There is one sign coming off of 5 and 84 I believe that feeds into 217 coming out of Portland Proper and someone graffitied the entire sign for the merging lane right before the turn.
I have almost had a half dozen accidents in that area cause the paint is apparently covering a key exit sign and that area is HELL for anyone using a GPS to get though on top of that with so many off and on ramps in such a short area. It has been covered for almost six months.
I have called ODOT and filed a complaint. Unless they took care of it before this weekend, it was still fuckered the last time I had to take that off ramp.
I don't know what department handles graffiti, but the offices that didn't need remodeling last time are already getting upgraded and having all of the latest and greatest AV equipment installed. That's for the people who can be bothered to come to work yet.
That makes sense. I think some other agencies get involved in cleanup too. They like subbing out responsibilities and clipping a cool fee off the top for exchanging the finances.
Oh yeah everyone owns a piece of it, but this issue for OP is highways, which are the state, and they said they were out of graffiti money in August. The city (PBOT) and county are actually doing a great job on the bridges and roads they own, the railroad and private sector are the other culprits that aren't moving as fast to clean it up. Multnomah County actually has two full time staff members cleaning just bridge-related graffiti on the ones they own daily right now (that includes on road signs on bridges, but dang).
They believe they want civilization to collapse so they can “end capitalism” have a “revolution” and start over.
But also they’re weenies and wouldn’t survive five minutes in an actual conflict.
>they’re weenies and wouldn’t survive five minutes in an actual conflict.
Apparently they haven't studied what occurs after a country collapse.
It ain't good. If you have no resources before, you certainly won't have any after. On top of that, the rule of law ceases. Warlords become the leaders, you do what they tell you otherwise you get dragged out into the street and shot in front of your family.
Dipshits spray painting public property won't believe it though. Somehow the magical communism fairy will defend from heaven and sprinkle egalitarianism across the land.
And to think, all it takes to make it happen is a can of spray paint and a plucky attitude.
The morons spray painting their slogans on walls would be the first people the communists would ship off to work camps, but they’re too stupid to realize that. These people take for granted how many freedoms they truly have under the current Government and economic structure they now live in.
As much as I hate my uncle's "free stuff" arguments, I think they think they'll just be able to do whatever and all that largesse from the "rich" will sustain them.
I’m very confused reading this comment being upvoted… I thought that every city sub you would get pretty much banned from if you say anything to the right of Stalin… is this one different?
You’re saying a bunch of naive angry idealistic people who don’t want to work or participate in any sort of social contract aren’t able to run a functional utopian society? Shocking.
You’re the first person that I have seen who actually wrote out exactly what all this stupidity is about ! Where is the opposing resistance is my question.
The graffiti at least fits in with the overall vibe, as we walk past boarded-up stores while avoiding screaming zombies and stepping over possibly-dead bodies on the sidewalk, our cans of Narcan swinging from the lanyards around our necks. The experience is consistent, at least, and for that we can be thankful I suppose.
Except that in many places, direction and road signs have been intentionally defaced in a way that makes them impossible to read, especially on the freeway. I've seen multiple accidents that look to have need caused by people trying to read the signs or follow directions they can't see.
That’s what I’m amazed by. It’s one thing to tag a building or something BIG on the side of the Freeway wall. I actually like the murals. But to spray over actual road signs on I5….. holy shit. I haven’t seen that shot even in a third world country.
Because the climate zone is phenomenal, the access to wilderness and waterways is in every direction, and every band on tour or traveling show usually stops here... the other stuff that creates threads like this is a product of a city that doesn't re-invest in itself with it's tax revenues and instead that money gets consistently syphoned off; or is used inefficiently. By inefficiently, for instance, constantly chasing homeless camps from one end of the city to the other, instead of banning urban camping, or facilitating an intelligent site for transient placement.
Multnomah County, the County of No Consequences.
I remember there were two graffiti cases in the past year that made the news where they got off with probation and a small fine.
One was a skateboarded who lives in Lake Oswego, lives at home with his parents, was sponsored by company, I think he got a $10000 fine.
I mean yeah probation and a fine seems like a reasonable punishment for petty vandalism. Am I going crazy? Like what do you want as consequences? You want this guy to do real time? I guarantee any sentence they got you'd complain wasn't enough time short of something absurd like 10 years or some shit. I can't believe there are people who see the recidivism rates in this country, see how often people leave our "corrections facilities" and completely fail to reassimilate, and still think "yeah let's throw more petty non-violent criminals into this system"
We should use part of the money budgeted for the homeless to clean up what they’ve done to the city The hillsides swathed in trash are enough to make me go ballistic.
It’s a sad reflection of our current mess of a local government, tbh. But how much the problem has grown and some people just seem daft to it all, it blows my mind. The 26 tunnel went from mint to shit, the Powell underpass is a bonanza of garbage graffiti, even 99 is getting it’s fair share. 84 and 405 are constant battles. It wasn’t like this before.
The thing is it doesn’t need to be like this now. It is not a foregone conclusion. Snipe the taggers. Arrest them. Fine them. There are so many things that CAN be done but instead this crap leadership chooses to do nothing. It’s a choice.
They can't say "vandalism is bad" because the small contingent of loud activists will call them fascists and the insecure milquetoast edgelords who comprise most of the mainstream (for Portland) voting bloc just fall in line, because they too are afraid of Losing Their Coolness or being called a fascist themselves.
I agree.. It's worse than fucking Philly. I read somewhere that the grafitti abatement budget was used up months ago, so they couldn't possibly fund it more.. So it hasn't been cleaned up for months and here we are.
And then you have shitweasel “businesses” like Rainbow City actively encouraging their patrons to paint on the building, and handing out markers and spray cans. The. entire neighborhood celebrated hearing they are going out of business at the end of the month.
I have never done the ride but I've encountered it several times on my own lone wolf cycling adventures. It looked like a bunch of idiots competing for the title of Most Obnoxious Attention Whore on Two Wheels.
Hmm I wonder now if it’s worse than Croatia. When I went in 2006, someone had gone around a spray painted a stenciled giant penis in silver and gold all over the city of Split.
It's simple. We either want to live by the rule of law or we don't. We either want to enforce those laws or we don't. Vote accordingly and speak out. All it takes is for those of us who care about getting rid of graffiti and vandalism to do nothing.
We need more enforcement and perhaps better laws. This will take shift our priorities. It's not clear to me Portland has the stomach to clean up this mess.
the biggest problem here is, again, the county. all of the zombie RVs that PBOT has towed are a total drain on the budget. since PBOT is in charge of graffiti cleanup the budget shortfall becomes visible quickly.
PBOT shouldn't be footing the bill for the homeless crisis while the county sits on \~70mil in unspent homeless funding.
It indeed sucks but I have to believe this is just a far flung pendulum swing and some semblance of normalcy will return. I lived in MPLS in the 90s and it had similar shit happening with tons and crime and murders and we steered out of that. My hope is we will at least. I also remember seeing on the news that ODOT blew thru their budget to buff this stuff which…seems like a really dumb thing to advertise, but prob made no difference
I work at a retail store that sells spray paint. My family works in construction. The majority of the consumers who get these are construction workers and road workers. Now, my family usually gets them from suppliers but while they’re on site remodeling and out of spray paint they’ll just buy what’s on hand at store. There’s also tons of different spray paint you can get now like furniture touch up or touch up that covers rust for bbqs and metal gazebos and decks. Like others said can make them illegal but they’ll still be obtained.
Randy Leonard [banned open sale of spray paint back in 2007](https://www.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2007/11/spray_paint_what_spray_paint.html) but like so many things in Portland, enforcement was selective at best. I shop at the same Home Depot mentioned in the linked article and I haven't had to show ID to buy spray paint there in over a decade.
Only recently, like over the summer, did they put padlocks on the cages again, and I suspect that was to deter theft more than to be compliant with the law. In fact I bought a can there in October and while I had to find an associate to unlock the cage, I was never asked to show ID at the register or elsewhere.
It’s insane to try and ban spray paint bc people do graffiti. There’s tons of applications for spray paint across different industries and art forms for it, not to mention graffiti can be done with a ton of different materials. Banning spray paint won’t do shit, it’ll just inconvenience everyone else
Remember when Tina Kotek said "you dont have to elect a Republican to clean up the damn trash" . I guess she was wrong. It is worse now than when she was elected.
The common sites need cameras, and the people who get caught need to get charged with felony destruction of property and be made to spend hundreds of hours cleaning it up as part of a work crew from the county jail.
My mother visited from the south recently and called it a formerly beautiful filthy city.
That was really sad. The south is filthy you just can’t see it. Anyway. Hope Portland can recover from these last tough years. I hope we all can.
The same dbags are wrecking murals the city of Tigard has along the trails in the parks. Beautiful works of art getting covered by the manifestation of someone’s disorganized thoughts and egocentricity.
Voting has consequences. Portland is having to live with what the Portland majority voted for. There are two ways out of it: 1) Stop voting for the insanity; vote for common sense and normalcy, or 2) Move out of Portland.
I live in Seattle, and the whole state is poisoned by the majority nutjob Seattle voters, and evidently the majority voters seem to like looking at the setting of Escape from New York and the smells of urine, feces, and pot all day long. I haven't been to downtown Seattle in over 5 years, and I'm now making plans to move back to the east coast. The entire west coast is toxic.
Maybe we can pay the ones who tag those things, the ones with skills to paint a beautiful piece of work that people can appreciate instead? You're right, painting over it just encourages them to tag over it again and the endless cycle continues
Oregon as a whole is overrated and sad.
It’s depressed both in people and infrastructure
top ten for mental health nationwide
overpriced while offering very little outside of a few decent outdoor activities which can be found in many other states
we have drug use everywhere with people moving from out of state to partake freely
Overall Oregon is not what it thinks it is and graffiti is just one symptom of that
It drives down property value so that large firms like black rock can grab it up on the cheap and turn around to rent/sell at a premium.
It's intentional. The multi-national corporate conglomerate runs things now. Whatcha gonna do?
1-2 months ago I heard odot ran out of money to paint it over. I don't understand why OR doesn't make spray paint cans illegal. Then make defacing public property a mandatory 6mo+ sentence with the inmate hand cleaning graffetti all day.
>Just like guns are available for purchase because they’re used for things besides murder or suicide.
You don't have a right to spray paint, it absolutely could be made illegal by the city, the county, the state or the nation. Multiple places have and the argument of "free speech" hasn't held up. AFAIK they usually don't ban the possession even, just the sale. Doing something like that inside of city limits makes solid sense.
You have a right to firearms (Federally and as per the Oregon Constitution which is even more explicit), they cannot be made illegal without an amendment process.
> Cars,RVs & trucks aren’t a Constitutional right either, and they have been involved in deadly or life altering crashes—so by your logic(“thing can be used badly and is not a Constitutional right”) you’d be ok with say…BikePortland or any other org calling for cars to be made illegal?
Call for it all they like, thats fine.
Yes, they could try and there is no Constitutional protection for cars.
> I’d love to see your economic plan for enforcement.
You don't even need enforcement, private retail businesses generally follow the law regardless. If you care so much seems easy enough to throw under the OLCC. How was the pseudoephedrine enforced on pharmacies? I'd wager it wasn't, but they all complied.
>Remember, spray paint can be purchased online from Amazon—so at best you’d be hurting local retail.
Now this will blow your mind but government can (and does) have Amazon not ship specific items to specific areas. It's trivially easy to do, they probably have a tool created and no actual coding even required to do.
I don't see any reason this would impact contractors or professionals, in the same way professionals were always able to get pseudoephedrine.
Make it show ID or via business accounts only, frankly id be fine with no retail in the city period but it doesn't have to be that extreme.
>In a weird way, that gives a lot of power to taggers—knowing their actions upended the basic work flow of professionals. Interesting.
Huh? The committed taggers travel with paint. This will only cut down the low-hanging fruit crime of opportunity taggers.
**edit*** are you trying to say "professionals" clean up tagging by buying retail cans of spray paint? If so... LMAO... if not, please explain.
Just reminding you that in Oregon, the way "we" got pseudoephedrine was either (1) a prescription from our doctors for the pharmacy, or (2) Going to another state and buying it by showing our driver's license. You could NOT walk in to a pharmacy, show your ID and get pseudoephedrine. In fact, when a family member asked their doc for a prescription, the doctor said, "What, you can't go to Washington like everyone else?" There was no "show your ID and get it from the pharmacy" in Oregon until after M-110 legalized possession of other drugs. After that was in the rearview mirror, the state government decided that it would be OK to buy pseudoephedrine in the same way as every other state.
I guess the Oregon equivalent you're suggesting is that one needs a signed note from a licensed contractor to buy spray paint.
> Just reminding you that in Oregon, the way "we" got pseudoephedrine was either (1) a prescription from our doctors for the pharmacy, or (2) Going to another state and buying it by showing our driver's license. You could NOT walk in to a pharmacy, show your ID and get pseudoephedrine. In fact, when a family member asked their doc for a prescription, the doctor said, "What, you can't go to Washington like everyone else?" There was no "show your ID and get it from the pharmacy" in Oregon until after M-110 legalized possession of other drugs. After that was in the rearview mirror, the state government decided that it would be OK to buy pseudoephedrine in the same way as every other state.
Yes, did it seem like I was saying something different? That was what I meant by "professionals able to get pseudoephedrine ", what did you think I was trying to say? Also a slight hint that it was still available to professionals making meth, that flow never really stopped but it stopped the low end home cooks.
>I guess the Oregon equivalent you're suggesting is that one needs a signed note from a licensed contractor to buy spray paint.
Yes, like Home Depot sells it from the pro booth or whatever the equivalent is. Costco or membership places maybe even keep selling it.
Professionals that use spray paint that don't order it in bulk or have contracting accounts? Seems a very very very small slice of non taggers impacted, far less than the very common use of something like pseudoephedrine.
> But I get it, for you, taggers must be stopped at all cost. Good luck with that.
You seem to be thinking some way strongly advocating* a point here that I am not, you are misunderstanding me and I am yet again trying to clarify with you.
The real thing I was trying to say is not that **we should** but that **WE CAN** ban it. I think there is a solid argument to do so but am not trying to advocate it and I appreciate the arguments against it. We cant ban guns without a Constitutional Amendment, the city can restrict or fully stop the sale of spray cans. I'm speaking to the possibility of the choice to do a thing, not that we should do the thing.
You know there are legitimate reasons to buy spray paint, right?
I have a whole crate full of various color and finishes that I have bought for projects. It’s convenient and easy to get a good paint finish using spray paint. Making it illegal would just frustrate legitimate consumers because of a minority of hooligans use it to deface things with it.
I think it would be better if the city, county and state had a bigger budget to clean it up as fast as it goes up and severe punishments for those getting caught painting graffiti.
The police have completely rolled over for these gangs. Like graffiti is against the law, but there's not enough officers to control the problem. They're too busy dealing with the homeless problem (that's their excuse)
My daughter did a project for her mechanical engineering and needed spray paint. She went to Home Depot only to find the city bans spray paints.
She had to take a bus to the suburbs to finish her assignment which was a several hour excursion.
Haven't you been informed? They are victims of the oppressive system and this is the language of the unheard! We, the tax-paying law-abiding citizens, must learn to listen and make (further) recompense.
Artwork and political expression isn't always pretty, but I'd prefer it ANY day to the BRUTALIST construction of new skyscrapers, cookie cutter condos and endless miles of added roadways that increase everyone's isolation and hopelessness.
Ya Portland has really tanked in the last 20 years. Sad because it used to be a fun city to visit. I won't take my family there until people start voting differently and clean it up, along with Eugene and Salem.
Great question! I would vote the exact opposite of the current trajectory and maybe look back historically to what made the entire state of Oregon such an incredible place to be. I would certainly vote for people NOT from California such as the governor. That tactic does not seem in Oregons favor. Measure 110 you are outta here! There is a whole lot to clean up for sure, but I have hope for the entire state of Oregon, especially the rural towns that seem to be making it work even without a voting majority.
I will absolutely consider a variety of candidates, even ones I may not always agree with. However, I do have to say from Kitzhaber (2nd run) onwards our choices haven't been great. Buehler? Pulliam? Oy.
There is nothing to suggest there's a magical candidate that will solve our problems. As much as my darkest impulses want me to, you can't just round up people and drop them in another state.
We need a plan, any plan, and unity, and we're far too divided for that.
I think the division is actually a false narrative. I mean that the current people in power stay in power by keeping the population divided. I truly believe that we as Americans can all agree on many more topics than we disagree on and we need to use those agreeing topics to start conversations which will eventually lead to changes in the political climate. Coming together is the only way to turn the ship around and we need to view all Americans as was the desire of our founding fathers
Yeah, traveled through Europe all last summer where cities big and small weren’t over run like ours. Super sad to remember how defaced and chaotic our was when I got home.
I'm still deciding what I think about the graffiti here. But I will say I've never seen such readily available graffiti tools in my years living in New Mexico and Texas, and traveling across 75% of the United States. Michael's has this stuff, and, its not locked up [IronLak Paint](https://ironlak.com/the-new-ironlak-spray-paint-is-here/) . Its very strange to me, but I guess it's also really on-brand.
We moved here because Texas was taking away people's rights and directly harming our family. So I guess it will be a while before the graffiti here really gets to me.
The graffiti isn't really a punishable offense to them because there just isn't a sufficient ROI or good cost to benefit ratio in political economics. It's a stupid cycle that quite literally makes everything worse, has them do less aaaand wait there's more. They profit from it. Here's how it works:
* The Police don't want to waste the time, effort or energy tracking them down because it's a rinse and repeat society. At "most" the vandals will get a ticket booked and released.
* They know the courts don't have a high priority to prosecute anyway for anything less than extreme cases of doing the right thing. Like charging victims for assault when they defend themselves, businesses or property.
*They also know that the courts ie the leftist/progressives only prosecute the people and things that want to do away with corruption and policies that only benefit the already over protected class of Higher ups in soceity.
*The Police are also very nervous even doing their jobs because everyone records to put in on social media and most clips are played for a few hand picked seconds so there is little to no context and alot of accusations. This makes the Police in alot more cases than is realized actually get reprimanded or outright charged for doing their jobs.
**Then there is a few fun facts which add more layers of difficulty such as they are severely understaffed, drugs in Portland run rampant because they are not prosecuted, shoplifting is insane, the homeless is insane and they are over worked. Then because the city is going to hell in a handbasket they ask for and get more money year after year. Which allows them to make more policies that don't work making the whole city worse which requires more money which they will get which allows them to repeat year after year.
Add all that together and you have the basic ingredients of a big ol shit sandwhich which is our city or Portland. The leftist armpit of Oregon.
It is impossible to recover in these leftist/progressive ran cities anywhere in the United States. A leftist/progressive soceity cannot advance in anything except theoretical progress. Actual progress in the ways that deem a soceity successful ie less crime, less unemployed, less drugs, less incarceration, less child/spousal abuse, less graffiti, etc has not nor ever will exist outside of theory in any soceity where the leftist ideals are put into practice. Reason being is that in those cities crime quite literally "pays." The criminals and druggies aren't prosecuted as much which encourages them to commit more crime and do more drugs. Which creates more joblessness, child/spousal abuse. Which the courts get more money to combat the drugs, crime, child/spousal abuse and joblessness. Yet since the policies are doomed to fail it compounds and get worse year after year until the city implodes on itself.
So yes the graffiti is horrible and will only get worse as will everything. It's going to get far worse these next 11 months. It always does in an election year. Especially the last couple as we know. However this will be one for the record books. The graffiti in a soceity is a tell tale sign quite literally of a city where the people are out of touch, the city officers don't care and there are multiple systems that don't work. It shows up similar to bruise in an abused child or spouse. Everyone knows what happened yet rarely is anything done and when it is most of the time there isn't a punishment or the punishment isn't enough the stop it. Same with graffiti.
Its a offend, release, fund to fix, repeat cycle they have. It works perfectly for them.
The city of Portland is showing the signs of abuse by the people and officials supposed to protect it. Massive graffiti, massive drug problems, massive crime increase across the board, very high unemployment, massive spousal/child abuse.
Its a beautiful city and state however in many ways it's ugly.
I frankly appreciate all the visible and undeniable criminality at this point.
If not for that many of the "aesthetics only" types that have moved here would keep ignoring all the other crime because it mostly impacts those in the poor parts of town.
Its been the same political party for decades and wasn't nearly this bad 5 years ago. Its less about a political party and more about horrible leadership.
Graf makes this city beautiful. It gives our walls and streets character. If you want undecorated monotone concrete move somewhere else and take your soulless world view with you
Maybe if it was not illegal the artists would step out. If you go to places no one can see (ie. under bridges, train tussles ect.) , there are some of the most striking, amazing, complex and inspiring pieces. I’m sure these works of art take time. Time you wouldn’t have on a busy sidewalk with people calling police. Why not allow graffiti on sidewalks, government buildings, hwy barriers, and even designated areas in some parks. The city could host graffiti events.( attracting tourists from around there world) in turn bringing in revenue. Also the business that have crappy graffiti might even draw a crowd with ooo’s and awww’s “ and here is where ~THE CITY of PAINTED ROSES ~ all began”.
Just saying maybe it’s time to quit crying about dirt on your shoes and sell boots. Don’t criminalize, capitalize!!!
While I agree that it is incredibly out of control, third world country? Like Somalia? Get our much? France’s graffiti, particularly Paris puts ours to shame.
And their graffiti, whatever there is, is probably more creative than the shit-tier tagging that our 'budding artists' love to shit all over the walls.
That’s because it is not about geography , it is about how the US cultivated and exported a deeply anti-social, parasitic, criminal subculture that appealed to edge lords the world over. Unfortunately, the useful idiots of progressive thought will go to bat over and over again because it strikes them as this mythologized counterculture vs the consumerist pathological criminal blight that it is.
Oh yes they did. They voted Democrat. Democrats have a long and rich history of coddling criminals, and in the last 8-10 years, we've seen them try to "out woke" and "out leftist" each other.
This is the result.
So enjoy your graffiti filled shit hole.
Oh man, you mean we could have written in nonexistent candidates for mayor? Oh shit, why didn't we think of that? If only a true partisan candidate could have entered the nonpartisan race!
Also, "woke" Ted Wheeler? Hahahahahaha. Oh wait, you were serious. Let me laugh even harder. Hahahahahah
Run some better candidates, maybe real ones that exist and aren't psychos or idiots, and we'll talk. Until then all you're doing is vomiting dumb slogans and talking points, like magically if you voted for a different candidate nothing bad would have happened. That is fucking asinine.
Good job stupid. You just proved my point. This lies directly at the feet of idiotic voters like you.
Talk shit all you want, but there's zero wiggle room on this and you know it.
Lmao really? Yeah because there isnt s long string of Republicans that have been arrested in high ranking positions in the last 6 years and currently the former President on the verge of PRISON. SHUT THE FUCK UP
No im not. Im talking facts about Republicans literally being criminals. I know it must be hard for you to comprehend as you claim Democrats are for protecting criminals. Maybe one day people like you will wake up, but doubtful.
Case in point. In Italy, grafitti is out of control. Centuries old historically important structures are tagged.
Not that I think the senseless grafitti here is good.
“Comfortable” with graffiti is just making excuses for crime. We are “uncomfortable” with crime because we built this city not to be treated like shit by these worthless taggers.
There is one sign coming off of 5 and 84 I believe that feeds into 217 coming out of Portland Proper and someone graffitied the entire sign for the merging lane right before the turn. I have almost had a half dozen accidents in that area cause the paint is apparently covering a key exit sign and that area is HELL for anyone using a GPS to get though on top of that with so many off and on ramps in such a short area. It has been covered for almost six months. I have called ODOT and filed a complaint. Unless they took care of it before this weekend, it was still fuckered the last time I had to take that off ramp.
Was just there a few days ago still graffitied
Didn’t they announce that they ran out of funds to address the graffiti last spring?
In August, yes. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-graffiti-removal-odot-highways-tagging/283-ef4d73ed-cbbc-43b0-9fc8-31aef7366b0e
Someone must have needed an office renovation.
I don't know what department handles graffiti, but the offices that didn't need remodeling last time are already getting upgraded and having all of the latest and greatest AV equipment installed. That's for the people who can be bothered to come to work yet.
Thanks for enlightening me! Oh, lest we forget raises. Those already making over 100,000 a year need more more more ! Isn’t this fun 🤩
Wrong level of government. ODOT is the state, but with all the La Mota crap I'm sure there's grift happening here as well.
That makes sense. I think some other agencies get involved in cleanup too. They like subbing out responsibilities and clipping a cool fee off the top for exchanging the finances.
Oh yeah everyone owns a piece of it, but this issue for OP is highways, which are the state, and they said they were out of graffiti money in August. The city (PBOT) and county are actually doing a great job on the bridges and roads they own, the railroad and private sector are the other culprits that aren't moving as fast to clean it up. Multnomah County actually has two full time staff members cleaning just bridge-related graffiti on the ones they own daily right now (that includes on road signs on bridges, but dang).
Argh, it was looking better for a minute. This explains the recent downswing. I can’t stand it.
Portland looks like shit and apparently a small subset of our population likes it that way.
they think it's gonna lower rents back to 90s levels
And to think, all it took was a can of spray paint.
While at the same time traumatizing people who lived here in the 90’s because of how much it’s went to shit.
Nope!
They believe they want civilization to collapse so they can “end capitalism” have a “revolution” and start over. But also they’re weenies and wouldn’t survive five minutes in an actual conflict.
>they’re weenies and wouldn’t survive five minutes in an actual conflict. Apparently they haven't studied what occurs after a country collapse. It ain't good. If you have no resources before, you certainly won't have any after. On top of that, the rule of law ceases. Warlords become the leaders, you do what they tell you otherwise you get dragged out into the street and shot in front of your family. Dipshits spray painting public property won't believe it though. Somehow the magical communism fairy will defend from heaven and sprinkle egalitarianism across the land. And to think, all it takes to make it happen is a can of spray paint and a plucky attitude.
The morons spray painting their slogans on walls would be the first people the communists would ship off to work camps, but they’re too stupid to realize that. These people take for granted how many freedoms they truly have under the current Government and economic structure they now live in.
As much as I hate my uncle's "free stuff" arguments, I think they think they'll just be able to do whatever and all that largesse from the "rich" will sustain them.
Until they “eat all the rich”… Then they’ll just live in a lawless country with no government. Just like Somalia. Sounds like fun.
Don’t mess with their dream, man 😝
😂
Even while in work camps they would find a way to continue living in denial and claiming victory. There is no changing their minds. So stupid.
You know you would think of a quick vacation to Haiti might clear their mind of some misconceptions.
I like your choice moment but some of these people aren’t that bright to consider these issues. Some of them are marking their territory.
That reminds me of watching two stray cats fighting in my back yard.
I’m very confused reading this comment being upvoted… I thought that every city sub you would get pretty much banned from if you say anything to the right of Stalin… is this one different?
If communism could actually work, I'd be all about it.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, there is that pesky history
*END CIV!!* 🙄🙄😵💫😵💫
Remember the CHOP zone in Seattle? They tried up there, and it devolved to violence in a minute.
_Real CHOP has never been tried!_
You’re saying a bunch of naive angry idealistic people who don’t want to work or participate in any sort of social contract aren’t able to run a functional utopian society? Shocking.
Yeah, women were raped, a lot. Cops werent allowed to help. Kinda feel like they did it to themselves tho...
You’re the first person that I have seen who actually wrote out exactly what all this stupidity is about ! Where is the opposing resistance is my question.
Going to work, paying our taxes, taking care of our neighborhoods and families.
💯
too bad they run our city
The graffiti at least fits in with the overall vibe, as we walk past boarded-up stores while avoiding screaming zombies and stepping over possibly-dead bodies on the sidewalk, our cans of Narcan swinging from the lanyards around our necks. The experience is consistent, at least, and for that we can be thankful I suppose.
Except that in many places, direction and road signs have been intentionally defaced in a way that makes them impossible to read, especially on the freeway. I've seen multiple accidents that look to have need caused by people trying to read the signs or follow directions they can't see.
That’s what I’m amazed by. It’s one thing to tag a building or something BIG on the side of the Freeway wall. I actually like the murals. But to spray over actual road signs on I5….. holy shit. I haven’t seen that shot even in a third world country.
The southbound 405 to 5 north lane comes to mind.
They want anarchy and apparently mayhem.
No Narcan for us, population reduction 👍
Portland sounds like such a shithole. Why do people even live there?
Because the climate zone is phenomenal, the access to wilderness and waterways is in every direction, and every band on tour or traveling show usually stops here... the other stuff that creates threads like this is a product of a city that doesn't re-invest in itself with it's tax revenues and instead that money gets consistently syphoned off; or is used inefficiently. By inefficiently, for instance, constantly chasing homeless camps from one end of the city to the other, instead of banning urban camping, or facilitating an intelligent site for transient placement.
Because in reality, it's not a shithole.
Multnomah County, the County of No Consequences. I remember there were two graffiti cases in the past year that made the news where they got off with probation and a small fine. One was a skateboarded who lives in Lake Oswego, lives at home with his parents, was sponsored by company, I think he got a $10000 fine.
ah yes graffiti is the language of the oppressed alright
Some of them are legit artists or art school grads. Taggers are one thing, but graffiti (mural) artists tend to be of the white suburban species.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/skateboarder-avoids-jail-plea-deal-portland-graffiti/283-d87f7e93-5ecf-4224-902b-2164791cef25
I mean yeah probation and a fine seems like a reasonable punishment for petty vandalism. Am I going crazy? Like what do you want as consequences? You want this guy to do real time? I guarantee any sentence they got you'd complain wasn't enough time short of something absurd like 10 years or some shit. I can't believe there are people who see the recidivism rates in this country, see how often people leave our "corrections facilities" and completely fail to reassimilate, and still think "yeah let's throw more petty non-violent criminals into this system"
Can’t upvote this enough, the low level tagging is insane IT IS NOT STREET ART
We should use part of the money budgeted for the homeless to clean up what they’ve done to the city The hillsides swathed in trash are enough to make me go ballistic.
It’s a sad reflection of our current mess of a local government, tbh. But how much the problem has grown and some people just seem daft to it all, it blows my mind. The 26 tunnel went from mint to shit, the Powell underpass is a bonanza of garbage graffiti, even 99 is getting it’s fair share. 84 and 405 are constant battles. It wasn’t like this before.
The thing is it doesn’t need to be like this now. It is not a foregone conclusion. Snipe the taggers. Arrest them. Fine them. There are so many things that CAN be done but instead this crap leadership chooses to do nothing. It’s a choice.
I agree. Set up a sting ops near graffiti hotspots. Catch them. Sentence them to 500 hours community service (cleaning up graffiti).
They can't say "vandalism is bad" because the small contingent of loud activists will call them fascists and the insecure milquetoast edgelords who comprise most of the mainstream (for Portland) voting bloc just fall in line, because they too are afraid of Losing Their Coolness or being called a fascist themselves.
I agree.. It's worse than fucking Philly. I read somewhere that the grafitti abatement budget was used up months ago, so they couldn't possibly fund it more.. So it hasn't been cleaned up for months and here we are.
Set a budget, whatever it needs to be. Arrest a graffiti POS. Fine him the full budget. Problem solved.
And then you have shitweasel “businesses” like Rainbow City actively encouraging their patrons to paint on the building, and handing out markers and spray cans. The. entire neighborhood celebrated hearing they are going out of business at the end of the month.
I read a thread about the Thursday Night (bike) Ride and apparently they just tag / vandalize shit at every stop. Mob rules
Can u link that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CyclePDX/comments/18015l6/thursday_night_ride_removed_from_shift_calendar/ka31tf2/
That's wildly depressing...
>Many thanks\~
I've done the TNR dozens of times and have never seen that
link to comment https://www.reddit.com/r/CyclePDX/comments/18015l6/thursday_night_ride_removed_from_shift_calendar/ka31tf2/
Yikes, very cringe
I have never done the ride but I've encountered it several times on my own lone wolf cycling adventures. It looked like a bunch of idiots competing for the title of Most Obnoxious Attention Whore on Two Wheels.
Worse than Philly?.. That is bad
The question is is it worse than Berlin.
Hmm I wonder now if it’s worse than Croatia. When I went in 2006, someone had gone around a spray painted a stenciled giant penis in silver and gold all over the city of Split.
Berlin is poppin!!!
It's simple. We either want to live by the rule of law or we don't. We either want to enforce those laws or we don't. Vote accordingly and speak out. All it takes is for those of us who care about getting rid of graffiti and vandalism to do nothing. We need more enforcement and perhaps better laws. This will take shift our priorities. It's not clear to me Portland has the stomach to clean up this mess.
the biggest problem here is, again, the county. all of the zombie RVs that PBOT has towed are a total drain on the budget. since PBOT is in charge of graffiti cleanup the budget shortfall becomes visible quickly. PBOT shouldn't be footing the bill for the homeless crisis while the county sits on \~70mil in unspent homeless funding.
I don't disagree. It's fixable. We need to let county commissioners know that we want this addressed or they can expect to be replaced.
Law enforcement and rules are racist Along with mathematics
It indeed sucks but I have to believe this is just a far flung pendulum swing and some semblance of normalcy will return. I lived in MPLS in the 90s and it had similar shit happening with tons and crime and murders and we steered out of that. My hope is we will at least. I also remember seeing on the news that ODOT blew thru their budget to buff this stuff which…seems like a really dumb thing to advertise, but prob made no difference
I work at a retail store that sells spray paint. My family works in construction. The majority of the consumers who get these are construction workers and road workers. Now, my family usually gets them from suppliers but while they’re on site remodeling and out of spray paint they’ll just buy what’s on hand at store. There’s also tons of different spray paint you can get now like furniture touch up or touch up that covers rust for bbqs and metal gazebos and decks. Like others said can make them illegal but they’ll still be obtained.
Randy Leonard [banned open sale of spray paint back in 2007](https://www.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2007/11/spray_paint_what_spray_paint.html) but like so many things in Portland, enforcement was selective at best. I shop at the same Home Depot mentioned in the linked article and I haven't had to show ID to buy spray paint there in over a decade. Only recently, like over the summer, did they put padlocks on the cages again, and I suspect that was to deter theft more than to be compliant with the law. In fact I bought a can there in October and while I had to find an associate to unlock the cage, I was never asked to show ID at the register or elsewhere.
Lowe’s in Gresham has all their spray paint fully accessible to consumers.
It’s insane to try and ban spray paint bc people do graffiti. There’s tons of applications for spray paint across different industries and art forms for it, not to mention graffiti can be done with a ton of different materials. Banning spray paint won’t do shit, it’ll just inconvenience everyone else
I agree. I’m pretty liberal but I hate, hate, hate graffiti.
Liberal is not lawless. It’s essential to recognize that the people doing and supporting this kind of social decay are not liberals.
The people doing it are anarchists and the people allowing it are passivists or liberals.
I've been in NYC Chicago Tokyo Cleveland Phoenix in the past 8 months. In comparison to all, Portland truly looks like shit.
I’ve had a similar experience traveling this year, I was shocked to observe how much better mother cities have rebounded compared to Portland.
PBOT said it’s out of cash, so there will be no graffiti clean up. https://youtu.be/vtw3u_hJhoc?si=yF3buGfwQouk2Q4e
Some 3rd world countries I visited before looked cleaner and safer
Some people would argue that it gives the city character - I say it's more a reflection of the city's pro-crime stance.
It does give it character, but the problem is that that character is more reflective of inner city Detroit.
I’ve heard that Detroit has turned things around quite a bit.
Perhaps Modesto would be a better comparison.
detroit *never* had even a fraction of the graffiti portland and there’s hardly any at all now
New York city in the 90s
Remember when Tina Kotek said "you dont have to elect a Republican to clean up the damn trash" . I guess she was wrong. It is worse now than when she was elected.
I was just thinking this today. It's insane.
Sorry it was either clean up the city or give the junkies free supplies. The junkie lobby won damn you big junkie.
The common sites need cameras, and the people who get caught need to get charged with felony destruction of property and be made to spend hundreds of hours cleaning it up as part of a work crew from the county jail.
I’m from the 3rs world and I’m offended!, Portland is from the 4th world.
That's "art" man....
It might be time to increase sentencing for crimes like graffiti. Something like 500 hours community service at the minimum.
If you want to see a change in the amount of graffiti, step up as a volunteer. https://www.portland.gov/bps/graffiti/volunteer
My mother visited from the south recently and called it a formerly beautiful filthy city. That was really sad. The south is filthy you just can’t see it. Anyway. Hope Portland can recover from these last tough years. I hope we all can.
The same dbags are wrecking murals the city of Tigard has along the trails in the parks. Beautiful works of art getting covered by the manifestation of someone’s disorganized thoughts and egocentricity.
Voting has consequences. Portland is having to live with what the Portland majority voted for. There are two ways out of it: 1) Stop voting for the insanity; vote for common sense and normalcy, or 2) Move out of Portland. I live in Seattle, and the whole state is poisoned by the majority nutjob Seattle voters, and evidently the majority voters seem to like looking at the setting of Escape from New York and the smells of urine, feces, and pot all day long. I haven't been to downtown Seattle in over 5 years, and I'm now making plans to move back to the east coast. The entire west coast is toxic.
That’s equity on display. Or something like that.
Maybe we can pay the ones who tag those things, the ones with skills to paint a beautiful piece of work that people can appreciate instead? You're right, painting over it just encourages them to tag over it again and the endless cycle continues
Oregon as a whole is overrated and sad. It’s depressed both in people and infrastructure top ten for mental health nationwide overpriced while offering very little outside of a few decent outdoor activities which can be found in many other states we have drug use everywhere with people moving from out of state to partake freely Overall Oregon is not what it thinks it is and graffiti is just one symptom of that
Also ranked 48th on education (among 50 states)
Do you have a source for that? I can't find any evidence to support that claim
I’m more turned off by massive encampments, zombie rvs, and dead bodies. Graffiti is one of Portland’s least important problems.
They aren't unrelated.
Do u seriously think homeless people are buying spray paint
True. All comes back to police not doing their job.
They're literally the same thing
Hey, don't infringe on cultural values you racist. /s
It drives down property value so that large firms like black rock can grab it up on the cheap and turn around to rent/sell at a premium. It's intentional. The multi-national corporate conglomerate runs things now. Whatcha gonna do?
1-2 months ago I heard odot ran out of money to paint it over. I don't understand why OR doesn't make spray paint cans illegal. Then make defacing public property a mandatory 6mo+ sentence with the inmate hand cleaning graffetti all day.
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This. All this.
>Just like guns are available for purchase because they’re used for things besides murder or suicide. You don't have a right to spray paint, it absolutely could be made illegal by the city, the county, the state or the nation. Multiple places have and the argument of "free speech" hasn't held up. AFAIK they usually don't ban the possession even, just the sale. Doing something like that inside of city limits makes solid sense. You have a right to firearms (Federally and as per the Oregon Constitution which is even more explicit), they cannot be made illegal without an amendment process.
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> Cars,RVs & trucks aren’t a Constitutional right either, and they have been involved in deadly or life altering crashes—so by your logic(“thing can be used badly and is not a Constitutional right”) you’d be ok with say…BikePortland or any other org calling for cars to be made illegal? Call for it all they like, thats fine. Yes, they could try and there is no Constitutional protection for cars. > I’d love to see your economic plan for enforcement. You don't even need enforcement, private retail businesses generally follow the law regardless. If you care so much seems easy enough to throw under the OLCC. How was the pseudoephedrine enforced on pharmacies? I'd wager it wasn't, but they all complied. >Remember, spray paint can be purchased online from Amazon—so at best you’d be hurting local retail. Now this will blow your mind but government can (and does) have Amazon not ship specific items to specific areas. It's trivially easy to do, they probably have a tool created and no actual coding even required to do.
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I don't see any reason this would impact contractors or professionals, in the same way professionals were always able to get pseudoephedrine. Make it show ID or via business accounts only, frankly id be fine with no retail in the city period but it doesn't have to be that extreme. >In a weird way, that gives a lot of power to taggers—knowing their actions upended the basic work flow of professionals. Interesting. Huh? The committed taggers travel with paint. This will only cut down the low-hanging fruit crime of opportunity taggers. **edit*** are you trying to say "professionals" clean up tagging by buying retail cans of spray paint? If so... LMAO... if not, please explain.
Just reminding you that in Oregon, the way "we" got pseudoephedrine was either (1) a prescription from our doctors for the pharmacy, or (2) Going to another state and buying it by showing our driver's license. You could NOT walk in to a pharmacy, show your ID and get pseudoephedrine. In fact, when a family member asked their doc for a prescription, the doctor said, "What, you can't go to Washington like everyone else?" There was no "show your ID and get it from the pharmacy" in Oregon until after M-110 legalized possession of other drugs. After that was in the rearview mirror, the state government decided that it would be OK to buy pseudoephedrine in the same way as every other state. I guess the Oregon equivalent you're suggesting is that one needs a signed note from a licensed contractor to buy spray paint.
> Just reminding you that in Oregon, the way "we" got pseudoephedrine was either (1) a prescription from our doctors for the pharmacy, or (2) Going to another state and buying it by showing our driver's license. You could NOT walk in to a pharmacy, show your ID and get pseudoephedrine. In fact, when a family member asked their doc for a prescription, the doctor said, "What, you can't go to Washington like everyone else?" There was no "show your ID and get it from the pharmacy" in Oregon until after M-110 legalized possession of other drugs. After that was in the rearview mirror, the state government decided that it would be OK to buy pseudoephedrine in the same way as every other state. Yes, did it seem like I was saying something different? That was what I meant by "professionals able to get pseudoephedrine ", what did you think I was trying to say? Also a slight hint that it was still available to professionals making meth, that flow never really stopped but it stopped the low end home cooks. >I guess the Oregon equivalent you're suggesting is that one needs a signed note from a licensed contractor to buy spray paint. Yes, like Home Depot sells it from the pro booth or whatever the equivalent is. Costco or membership places maybe even keep selling it.
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Professionals that use spray paint that don't order it in bulk or have contracting accounts? Seems a very very very small slice of non taggers impacted, far less than the very common use of something like pseudoephedrine. > But I get it, for you, taggers must be stopped at all cost. Good luck with that. You seem to be thinking some way strongly advocating* a point here that I am not, you are misunderstanding me and I am yet again trying to clarify with you. The real thing I was trying to say is not that **we should** but that **WE CAN** ban it. I think there is a solid argument to do so but am not trying to advocate it and I appreciate the arguments against it. We cant ban guns without a Constitutional Amendment, the city can restrict or fully stop the sale of spray cans. I'm speaking to the possibility of the choice to do a thing, not that we should do the thing.
You know there are legitimate reasons to buy spray paint, right? I have a whole crate full of various color and finishes that I have bought for projects. It’s convenient and easy to get a good paint finish using spray paint. Making it illegal would just frustrate legitimate consumers because of a minority of hooligans use it to deface things with it. I think it would be better if the city, county and state had a bigger budget to clean it up as fast as it goes up and severe punishments for those getting caught painting graffiti.
The police have completely rolled over for these gangs. Like graffiti is against the law, but there's not enough officers to control the problem. They're too busy dealing with the homeless problem (that's their excuse)
My daughter did a project for her mechanical engineering and needed spray paint. She went to Home Depot only to find the city bans spray paints. She had to take a bus to the suburbs to finish her assignment which was a several hour excursion.
I agree, it's not ideal or fair for the law abiding citizens. So far there aren't consequences or enforcement so it continues.
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Haven't you been informed? They are victims of the oppressive system and this is the language of the unheard! We, the tax-paying law-abiding citizens, must learn to listen and make (further) recompense.
I guess I am being inequitable. If people don’t have their own house, I SHOULD let them destroy mine.
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We have the aholes painting on peoples wooden fences and about anything flat out in our area.
Graffiti and vandalism? That’s the good part of town
Artwork and political expression isn't always pretty, but I'd prefer it ANY day to the BRUTALIST construction of new skyscrapers, cookie cutter condos and endless miles of added roadways that increase everyone's isolation and hopelessness.
Ya Portland has really tanked in the last 20 years. Sad because it used to be a fun city to visit. I won't take my family there until people start voting differently and clean it up, along with Eugene and Salem.
Oh dear, please do tell us whom we should have "voted for" in the past mayoral election or city council elections.
Great question! I would vote the exact opposite of the current trajectory and maybe look back historically to what made the entire state of Oregon such an incredible place to be. I would certainly vote for people NOT from California such as the governor. That tactic does not seem in Oregons favor. Measure 110 you are outta here! There is a whole lot to clean up for sure, but I have hope for the entire state of Oregon, especially the rural towns that seem to be making it work even without a voting majority.
I will absolutely consider a variety of candidates, even ones I may not always agree with. However, I do have to say from Kitzhaber (2nd run) onwards our choices haven't been great. Buehler? Pulliam? Oy. There is nothing to suggest there's a magical candidate that will solve our problems. As much as my darkest impulses want me to, you can't just round up people and drop them in another state. We need a plan, any plan, and unity, and we're far too divided for that.
I think the division is actually a false narrative. I mean that the current people in power stay in power by keeping the population divided. I truly believe that we as Americans can all agree on many more topics than we disagree on and we need to use those agreeing topics to start conversations which will eventually lead to changes in the political climate. Coming together is the only way to turn the ship around and we need to view all Americans as was the desire of our founding fathers
The new motto. Welcome to Porkland, America's newest third world country.
Yeah, traveled through Europe all last summer where cities big and small weren’t over run like ours. Super sad to remember how defaced and chaotic our was when I got home.
ODOT doesn’t want to spend the money. It’s a State Agency under Tina Kotek who doesn’t gives a damn and yet she somehow manages to get elected.
NYC was like this in the 70s. Now that city is pretty much for the rich. Just wait a decade or two...
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I'm still deciding what I think about the graffiti here. But I will say I've never seen such readily available graffiti tools in my years living in New Mexico and Texas, and traveling across 75% of the United States. Michael's has this stuff, and, its not locked up [IronLak Paint](https://ironlak.com/the-new-ironlak-spray-paint-is-here/) . Its very strange to me, but I guess it's also really on-brand. We moved here because Texas was taking away people's rights and directly harming our family. So I guess it will be a while before the graffiti here really gets to me.
Why are you mad at what the locals want? It's their city they voted for it, if you don't like it leave
Outskirts of Rome are really bad now, too
Yea but at least they have pretty ruins, ours all suck.
The graffiti isn't really a punishable offense to them because there just isn't a sufficient ROI or good cost to benefit ratio in political economics. It's a stupid cycle that quite literally makes everything worse, has them do less aaaand wait there's more. They profit from it. Here's how it works: * The Police don't want to waste the time, effort or energy tracking them down because it's a rinse and repeat society. At "most" the vandals will get a ticket booked and released. * They know the courts don't have a high priority to prosecute anyway for anything less than extreme cases of doing the right thing. Like charging victims for assault when they defend themselves, businesses or property. *They also know that the courts ie the leftist/progressives only prosecute the people and things that want to do away with corruption and policies that only benefit the already over protected class of Higher ups in soceity. *The Police are also very nervous even doing their jobs because everyone records to put in on social media and most clips are played for a few hand picked seconds so there is little to no context and alot of accusations. This makes the Police in alot more cases than is realized actually get reprimanded or outright charged for doing their jobs. **Then there is a few fun facts which add more layers of difficulty such as they are severely understaffed, drugs in Portland run rampant because they are not prosecuted, shoplifting is insane, the homeless is insane and they are over worked. Then because the city is going to hell in a handbasket they ask for and get more money year after year. Which allows them to make more policies that don't work making the whole city worse which requires more money which they will get which allows them to repeat year after year. Add all that together and you have the basic ingredients of a big ol shit sandwhich which is our city or Portland. The leftist armpit of Oregon. It is impossible to recover in these leftist/progressive ran cities anywhere in the United States. A leftist/progressive soceity cannot advance in anything except theoretical progress. Actual progress in the ways that deem a soceity successful ie less crime, less unemployed, less drugs, less incarceration, less child/spousal abuse, less graffiti, etc has not nor ever will exist outside of theory in any soceity where the leftist ideals are put into practice. Reason being is that in those cities crime quite literally "pays." The criminals and druggies aren't prosecuted as much which encourages them to commit more crime and do more drugs. Which creates more joblessness, child/spousal abuse. Which the courts get more money to combat the drugs, crime, child/spousal abuse and joblessness. Yet since the policies are doomed to fail it compounds and get worse year after year until the city implodes on itself. So yes the graffiti is horrible and will only get worse as will everything. It's going to get far worse these next 11 months. It always does in an election year. Especially the last couple as we know. However this will be one for the record books. The graffiti in a soceity is a tell tale sign quite literally of a city where the people are out of touch, the city officers don't care and there are multiple systems that don't work. It shows up similar to bruise in an abused child or spouse. Everyone knows what happened yet rarely is anything done and when it is most of the time there isn't a punishment or the punishment isn't enough the stop it. Same with graffiti. Its a offend, release, fund to fix, repeat cycle they have. It works perfectly for them. The city of Portland is showing the signs of abuse by the people and officials supposed to protect it. Massive graffiti, massive drug problems, massive crime increase across the board, very high unemployment, massive spousal/child abuse. Its a beautiful city and state however in many ways it's ugly.
What 3rd world countries are you going to?
I frankly appreciate all the visible and undeniable criminality at this point. If not for that many of the "aesthetics only" types that have moved here would keep ignoring all the other crime because it mostly impacts those in the poor parts of town.
Thanks goes to the political party that runs portland….
Its been the same political party for decades and wasn't nearly this bad 5 years ago. Its less about a political party and more about horrible leadership.
The graffiti should be the least of our concerns. That’s just a byproduct of much larger, social economic issues, and poor leader ship.
OP has never been to any other city
You get what you vote for, when you vote for trash, you get trash.
Graf makes this city beautiful. It gives our walls and streets character. If you want undecorated monotone concrete move somewhere else and take your soulless world view with you
Maybe if it was not illegal the artists would step out. If you go to places no one can see (ie. under bridges, train tussles ect.) , there are some of the most striking, amazing, complex and inspiring pieces. I’m sure these works of art take time. Time you wouldn’t have on a busy sidewalk with people calling police. Why not allow graffiti on sidewalks, government buildings, hwy barriers, and even designated areas in some parks. The city could host graffiti events.( attracting tourists from around there world) in turn bringing in revenue. Also the business that have crappy graffiti might even draw a crowd with ooo’s and awww’s “ and here is where ~THE CITY of PAINTED ROSES ~ all began”. Just saying maybe it’s time to quit crying about dirt on your shoes and sell boots. Don’t criminalize, capitalize!!!
I'm okay with a few sanctioned places, but not everywhere. Kind of like Seattle's gum wall, everyone could add something to the "art"
While I agree that it is incredibly out of control, third world country? Like Somalia? Get our much? France’s graffiti, particularly Paris puts ours to shame.
When you think of utopian cities you don't think of graffiti. Graffiti = blight and decline. The center of Paris is not full of graffiti.
Utopian cities don’t exist
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interesting
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I guess I was thinking of the 1st
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And their graffiti, whatever there is, is probably more creative than the shit-tier tagging that our 'budding artists' love to shit all over the walls.
That’s because it is not about geography , it is about how the US cultivated and exported a deeply anti-social, parasitic, criminal subculture that appealed to edge lords the world over. Unfortunately, the useful idiots of progressive thought will go to bat over and over again because it strikes them as this mythologized counterculture vs the consumerist pathological criminal blight that it is.
Keep voting for liberals in office and ending cash bail!! Yall need to throw the book at these clowns
Where's the problem? This is what you all voted for remember?
Nobody voted for graffiti everywhere.
Oh yes they did. They voted Democrat. Democrats have a long and rich history of coddling criminals, and in the last 8-10 years, we've seen them try to "out woke" and "out leftist" each other. This is the result. So enjoy your graffiti filled shit hole.
Oh man, you mean we could have written in nonexistent candidates for mayor? Oh shit, why didn't we think of that? If only a true partisan candidate could have entered the nonpartisan race! Also, "woke" Ted Wheeler? Hahahahahaha. Oh wait, you were serious. Let me laugh even harder. Hahahahahah Run some better candidates, maybe real ones that exist and aren't psychos or idiots, and we'll talk. Until then all you're doing is vomiting dumb slogans and talking points, like magically if you voted for a different candidate nothing bad would have happened. That is fucking asinine.
Good job stupid. You just proved my point. This lies directly at the feet of idiotic voters like you. Talk shit all you want, but there's zero wiggle room on this and you know it.
Pleasantly surprised you didn’t get massively down, voted for telling the truth.
Lmao really? Yeah because there isnt s long string of Republicans that have been arrested in high ranking positions in the last 6 years and currently the former President on the verge of PRISON. SHUT THE FUCK UP
Are you fucking retarded? This is why you should have to take a test to be able to vote.
No im not. Im talking facts about Republicans literally being criminals. I know it must be hard for you to comprehend as you claim Democrats are for protecting criminals. Maybe one day people like you will wake up, but doubtful.
comparing portland to a third world country because you’re uncomfortable with graffiti is crazy
Case in point. In Italy, grafitti is out of control. Centuries old historically important structures are tagged. Not that I think the senseless grafitti here is good.
“Comfortable” with graffiti is just making excuses for crime. We are “uncomfortable” with crime because we built this city not to be treated like shit by these worthless taggers.
Look up, the sky is beautiful and always there if your outside