Once again - Portland in the news for all the wrong reasons (Lexington: neighborhoods, camps)

[jdhpa]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

I admit that I have been guilty of this line of thinking in the past. I now just accept that all "information" is to some extent, someone's "propaganda."

The false narrative that there were only "Facts and news"was destroyed years ago.

It is probably Better to acknowledge reality, parce what data is available even knowing it is presented by some agenda driven. Then try to make intelligent and rational decisions.

Bt now, everyone who can think beyond a 3rd grader should understand that every source (right/left/middle/crazy/sane) has agendas, objectives and goals.

Precisely. Whenever I hear "news" that makes one side or the other look particularly bad, I check a source from the "other side" to get the rest of the story. There almost always is more to the story. Omission of relevant facts is a fundamental technique of propagandists.

Refusing to read / believe anything from a source that supports the "other side" is pretty much the definition of living in a bubble, because by definition they never hear or refuse to believe relevant objective facts that "their side" is intentionally omitting.

[redguard57]

It's worse than it was, yes. But in my travels, every urban area is worse than it was before covid. Every single one. Whatever problems they had, are now worse.

However, it is also getting better. Visibly better since the reopening.

Portland has been "Democrat-run" for many decades. Yet until covid, it was regularly on "best cities" lists.
Convenient how the article doesn't mention other problems that are exacerbating the homeless & crime situation.

[EasyBeezy]

This is basically the same article, without the propaganda and political bias. Just information about an issue and interviews with the people who are central to the story. You know, actual journalism. The propaganda article had no interviews and only one quote. And it was mostly about San Francisco and NYC and consisted mostly of 20+ pictures of people shooting up (in other cities.) No one disputes that Portland has very serious issues on the streets. I actually wouldn't be surprised if a Republican won a citywide election in the next 5 years.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...services-drugs

[ccjarider]

Originally Posted by EasyBeezy

This is basically the same article, without the propaganda and political bias. Just information about an issue and interviews with the people who are central to the story. You know, actual journalism. The propaganda article had no interviews and only one quote. And it was mostly about San Francisco and NYC and consisted mostly of 20+ pictures of people shooting up (in other cities.) No one disputes that Portland has very serious issues on the streets. I actually wouldn't be surprised if a Republican won a citywide election in the next 5 years.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...services-drugs

Not sure what your point is. Both articles are full of fact, opinion and bias. They are just worded differently. Both articles are pretty good. The intent and information being dispensed is equal. Quotes btw- are usually advocation of a position or making an excuse, Most of the time, they are not fact.

I guess you just are drawn to a particular style- that is ok.

I am happy to see lot's of coverage of the craphole Portland has become. (Whoever does the covering) It may drive change.

[CARas2020]

I only read and listen to reputable news sources. The Daily Mail is NOT one of them.

The city of Portland is a cesspool. All the buildings are still covered with plywood. I have noticed a very slight change in some of the homeless camps. They are still over and the garbage is still over. I hate it here. This city use to be beautiful. We would come downtown every year for The Rose Festival. But even that has turned to SH*t.

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by CARas2020

I only read and listen to reputable news sources. The Daily Mail is NOT one of them.

The city of Portland is a cesspool. All the buildings are still covered with plywood. I have noticed a very slight change in some of the homeless camps. They are still over and the garbage is still over. I hate it here. This city use to be beautiful. We would come downtown every year for The Rose Festival. But even that has turned to SH*t.

There are no reputable News sources. They are all biased.

Now has Portland changed? I cannot say, as it has been a long time since I was there. However I have a relative who lived near Portland and left last year. It was not good at that time.

[WestRiverTraveler]

From an outsiders perspective, I seems like the residential neighborhood in Portland are doing decent, but Downtown has really gone to hell. I was here 4 years ago and stayed in an AirBnB in SE and visited a friend in NE. Loved the city overall, but I was underwhelmed by downtown and saw the obvious problem with homeless and drug abuse. I'm not some country rube - I lived in Boston at the time and spend a lot of time in NYC. I'm staying a little further out in SE now. I had lunch in NW yesterday. Things are decent around here.

Downtown, however, has taken a big step back. It didn't have much room to move down. This seems to track with what I see in NYC - downtown Manhattan has gotten sketch again, but I stayed down on the Lower East and it was thriving. COVID wiped out a lot of businesses in downtown areas. More people working from home even today. I'll bet Portland's very slow return to normalcy did help, either.

[Lapaki]

This past April, after almost 25 years of living in Beaverton and working in downtown Portland (until the pandemic, anyway), my wife and I moved to Louisville, Kentucky to be close to our oldest son, for the much-lower cost of living, and because of the decline in quality of life in Portland. For our first 15 years in Portland, it was as close to perfect a city for us as we could imagine, and we're sad at what it's become. My wife worked for the City of Portland and had a lot of insight into city politics. We consider ourselves left of center politically and believe that the far-left Progressive policies are a significant factor in the city's decline.

Although it wasn't as visible, we were seeing more crime and homelessness in Beaverton. There was a small homeless camp in a vacant lot in our modest suburban neighborhood, and break-ins were getting more common. We blame that on the economy and the pandemic rather than on Beaverton politics, though. Of course, traffic and too much growth have lowered the quality of life, as well, but that's happening in many places. I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from moving to areas outside of Portland proper, but the primary reason I moved to Beaverton in the first place was to be near Portland. I couldn't afford a house in the city, and the tech jobs were in Beaverton and Hillsboro. I miss the spectacular beauty of the PNW, but there are other areas of the country that are beautiful and far less expensive.

Louisville has its problems, but it reminds us in many ways of Portland 20 years ago. It's a blue city in a red state state, but it's more centrist politically. The population is about half that of Portland's. It has a thriving arts, food, and culture scene. People are friendly overall. There are areas best avoided, but we were downtown a couple weeks ago when Pride Week and Juneteenth celebrations were underway. We saw only a couple of homeless people, no trash, and almost no graffiti. Almost everything is cheaper here, especially homes. Like Portland in 2000, it hasn't been "discovered," so people aren't moving here in droves yet. Kentucky is lush and green. Yes, we're still in the honeymoon phase, but we never would have considered moving here had it not been for our son's urgings and our favorable impressions on two previous visits, so we didn't have any romantic fantasies about the place.

I agree with the previous comments that all news sources are biased. I'd never heard of the concept of critical thinking until graduate school (why isn't it taught in high school, let alone undergraduate college?), but one of the first things we learned is that everyone has an agenda. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but you need to be aware of it, expose yourself to different points of view, and make your best judgment based on the available data and information.

I sincerely hope that Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and other West Coast cities are able to turn themselves around. It's ultimately up to the voters.

[EasyBeezy]

I sincerely hope that Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and other West Coast cities are able to turn themselves around. It's ultimately up to the voters.

I think the moderation of local West Coast politics is already underway, even in Portland. While Republicans are still a third rail, moderate Democrats have been making strong inroads up and down the West Coast. In Seattle, the new mayor, Bruce Harrell, destroyed a much more progressive candidate in the mayoral election. He campaigned on law and order, supporting the police and cleaning up the city. In LA , a former Republican that just switched parties placed in the top two in the primary, and stands a good chance in the general. The mayor of SF is far less progressive than her predecessors. Even here in Portland, the progressives on city council are getting replaced one by one, and the mayor (who is not particularly liberal by Portland standards) defeated his far more progressive opponent in 2020. People seem to be increasingly voting on quality of life issues as the streets have become truly scary in areas that were fun and safe 15 years ago.

[Guineas]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

We drive down to Portland several times a year, and have since about 1995. We were there last in May, for the first time since Covid, and were amazed at the increase in homeless and graffiti compared to before. Still, I work in Seattle, and Portland has a long way to go to get as bad as their neighbor to the north. Definitely going downhill, but we still enjoy going there, in fact will be driving down there tomorrow for the day.

Strong disagree here. Went to Portland a few weeks ago and thought it looked significantly worse than Seattle. Seattle Pioneer Square and Third and Pine have always been sketchy so not much has changed from before Covid in that regard. The neighborhoods have always been Seattle’s strong points and they have mostly been thriving. But Portland to me looked noticeably worse than before Covid. The Trimet MAX was also super sketchy even in broad daylight with multiple people lighting up foil in the train.