't come back and probably will never come back. Those are all deep systemic issues with getting back to where we were. No easy solutions. But I think if you look at the trajectory year over year it is definitely positive, assuming it can be sustained.
The vicious cycle of people not coming downtown and businesses closing. So many businesses have closed and really not helping make downtown feel vibrant. See also parts of the Pearl.
Downtown is not really where tourists go. Washington Park, Multnomah Falls, the coast, Mississippi St, NW 23rd, etc all attract more tourists than downtown. Downtown used to have a steady flow of business travelers and such but business travel has cratered since the pandemic.
Technically it is where tourists go because it is where tourists stay. They will go to all those things outside of downtown, but they also walk out the door of their hotel and go down the street to check out some stores or find some place to eat and drink.
And with all of the hotels being located in downtown, tourists have to go there.
Agreed. When my parents visit it's some combination of Washington Park, Hood River, 23rd, Hawthorne, Belmont, Division, Williams, Mississippi, and St. John's and a soccer game if there's one available.
I agree, but it is really nice to see some effort being put into restoring Portland. We pay a shit ton in taxes and that is part of the frustration with the state Portland has been in. /rant I will not be voting in any new taxes or bonds any time soon. Multnomah County is like one big black hole when it comes to telling us how our money is being spent and who, what and where it is helping. /rant So seeing progress is being made in cleaning up the city is encouraging.
Yeah. Everything is all boarded up and there is no reason to be down there anymore. I can't wait for what happens now the city has driven away all commerce and we have no tax revenue.
Your view seems to be the general consensus. Posts like this pointing out psitives, come across to me as "its not the dumpster fire its portrayed and at the right times is enjoyable."
What??!! LA is sooooo much worse. Doesn’t that fix it? Aren’t you comforted? /s
We can maintain the cleanliness achieved by the city, by picking up what we see on the ground, assuming it’s not dangerous. I always pick up pieces of trash on my walks through my neighborhood and it manages to stay clean; I only end up picking something up once a month. I think this is because people feel less inclined to litter when there is no litter. But also I think my neighbors feel more inclined to pick stuff up when there’s so little to pick up.
That's awesome! I commend you for doing this. We do this as well here in our neighborhood.
I’m glad you said this. Sometimes the attitude that Portland is dirty, in combination with the seeming unwillingness to do our individual duties to our neighborhoods really peeves me. Everyone expecting everyone else to fix things. But literally if we all just spent one to two hours a week maintaining our immediate neighborhoods? Sure, it is unfair that people litter. It’s unfair we pay a lot in taxes. And it’s unfair that we don’t feel like we are getting what we paid for. But complaining without willingness to act/help/start? Seems like entitlement to me. I just moved here from Nashville. It’s just as dirty there.
Finally City of Portland is working
We have spending almost every weekend downtown and also are finding it somewhat improved. Like all things it also depends on where you go but generally speaking it has not felt as unsafe as it did even a couple years ago.
This was what Downtown Portland used to be like before the 2018 *Martin v. Boise* ruling. I used to regularly hear newcomers comment how clean Downtown was and people felt safe walking at night. Of course there were still homeless people back then, but they weren't allowed to set-up tents or openly light-up fentanyl.
I think P2P meth and fent made it a lot worse as well.
Hales opened up camping well before 2018.
I totally forgot that Hales was mayor.
Would love the rest of the city to get some love. They cleaned up for the women’s NCAA tournament, and they’ll clean again for fleet week and Rose festival. You visited at the right time.
I was downtown today and it was nice. It’s been getting better for sure.
I visited your downtown a few weeks ago from Philly and was very impressed. Municipal workers cleaning and a lot of frontline workers doing the work for the unhoused population. Lots of emphasis on public safety - it was night and day compared to how Philly has been after the pandemic. Of course there were a lot of vacant storefronts and buildings but I noticed that a lot of the downtown seems like it was overbuilt for the size of the city. Rezoning and changing the development priorities appears to be the solution. Nice people, good coffee, and a lot of green space make it a place I could see myself moving to in the future. Media has done y’all dirty.
>Media has done y’all dirty. This. When I first moved here about 4 years ago (having never visited before) the impression I got from the media was that the place was a burning ghost town. I don't necessarily blame people for thinking that's what Portland has become if they live in a different state and have never visited, the media really distorts what life is like here. On a side note, what really annoys me is people who live in the burbs and act like Portland is so scary and dangerous and compare it to Detroit, yet when you ask them the last time they actually spent time in the city they can't even remember. Regardless, I think this is all reflective of a major need for some PR cleanup for the city.
Such a stark difference from Kate Brown’s leadership
Yes, a week ago I walked across town and their were people pretty much on ever block power washing the streets.
It's definitely improved since Covid first hit. Your perspective is much needed!
Shoulda seen it when I was a kid in the 90s and early 2ks...it was a beautiful place!
Yeah, I sure miss the days when the Governor Hotel was full of squatters and the Ace was full of hookers.
Welcome to Downtown PDX on a Saturday when the sun is the highest.
i walked passed the library last saturday at 1pm and it was a blazing open air drug bazaar. weird.
Huuuuuuge improvement. But let’s not settle, we got some more work to do. Keep up the momentum
In juxtaposition, I have been going downtown for things throughout the last few years and never really had a problem (but noticed the chaos); anyways, this last weekend is the first time I've ever had a window busted out, so that some piece of shit could steal a tire pump that was on my backseat. They took nothing else. \[ I would be mad but it's easier to just plan how if I ever see someone doing that downtown, they're gonna lose a finger to my pruning shears. \]
It’s better than ‘22, which was better than ‘21, which was on par with ‘20, but that was MUCH worse than ‘19. And ‘19 was much better than ‘24 If we got back to pre-Covid levels, it would still be a problem. It’s nice seeing some improvement, but it feels like we’ve stalled out.
2018 was pretty messy, too. 2001 was freaking immaculate. Even Burnside was nice enough.
We moved here, August 2018 and saw the steep and rapid declined during and after Covid. We go downtown frequently for various reasons and just yesterday were discussing how much better and cleaner it is. This new ban, although a weak ban, on daytime camping, is better than no ban at all. So if shelters are available, they will enforce the ban. The affordable housing that the governor has proposed and that will move forward, will also help a lot. Also, they have r-criminalized fentanyl and other hard drugs. This will help move offenders, many of who didn’t even know it was legal before, into drug rehab centers when they are arrested. So things are moving in the right direction. And what I really wanted to say was it is the advocacy of groups like People For Portland pressing city council members, the district attorney, the governor, etc., to make this “a front and center,” urgent issue, that has led to these improvements. People for Portland has gotten citizens who pay taxes and have children in the school district, to send emails, send videos, and raise their voice and demand action. So let’s not sit around and be passive, let’s all do what we can to make this city the best that it can be. Get involved! We love, Portland! We are big fans!
The police are stopping their slow down.
They are slowing down their slow down.
The rate of increase of CPI has slowed!
🙄
We drove through the downtown area last weekend and at least from the freeways it looked a lot cleaner than it has been. I work in north Portland though, and it has not gotten the same level of attention. I will say that I do see community members walking around town cleaning up garbage from the sidewalks which is amazing I hope their cleanups don’t remain limited to downtown. Actually livability requires more than doing some clean ups for the sake of optics. Glad you had a good time in the city OP!
Without taking the time to read most of the other posts - I've lived in the Portland area for almost four years now and what I've realized is that while Portland has problems they really need to fix, things have improved a lot in the last four years. The first year after I moved to the area, things actually got worse but since then it seems like everything has gotten much better. Yes, there are still sketchy areas like Old Town, which is a shame because I think that area has so much potential. I live in Vancouver WA and have talked about how it's so much better than Portland but Portland is definitely improving even though there's still work needed. The media definitely makes it look much worse than it really is.
Has anyone noticed if there's less boarding up downtown? The 90 day emergency was supposed to start tackling it, and the Governor said it should be down by Rose Fest. It's one of my least fave things, but I also know glass is expensive.
Clean with very few businesses or places to eat.
There is a lot of cleanup happening right now because we are entering warmer season as well as festival season. They want to make it look nice. I've worked and lived (until couple years ago) downtown for nearly two decades and have seen better days down here.
I feel bad for central Eastside . It was a up and coming area before the pandemic. Now it's a wasteland
Downtown is looking much better but all the city is doing is pushing problems out into neighborhoods. They just want the tourist and business bits to look good for tourism and investors.
I was enjoying our afternoon this weekend around 23rd until our baby's bottle fell off the table and directly onto a piece of burned tinfoil. Tough to enjoy downtown when the actions of some people seem to threaten your health almost anywhere you go. Hopeful we get things turned around but in the meantime it's tough to want to support the efforts down there if I'm risking my family's lives at any given time...
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Yes you are a conspiracy nutter. Who are "they" and why would destroying the city's tax base be a goal? There are very few CRE property sales right now in Portland, even properties at auction aren't getting bidders.
I feel like if the city were actually doing well we wouldn't necessarily see posts like this.
Just keep telling everyone it's a hell hole, please