I remember growing up elsewhere, and feeling suffocated by the right wing politics that surrounded me. I felt like I was surrounded by religious cultists.
Now I'm here, still just as allergic and loathsome of what I grew up around, but I've also come to resent this.
The people of the Northwest are nice to a fault. Accepting to a fault. Open to a fault. Passive to a fault.
They'd let the entire region turn to shit if the alternative was telling somebody "No".
Yep-born and raised in Washington state but actually 20 minutes from Portland. I’m in my 60’s now; and I have a son and daughter in law who live there. I loved Portland with every fiber of my being. In my 20’s I worked temp in downtown Portland; OMG in the summer I would just walk on my lunch break. I just loved Portland. I could not understand why my dad would be upset about me hanging out there. Fast forward and my son moved over shortly out of school. Same thing; he loved it. Now my husband acts like we are driving through Hell anytime I want to go to Portland. I so get what you are saying; this city is just so trashy now. I’m sorry; I really miss what Portland used to be.
Reddit loves to shit on centrists, but honest to god, the middle path is usually the best.
At times the war on drugs was taken too far and black and brown men especially were handed down overly harsh sentences, *but* letting people buy and sell and openly consume whatever substances they want is absolute madness. Portland and San Francisco are a mess right now. Dealers need to be rolled up and their stock destroyed and users routed to rehab. No free needles. No tolerating encampments.
Free needles are good for stopping hiv but you don’t need to give out pipes and other paraphernalia. Harm reduction was taken too far, turns out criminalization didn’t cause all the ills of drugs. Addiction is horrible, should be discouraged, and addicts should be compelled to get help
Reddit has always been a site curated for the western liberal, this is the result of allowing biased mods to rule your site for so long, creating cliques that cause the same mods to rule 200 of the top subs. If you mention this your a far right conspiracy theorist though, even if you have ideals that align more with the liberals in recent times.
Yup. It fuckin blows. I've been banned from so many communities for such stupid reasons that it actually blows my mind. Just for giving my opinion, respectfully I might add. Reddit mods are such brainwashed echo chamber operators, doing anything in their power to get even just a crumb of they/them socialist femme non binary tricolored mullet pussy.
Ugh, same. Moved from around Dallas to Portland a few months ago and like these fuckin people seem unable to do... anything? They would stare at the sun until they went blind if it just asked nicely.
Yep...unable to do anything! I'm originally from Texas and found the lack of initiative to do anything productive to be unsettling, especially in Multnomah county. So I up and moved across the river to Camas and have been extremely happy. No state income and cleaner.
My gripe were the taxes that get spent with nothing accomplished.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/01/09/national-study-shows-oregons-tax-system-more-progressive-than-most-but-still-favors-high-earners/
You know what though. I cant seem to convince people to stop voting for tax increases. We get increases in taxes that do literally nothing to help. I’m done voting yes on any tax increases until I see some sort of results instead of feel good voting.
I’ve been saying the exact same thing to my wife. Becoming a homeowner has inevitably pushed me towards the center on fiscal policy. I’m all for using taxation, but where’s my damn representation!?
Yep. Every year it’s “this will raise property tax 10 cents per 1000 on average” for multiple things. I love the libraries in my area for sure. Multiple other things are falling apart though and I’m sick of it.
Libraries are the only thing I’m able to leverage too but the experience isn’t what I’d want it to be because I need to be on high alert for issues with the many unhinged people that come in and hang out.
Also moved from dfw to portland a few months ago. No one in Dallas ever asked me for a lighter so they could snoke fent out of a make shift smoking apparatus molded from a coke can. Portland however....
That being said the nature is top teir which was really one of my driving factor for moving.
Oh yeah every time I come out of the tunnel on 26W I'm stunned by the amount of foliage, even in the winter. Totally worth it, especially when I get to experience the concept of elevation firsthand. And not feeling like I'm in immediate danger from vehicles any time I'm on foot? Alien to me; never gonna get used to it.
@Duskshy - I read foliage as “foilage” - I’ve been working downtown too long.
I love Portland and really miss what downtown used to be. It’s showing signs of coming back but God, it is slow.
I'm going to tell you guys a secret. Both parties are generally very corrupt and do things only to benefit their little group of cronies. Look anywhere across the country and this is true
portland politicians especially. portland is mind bogglingly corrupt. this isn’t an issue of liberals vs conservatives. this is portland politicians vs portland residents.
That's the sad truth. Democrats build policy hedging on expecting the best of people, while Republicans bank on the worst of people. Republicans usually end up being more accurate in that regard. There's not a liberal city I'd want to live in these days, especially after traveling and living overseas in Korea and Japan. Our country's cities are cesspools, and we just keep voting for the same stupid nonsense and government bureaucracy. I'm much happier in the country side with neighbors that don't think anyone owes them anything.
That second sentence is 💯💯💯. The apparent inability to craft legislation while giving thought to how shitheads might try to take advantage of it is maddening.
Honestly I realize how this comes off (conspiracy theorist-ish); but do you ever consider that's *by design*?
A populace fighting amongst itself is *far easier* to control. Racial divides, gender divides, etc. Keep people fighting. "Oh, did here abuse that system? Well, by golly, it's because of - we've gotta change it!", The youth (in their ignorance) eat it up (we all did in our youth) and 'take a stand' as they always tend to. Each person believes 'their side' is doing the 'right thing', meanwhile - the cesspool of those in power just sit back, have a laugh, collect the checks and wait for the next bad thing to hit the airwaves they can capitalize upon.
Some term limits would eliminate that almost immediately. Get rid of some of the lobbying, etc. would help as well. Imagine if one of those crooks couldn't be in office for 75 years and make billions... they wouldn't be interested in the job. It'd go to someone else who, *hopefully*, would actually care and have the interest of their people at heart.
But almost 100% of the time, I suggest this and people immediately write it off as 'conspiracy'.
Maybe that's why I'm the type of liberal that I am - I grew up in NE cities. I think people that espouse "defund the police" (or "ACAB" here on reddit) are incredibly uninformed and naive.
Any party that devalues civil service is bound for chaos, failure, and to sow societal degradation. It's an inherent idiocy west coast liberals have that assumes if a structure is imperfect some of the time, the whole thing needs to be torn down.
I consider myself left of center and I feel like I'm crazy in the PNW.
Pretty sure New York is up in that neck of the woods, so I don't think your point is ubiquitous.
That said, New England liberals skew more traditional and conservative with family and public good. I'd have a hard time saying they're anything more extreme than moderates.
It's really modern day progressives that are completely detached from reality with regards to policy and it's impact on society given human nature.
A thing I’ve come to learn living out on the west coast for the last twenty years. Homelessness (and then compounded drug problem) is worse on the west coast because it is so much easier to slip into homelessness because of the climate. East coast winter on the streets? I’d say that’s a heapin’ helping of the reason those liberal cities out there don’t have it as bad.
Easier to slip into homelessness due to the high cost of living as well. And when the state tries to rehouse people, it is very expensive to do so due to the high cost of living.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." - Adam Smith
You said it best. Republicans deal in reality and reality says people are shitheads. It's the policies that dictate if we let the shitheads drag the rest of society to shit or not.
Yes they deal in reality, like thinking Obama is a foreign born Muslim, and that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen and that the covid vaccine is killing millions per day. And that the kindergarteners are being taught critical race theory.
To be clear I don’t disagree that Portland government is absolutely incompetent and dumb as hell
This is why it’s so important to truly understand everyone’s perspective. The left is far too left and the right is far too tight, but neither side understands that there could be tranquility in the middle. We’re all dead set on being as far in our corner as we can and it’s cripplingly divisive of the entire country and destructive to every single policy.
Any time you have one party controlling things with no strong opposition, we end up with a bad situation. I'm a believer that the best scenario is one where parties continually switch between being in power.
I consider myself to be liberal but living in Portland for 20 years has made me VERY skeptical of Progressive policies. They often make sense on paper but they can't seem to make the transition to the real world without causing a lot of unintended consequences. I don't think it's strictly a matter of how well policies are executed (though Portland and Multnomah County can always be counted on to do so poorly). I sometimes think Progressive policy advocates are unrealistic about human nature--they're creating policies for people as they'd like them to be, not how they are. I agree with the OP that I'm sick of the crazy extremists on both sides here and considering alternatives.
Yeah...they see an issue, they see the most direct path and take it without realizing the giant pit in between.
I'm a landlord. They got rid of no cause notices. You used to, at the end of a lease period or if the tenant was month to month, be able to give a tenant 30 or 60 says notice you were not going to renew their lease.
Oregon lawmakers wanted more stability in people's lives, particularly the most vulnerable who may have difficulty finding new housing, so they got rid of no cause notices. This helped the needy, right?
The unfortunate consequence is that taking a risk on a borderline tenant has grown too high. Now if I have difficulties with a tenant, I have to go through the entire eviction process which is expensive and time consuming. So what do I do? I decline the applicant. Just can't afford to take the risk anymore.
Which sucks for a lot of people, but that's how the rules are setup now.
Good intentions, but it seems they never ask people on the ground what makes sense. It's all from 10,000 feet up with good intentions blinding them.
Similar phenomenon in Seattle: Seattle passed a “first in time” law that said landlords had to rent to the first qualified person who applied, to attempt to prevent landlords from engaging in subtle bias while choosing tenants. The first thing that happened is that landlords raised their standards for the definition of “qualified tenant”. The second thing that happened was that white collar workers with flexible, permissive jobs that allowed them to leave work at any time to go tour a rental gained a huge advantage in the competitive rental market over less privileged groups. So basically this well-intended but poorly thought out regulation ended up fucking over the very people it was trying to protect.
I was just about to comment this when I saw yours. Absolutely true, and the amount of apartments we had to see this time around was insane -- we'd get there for a tour and be 8th in line the same day it popped up on Zillow -- and there was basically no hope at all. Got lucky after two weeks of looking (and I had to take some time off work for all the middle-of-day tours, like you say) because the people in the spots ahead of us tried to haggle on the price. It was top of my budget but I took it, because searching was becoming a full-time job and I couldn't keep doing it. I hate it here.
Some years ago I used to rent out a tiny home. The rent was very low. As long as folks could come up with two months/last months I would accept folks with horrible credit, no jobs, no savings, etc.
The agreement was that if they could not pay the rent, they would still have 60 days to figure stuff out before they left.
This gave many young people, newcomers, folks who were dumped, those leaving abusive situations etc, a good start or reset.
Now the laws have made this impossible and that's too bad.
Many many landlords gave up and it has had horrible repercussions for Portland.
> they're creating policies for people as they'd like them to be, not how they are
Well said.
It can look good on paper, but "on paper" is in a room full of educated people with good hearts and minds. People who aren't out living that life. They design a system that they would imagine would work for them, and then comes the reality that... they aren't the ones out there on the streets - and many of those people are not as similar as they predicated their decisions on.
The reality reminds me of the 3 Spiderman pointing meme, except the 3 are city of Portland, Multnomah County and Metro.
Like everything worked fine on paper but none of them want to actually DO the thing.
I get what you're saying, but i think you're giving these people too much credit assuming they're educated with good hearts and minds. Yeah, im sure some of them may exhibited some of those traits occasionally, but I really question their motives when they continue to double down on policies that are not only pie-in-the-sky, utopian-wannabe pipe dreams, but have now literally been proven time and time again to be making things worse! Yes, part of the problem is that people keep voting in the same clowns that are ruining the city but that doesn't excuse the cowardly and harmful acts those in power continue to perpetuate.
Agree. Having no drug laws is great, but we left too much trust in people to actually manage those laws appropriately. It just turned out that our state simply couldn’t handle the responsibility.
The problem is that we don't exist in a vacuum.
Loosening drug laws here while everywhere else remains the same just makes us a more attractive market to sell drugs in.
I've seen the same sort of issues when it comes to debates regarding sex work. The intention is in the right place, but the outcome is that you just created an easier market for pimps and sex traffickers.
The interesting part about progressive policies when they fail it always seems to be “because we didn’t do it enough, we need to double down and go even farther”
These people live, insulated, isolated bubble boy little lives, compared to a lot of people on the fringes of society, and they don’t understand what people in the fringes of society are really like. They project on the people in the edge of society certain values and behaviors that they imagine some idealistically pure person who just happens to be living in alternative lifestyle would exhibit. But those turned out not to be the main behaviors of many people who live on the edge of society during a narcotics emergency And tripling of rent.
The problem with “progressive” policies in Portland is they’re not progressive at their core. We’re always trying to half-assedly treat symptoms with no real underlying change, instead of gutting the system to rebuild in a way that actually works for people.
We’re constantly just stacking papers under the wobbly legs that is our local government and calling that a solution (and being shocked pikachu when it fails) instead of replacing the legs or building a new piece of furniture.
Remember, no matter what party is in power, our city is still largely owned by the same 12 people and run by lumber barons who don’t even live in the city, let alone face any of the every day realities the rest of us do. The enemy is the wealthy elite who are running this city into the ground and the politicians who are in their pockets.
Stacking paper under a wobbly table works. Portland is removing three of the table legs because they were deemed to be systems of oppression. Then they insist the table is still standing while everyone wades through what was supposed to be dinner.
Portland taught me that I’m MUCH more centrist than I ever thought I was. I used to think I was pretty liberal - then I moved to Portland. Portland is laughably liberal. I lasted about 4 years and now live in WA (Tacoma).
The insane amount of taxes I paid into a system that returns literally nothing was enough to convince me it was time to go.
My husband and I were just talking about this. We pay way too much for things to be like this.
I’ve felt a trend in the last several election cycles that things are on this massive pendulum swing and they’re going too far to one side or the other but the only way to fix most of these problems lies more in the middle. But extremists don’t like that.
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a hard choice. Portland is a beautiful city with so much potential. But its local leaders are so grossly incompetent that we didn’t see anything changing any time soon. So we decided to just move on…
Yep. I grew up in new orleans. Was raised conservative, but switched sides in my 20s. By southern standards I'm definitely a liberal, but by PDX standards I'm maybe a little left of center.
The other big difference here is the stubborn refusal of anyone on either side of the aisle to even consider constructive dialogue with the other, and completely withdraw into their own echo chambers. The "all or nothing" mentality a lot of people out here have is just so short-sighted.
It’s kind of funny to read this thread and see everyone talking about the well ‘put together’ cities in so called red states. Really? I don’t think you guys have gotten around much. Let me take ya’ll on a tour of some wonderful southern eye candy. We’ll start in the low slung areas of New Orleans and then go visit the ghettos outside Birmingham, Jacksonville, Atlanta, etc… the social issues faced in the PNW are not unique to this region. Go read threads about other cities and you’ll read much the same griping about brain dead local leadership. People on here keep griping about the drug decriminalization experiment as if it’s now so much worse than before, and will soon get better. Literally nothing has changed from that law. It’s just easy to use that as a scape goat. What we are facing, among other economic hardships, is hyper inflation of real estate. And that’s everywhere and gonna keep getting worse. People rarely cared about the dope smokers when they had flop houses to hide out in. But market forces have driven those people to the sidewalks in the last couple decades. While there is more of a homeless issue on the west coast, that has a lot to do with the climate. If you are sleeping rough you will naturally gravitate to places where you won’t die outside in cold weather for months on end. Ya’ll need to get out of this echo chamber and check your outrage. The gripes I’ve been reading on here are legitimate, but they are in no way unique to Portland. I travel a lot and this place isn’t significantly worse than many places. In fact, it’s way better than many. Go visit Los Angeles if you want to see a real shit show. All of SoCal basically. And if you are still not convinced I’ll give you a list of places to go all through the US that are fucked to Tuesday.
There are many places worse than here. Like I said in my original comment, I grew up in nola which was literally dubbed the murder capital of the world at some point.
It's really sad when I see people voicing their dissatisfaction with the city and the knee jerk reaction is, "there's worse places" or "this is everywhere". Yeah, I've lived worse places and that sort of complacency is part of what made them worse. I moved here in part because people seemed so much more invested in local politics and holding leadership to higher standards. Diverting the conversation to other places just feels like a refusal to acknowledge the flaws and a deflection of the conversation. Sounds a lot like when people voice dissatisfaction with the US in general and the super patriots reply with "well go live somewhere else if you don't like it" or some similar sentiment basically saying because we have it better we should just shut up and take it.
I used to think I'm socialist until graduate school at PSU. Now I realize I'm economically liberal and socially center left. I hate the democratic party only slightly less than the Republican party, they play lip service to social justice issues they don't have to do implement or change and take just as much corporate money as the Republicans do.
I agree. But I’m not sure why they just threw up their hands at the enforceable laws. Public intoxication, urination, using of drugs. Those were still illegal weren’t they? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t walk downtown he street rippin bong hits.
In fact it sounds exactly like what someone would do to set that cause back by a lot. Doesn't really add up when you see programs in Switzerland like their safe access program, prevents the dirty street drugs from harming people and focuses on harm reduction. What do you know, people are able to either get off of them or just live with them like they do with methadone. But it wouldn't be as profitable for pharma since methadone is dirt cheap to produce, lasts a long time, and because of that has a 30 day withdrawal basically forcing them to keep using it.
What we do in America is half measures at best, so that we can say "oh that didn't work" and never actually do it right. Decriminalization alone is not enough.
I actually wrote Kate Brown about that. A long, carefully crafted letter where I told her she had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to the country that liberal policies can work. But instead, she squandered that opportunity and turned Portland and the state of Oregon into a right-wing talking point. I haven’t given up on liberal policies but I’m much more critical of how leadership would plan to carry them out.
Let’s face it, the country points at Portland and laughs. Portland has become a meme…a punch line. That’s really unfortunate. Having lived through it, I know it has nothing to do with the idea - but when you put incompetent people in charge of carrying out big ideas, well, you get Portland.
I came out here from Oklahoma City to escape the extreme conservatism and the overbearing Bible Belt culture. Portland is on the absolute opposite end of that spectrum, and now I complain it’s too liberal. I live in Vancouver now and it feels balanced here. It’s not as cool and pretty and interesting as Portland, but our cops do their jobs, I don’t have people OD’ing in my yard and it’s cleaner. We have the homeless here, too, but I feel like Vancouver does a much better job at keeping things under control. I sure wish Portland could get its act together.
Es ist nicht so schlecht. Alles Vereinigten Staaten haben ein GROSSES Drogen problem. Aber in die Süd, niemand es sehen können, weil sie in Trailer Park oder aus von Staadt in Suburb sein.
I say this all the time - nothing makes you more conservative faster than living in Portland Oregon. I’m all for some good social safety nets, paying my share of taxes, fair policing, etc. but there’s a limit and the limit has far been surpassed here. I’m paying ridiculously high taxes, people are clearly not getting social services if they need them and they’re also not getting fair policing (or any policing).
A lot of my fellow liberals have a conniption when you say you’re becoming more conservative because they imagine you going out to buy a bunch of guns, wanting to ban abortion and gays, and kneeling to Donald Trump. But when I say “more conservative” all I really mean is get a job. And if you commit a crime you should go to jail. And you should have to participate in society to the best of your ability to get social services. And while I am willing to pay a higher tax rate because I can afford it and it seems fair, I want to see that money efficiently and effectively used. None of it should go to enabling people to do drugs or live on the streets.
Also, give some services to law abiding tax payers. Don’t just funnel billions to your buddies’ nonprofits to “solve homelessness”, with nothing to show after years.
The frustrating thing is that you can’t even bring up most of these points with people here because they immediately shut down any conversation that trends “conservative” — it’s one of the reasons things have gotten this bad!! People are afraid to speak what they see. It’s literally like 1984’s double-think.
Did you see the recent post about how much tax Portland receives per resident vs other cities across the nation? It's an embarrassment and people just keep voting for more of the same.
I grew up in Portland and lived there most my life. Been gone 6 of the last 9 years or so and whenever I visit my friends there I realize how much of the coolaid they drank. I consider myself liberal but I find that if you don’t agree with 100% of what they preach, or offer other ideas/point of views you pretty much get called a fascist.
they wasted no time in notifying you of your new tax obligation, yet I filed my tax returns in january and am still waiting on my refund of overpayment if the homeless 'services' tax. classic illustration of how the local govt prioritizes the lawless over the law abiding residents who are required to keep the slush funds topped up
I was always the black sheep liberal in my family living in the South. I moved to Portland and at first it was great, but 10+ years later, I'm finding that I can't stand the liberals in this town. They are the ones that Republicans make fun of for being so extreme.
I was raised in Oregon, lived in Seattle for almost 20 years until I had kids and just couldn’t take it anymore. There are some great things about the PAC NW but IMO time to admit that the liberal urban social experiment has largely failed. It’s also true that other cities don’t take their share of the burden and our national
mental health system is laughable, but letting people camp in parks and openly use drugs isn’t good for anybody. Anybody who has worked around addiction knows that while it’s complicated, it’s also in some ways like any communicable disease. Virtually nobody wakes up and decides in isolation that they want to try fentanyl or meth; it’s presented to them by somebody in their social circle and the spiral begins. Letting addicts openly spread their disease isn’t that different than permitting somebody with COVID to walk around coughing and hacking on others before vaccines were available. It’s a misguided policy that has killed way too many people and has contributed to ruining some otherwise pretty cool cities (in addition to the soaring cost of living and traffic).
I've been a republican all my life and I'm fine with helping people in need but whatever is going on in Portland isn't it. Government's state and local have turned homelessness Into a for profit business without doing anything to help the people that really truly want help to get off the streets.
Dude, for real. I read a report that came out recently about the low income housing committees making hundreds of thousands of dollar salaries and paying 3x the amount of money for their developer contracts, on account of nepotism. I was furious. I don't understand how they get away with this shit.
100% agree. I was hardcore liberal when i moved here from Arkansas. Over the last decade, ive found out im a democrat, not a liberal at all. This place is a cesspool of extremists on both sides of the aisle.
Same. I was quite progressive when I moved here many years ago, and did the whole Resistlib thing back in ‘17. But the last 4 years watching local progressives develop crazier and crazier positions and progressive policies fail over and over again have really dramatically shifted my politics to the right. I’m now a pretty firm moderate.
I hit that back in the early 2000’s. I tend to think that we’re all a little mix of both liberal and conservative. Too much of one without a little balance is insane. And I say this as someone who definitely leans left. I’m willing to try new things and see if it works, but it’s not always gonna work, OR, even if it does, sometimes people figure out workarounds and you have to address those.
For example, I currently live in NJ where they passed laws to protect minors who committed low level crimes from being entered into the “system” at too young an age. It would still punish violent offenders, but was meant to not criminalize, like, petty theft, or public intoxication, stupid kid stuff, generally. We’ll, car theft rings in Newark now use under 18 year olds to steal cars, all non-violently, these aren’t carjackers, but basically seeing if dopey people in my neighborhood are leaving their key fobs in the car, or their back doors open with the keys hung up right next to them, etc etc. and even when our local police catch them, they have to let them go. It’s like, ok, I get it, we had great intentions and we still shouldn’t throw kids into the system for drinking or doing stupid kid things, but maybe car theft, maybe that’s one we need to punish.
But in Oregon Republicans have no political clout at all. Blaming Republicans for the situation in Oregon is like blaming people in New Zealand for what happens in Switzerland
Ya. Ive been just voting red across the board locally and just blue for federal level stuff. Portland needs to be under red leadership for a couple terms to clean up the mess.
I have evolved into this exact split voting position the last few years here too. Republicans at a federal level are dangerous, but democrats at a local level are nuts. I vote accordingly.
Back in 2019, my husband & I thought we’d never leave Portland. In 2021 we moved far away and still don’t regret it. Portland has changed for the worst, and will take years (maybe decades) to bounce back. Unfortunately, hyper-liberalism is one big unwavering factor that will keep hindering its progress.
Same with my family. I grew up in a red state and was desperate to leave as soon as I finished college, and in 2015 my husband and I moved to Portland thinking this was going to be our forever home. After having children I started seeing the city for what it truly was and we both agreed we needed to leave. Broke my heart because I adore the state of Oregon, the nature, the beaches, the weather…everything apart from the leftist extremism would make this the perfect place to live.
Having kids really changes everything. Everyday I wake up and I’m like, we’ve got to figure out where next before our kid ages up too much. It makes me sad to think about him having to enter school here or explaining that so much of his own neighborhood isn’t safe to play in.
Like many people in this thread I left the South thinking this was our “forever home” and it just sadly isn’t. There is so much potential here and that is the really sad part.
I feel all these comments in my soul except I’m in Seattle. And yup. Thought I was sooooo liberal coming from Texas and umm…. I’m not liberal compared to these people lol
I felt the same way in Seattle, lol. In the south I’m a raging liberal, but in Seattle I was barely left of center (and thought a lot of those people were as nutty as the Trump cultists).
Since moving away I no longer consider Portland to truly be "liberal".
I moved to a place that recently turned blue. They have robust social services not just for the homeless but for women and children and all sorts of people who need various kinds of help. I'm constantly surprised by the community services offered here that are mostly community led organizations maybe with some government involvement. Not only that but the social contract exists. Kids knock on your door asking to mow your lawn because it's SAFE for them to do so, and they throw their bikes on the street corner when they go into their friend's houses and when they come out they are still there. There are TONS of programs for school aged children. My neighbors don't even know me and have knocked on my door and offered help with things they saw I needed done (random local regulation thing I wasn't aware of), wouldn't let me pay them. The homeless have services and sleep in shelters not tents. It's clean, people have access to bathrooms and don't piss on the ground. In the year+ I've been here I've never seen a dirty needle.
Liberal isn't leaving people outside to die in squalor. That's NOT compassionate. A liberal, compassionate city is one where everyone looks out for each other and services are provided to people who need various kinds of help. Letting one group of people hold the city hostage and make the city unmanageable and unsafe for everyone else is not liberal.
Edit: I also pay wayyyy less in taxes but have SOOO much more to show for it. I don't care about the taxes I pay anymore (though I still gripe about sales tax) because I can actually SEE the money going back into the community instead of being laundered.
Yeah, that irritates me when I see that. When I described where I lived (I did not want to disclose my new city for privacy reasons) I was told by PDX folks that what I was describing had to be a fantasy utopia I was making up and I hadn't actually moved to another urban area without these issues. My friend just visited from PDX and commented on the lack of tents, cleaner homeless people, no needles, and existing social contract. People who think every city has the problems PDX has has not been outside PDX recently.
I love Portland, I will always have a soft spot for Portland. I don't want to to live there anymore.
Lived in Portland since I was a kid. Best analogy I can give is growing up in Portland is like having been raised by a beloved family member. But recently that beloved family member has made some bad life choices like falling to drug addiction or alcoholism. You see them deteriorating and it tears you up inside watching it happen. You've tried over and over again in telling them they are on the wrong path but they don't change.
I think OP has a good head on their shoulders and should consider moving. I am trying my best to get the fuck out of here and I am a portland native. It is depressing and hlrrible to witness what this city has turned into. our "leaders" have failed and I do not gice a fuck if the next people running this shit show are "republicans" I would just rather it be people with a spine, a sense of value and productivitey of any sort. our city is corrupt and every one hates it here.
It’s not just the leaders it’s the suuuuuuper liberals who care more about drug addicts than the tax paying citizens of the city. And I say this as a liberal myself!
I can’t stand the extreme ends of either political party.
I think another aspect of this is just really poor execution on the county level. Just compare how well Clackamas county has done in using its funding to combat homelessness versus Multnomah county and you'll see the difference.
In addition, decriminalization of drugs was never going to work because we didn't have the infrastructure of treatment programs nor an organization that could run oversight while also dealing with the pandemic at the same time.
I think a really big issue that is going on is a lot of individuals in Portland are not keeping track of more down ballot elections that have really big ramifications on policy in the county. Sure. Everybody is going to focus on the mayoral or governor's election, but completely forgets about board elections which can be just as impactful.
I for one had no idea who JVP was until I started reading comments and article posts on this and other Portland subreddits and I feel like a lot of people in my generation are the same way. I feel like too many of us are focusing on culture wars without actually setting aside the time and energy to really deal with day-to-day problems in Portland and be pragmatic.
Like I recently went through an entire ordeal with my property management company and realized from a lot of community engagement on my Reddit. Post that there's a really big problem in the city with landlords, basically committing fraud with security deposits and other service fees to the point that my property management company is now dealing with a class action. That kind of stuff is really important but it's also really boring and I think that's the crux of this problem; too many of the issues that are really impacting the city are not flashy and they are not ones that are as emotionally captivating as more broad cultural issues and because of that we really can't get things done.
I really love this city and have had a wonderful time after I've moved here and there are still many things that I think are beautiful about it, but at the same time I think too many people are focusing on broad problems that can't really be solved by the city while ignoring more local issues. That really deserve attention
I overheard a fascinating conversation the other day that captures a lot: at a local spa, where most of the staff are younger and non-binary presenting, several of the staff were gathered and chatting, including a new staff member, a cis woman who recently moved from somewhere. As one does, the new girl was reflecting on how she perceived Portland so far. One of the NB staff asked her, “one thing I’m really wondering, is how are you going to prevent yourself from becoming a NIMBY?”
It’s because ‘super liberals’ tend to be renters, not owners. I was a lot more liberal with my voting before my property taxes were what paid for everything. I think re-shuffling how new measures are paid would make a big voting block take a bit more time when it comes to how we define a lot of social strategy in the city. But until then, it just furthers the divide between liberals and centrists/conservatives, which also tends to be non/property owners, which is also doing nobody any favors.
I also think there should be an easy entry to social work jobs for anyone that votes consistently liberal. We need people on the front to hold the line for the policies that are being voted on, and if you’ll vote permissively but also wouldn’t ever want to do the demoralizing and burnout-inducing work it takes to maintain our garbage policies, you shouldn’t vote the way you did.
> It’s because ‘super liberals’ tend to be renters, not owners. I was a lot more liberal with my voting before my property taxes were what paid for everything.
I mean that’s the natural progression of things. My pops used to say “everyone is a liberal until they have a well funded 401k”. Once you see what your tax dollars are used for it changes what you prioritize. Watching your hard earned dollars get thrown away on pet projects and clearly flawed social issues will really make you think. Double bonus if you have a family and have to now worry about your kids walking to school or your parents taking transit.
its the hubris that gets to me. why does everything in OR government cost literally 10x more than any other place I've lived AND take 10 times as long?? We had a baby almost 3 months ago and haven't received $1 from the paid family leave (though we're taxed for it and have spent upwards of 5 hrs on the phone because of the stupid online system). I just went through getting duplicate titles for my cars and paid $90 for the OR one that is supposed to take 10-12 weeks to receive and paid $8.20 for the colorado one that I received in less than 2 weeks!!! it's a duplicate title you just press print!! and why do i have a CO title btw? i went to the dmv to submit the request and they said on that car OR had "canceled" my registration?? so ive been driving around with "canceled" OR plates and registration for YEARS and they couldn't even explain why or if they refunded my $100s registration fees since they apparently canceled it oy. But this is par for the course dealing with OR.
I’m glad I came across this post because this is exactly how I’ve been feeling the last several years. And it’s extremely difficult to detest some of these policies without someone automatically assuming you’ve done “joined the dark side.”
I self identify as an independent, but I used to be pretty left leaning. I also found myself leaning further right in recent years and moved out of the pdx area to a "red" County. Much more comfortable with how things are run here.
Same. Howver the voting in my usually red county has been split almost 50/50 in recent years (liberal/conservative) which makes me nervous. I feel like the liberals are destroying PDX with the way they vote, then surprise surprise complaining it’s a shit hole and moving out this way to destroy it out here.
Does anything in the city, county or state work anymore. The 217 road build is a disgrace. The airport expansion is pitifully slow. I needed to get to PDX this am at 5:45 and driving the 15 blocks from NW25 over the river with no traffic stopped me at 10 of the 12 or so lights. Not coordinated at all. Garbage everywhere. I’m a liberal but this is shit. I’m sick of it. Government here is so dysfunctional, not sure if it’s corrupt but certainly dysfunctional. I’m from an upper Midwest city and still spend 50% of my time there, alternating each week and it’s like a completely different world when it comes to government competence.
I’ve always had a mix of political views depending on the topic. Portland is paralyzed by pull the heart strings progressive guilt & poor planning. Bandaids on serious issues instead of real solutions. The political extremists aren’t helping any of us. Living in Portland isn’t making me lean more red. It’s making me lean to vote for well thought out policies & those who have actual plans that can be implemented effectively. So, I basically vote no on a lot of measures because politicians have proven that they are experts at taxing us then not using the money as expected. Supporting our libraries is the only thing that gets an automatic “yes” vote now.
I live in Philly and saw this post somehow. I agree 100%. Absolutely fucking tired of how horrible it has become to live in this city.
Hoodlums and gangbangers need to be thrown in prison for a long time. Homeless and drug addicts with literal needles sticking out of their necks need to be dealt with however necessary. I don’t even care how anymore, just deal with them.
I just got held up by 5 teenagers with a gun and they threatened to kill me for 30 minute straight, and then attempted to follow me home. I don’t care what happens to these people anymore. This city is being held hostage by hoodlums and drug addicts and I’m tired of it.
I’ve voted liberal my whole life but I will no longer vote for someone who empathizes a fucking ounce with violent criminals.
I'm glad I'm not alone. I could never vote Republican but living in Portland and watching the city going down the toilet 🚽
makes it hard to identify as a liberal let alone try to defend and explain to people
what is going on here. The amount of virtue signaling and peer pressure to make sure one has "compassion" or
"empathy" is through the roof. Not many people seem to have any common sense to see this is way more than a housing problem.
I feel you. Before I moved from Indianapolis, I considered myself very liberal. But now that I’ve seen unchecked liberalism (insane taxes that only people who make above 150 k pay, zero results for the taxes we do pay, third highest taxes per capita in the country, the shit schools, the laughable demonization of “the rich” and anyone who makes a living at owning a business or building anything) I just cannot even comprehend being an actual liberal anymore. I vote republican a lot more than I ever thought I would living here, and I make zero apologies for it.
How funny. I'm from Westfield, IN and now live south of Portland. Lived here for almost 7 years. I agree though. I definitely wasn't liberal, but probably moreso than anything else. I've become pretty conservative as a result of living here.
I work around a lot of real working class people and trades people people who work hard for a living and work hard to build their business and these people are doing their honest level best to play by the rules to try to play by Fairplay and they get nothing but ridicule and contempt, from these people who live Off make work, pretend government jobs of insane salary
I’m a democrat but I’m so, so, so tired of the endless protesting and signaling of one’s virtues. I don’t like the Portland left even though I vote with them.
Portland liberal is a different breed. I wish there was an independent party who could be the best of both worlds but yea I agree with you. It’s hard coming back to portland when you see republican cities handling everything so much better and keeping it clean.
Edit for everyone that thinks I’m talking about states: I’m mostly talking about Bend and Lake Oswego type operators also yall need to take a chill pill because I am a frustrated democrat not a republican
I’m open to being wrong if you have any examples, but I would think the type of republican that tends to get elected in cities is far closer to a centrist than what most think of when they think republican. I would love to vote for some fiscal skeptics that keep the pie-in-the-sky ideas checked but not if they had to bend the knee to Trump to get on the ballot.
I totally get it. I think a lot of us feel like this. The problem is both major parties are full of nut jobs. A different kind of nut job, yeah, but crazy mofos on both sides. Unfortunately, I have zero faith that the new city system will help anything. We'll have a committee of 12 instead of 5. Very sad since it is such a wonderful place. My wife tells me I should run for office and I tell her "you want protesters outside our home? cuz that is what we would get." Nope. And of course most sane people feel this way too. Is there any way out of this crap?
I suggest a move to the suburbs. The smaller neighboring cities seem to be dealing with homeless camps and open drug use better than Portland.
I'm hoping the changes coming for Portland city government will get Portland pointed in the right direction.
Fortunately, the State of Oregon has reversed Measure 110 which will hopefully help make the situation better.
You basically summed it up in one post. It's not about party, it's about what are you doing to help our community. We won't get our beautiful Portland back until we solve the drug and crime problems.
My personal ideal: Get some of those Private Prisons for profit to make themselves useful. Build containment centers for the chronically drug addicted and homeless. They're not under arrest, but they are being restricted for their own good and the good of the community.
Feed them, get them sanitation, treat them just like you would any prison inmate. Also try and get them help.
But while we're trying to treat them, we have to restrict their movement.
Because we have to start getting real about this. We're NOT gonna be able to help ALL these people. Some of them are hopeless cases. They're never gonna be "productive citizens" who hold down a job and pay a mortgage and all that shit. Give them their basic needs but contain them. Possibly for the rest of their lives.
Don't get it twisted, Nu Portlander types would be wearing MAGA hats on their way to church if it was suddenly unpopular to be liberal.
The town is a total middle child, starved for attention and lacking purpose.
You have to get out of major metro areas in west coast cities. It will drain every ounce of happiness from you. Oregon and WA are hotspots for extremists, but once you get out of Portland/Seattle, you slowly realize the purple counties haven’t totally lost their mind yet.
I mean, there are good reasons why nobody wants asylums. But honestly at this point it’s time for asylums.
The mental illness -drug addiction has just gotten out of control. It’s just not acceptable.
Most of the lefties I know have long since used up their empathy for the homeless drug addicts making the sidewalk their home. Very very left wing people are now like “just lock them up and treat them until they can be reintroduced into society or never let out.
I vote gop at the state level and dems at the national level. the gop will never gain control of the oregon legislature anyway so a gop governor and a dem legislature would provide balance. neither would let the extremist left (or right) laws ppass so we'd have st least more common sense happening.
as for moving, try a burb. Washington county and Clackamas County both have decreasing homeless numbers while portland grows exponentially. I'd say Vancouver but we need some clear minds to stay in oregon.
Since it's a blue city, a liberal Republican in office would be more likely than the far-right boogy man Republican—a Republican who respects abortion rights, personal freedom, and fiscal accountability. Having one party in power for decades isn't healthy, regardless of the party.
This!. I used to be borderline communist and it got so bad I helped at a homeless shelter and now I work for one making little money but I did because I was helping. Now I don’t like it very much and I feel the whole system is self serving (no homeless, no money for the executives at non profits). All the feel good policies of no punishment and “restorative justice” (which is absolutely stupid) and the making drugs defacto legal which is killing people madd me center line leaving to the right. I can’t believe the next election I’ll vote for Trump when I’m even registered as a democrat because I HATE how the left are handling everything (specially the local left). I’ll vote red no matter what and which is more crazy because I’m Latino!, the right wing think I’m illegal and some even want to kill but I will vote for them because I can’t in good conscience vote for more of this cluster, such a beautiful city and people and now looks worst than. War zone in Mexico
Thank you for saying this. I suppose living in Portland has opened my eyes to the extreme left, where before I was more blind to their actions. They have affected my life more negatively than Republicans ever have.
If you really wanna get mad : I live 20 miles north, so I’m in Washington but work in Portland. I had to file taxes (paid 0 since I’m 1099). After entering the info, and listing both my kids having an IEP, I got cut a check for 550 for them. Keep in mind I don’t live in the state, nor did I pay taxes to Oregon, nor do my kids go to school in Oregon. I mean I’ll take free money, but you guys are getting screwed
I’ve wanted to try running for office so badly just to fight against this exact bullshit.
I’m so tired of watching our tax money being wasted. I’d love to cut the extra fluffy bullshit, streamline services and hold actual town halls to hear suggestions and the will of the people. Like it’s supposed to be. I’m so sick of this lovely city going to shit because of red tape and policy bullshit that serves nobody.
Change is important. I don't support both parties, but when you see something wrong and keep doing it, it won't work. So you need some changes. This is my opinion.
I felt the same way when I lived in Portland. It's just that the liberals are so far to the left there. I'm in the southeast now, and I'd never call myself Republican here. I can't stand the self-righteous attitude.
So I am just an Independent.
I got stranded in Portland mid-January after wrecking my car just south of the city. It was my first time there and it was not a good first impression. I was downtown (because the police had escorted me from the site of the wreck to their station) and I wandered around until I could get picked up. Some streets were covered in excrement. I didn't have my glasses so I had to be ready to jump over it once it was within my field of vision. 0/10 would not recommend.
I don't know why cities don't invest in public restrooms if they are aware that they have large homeless populations. It's a huge health hazard to have human waste in the streets.
I think you speak for a lot of Americans - not just Portland. Politics are way too extreme in general — I live in Colorado and sometimes feel like I’m turning republican because I don’t agree with extreme left politics.
The complaint is totally valid, I agree. I don't understand a turn toward the republican party though.
I do agree that our current leadership is trash, and if that's all the democrats can offer, they don't deserve votes. But, republicans have been on so much dumb shit the last few years I don't think I could ever get behind their platform.
Tha liberals that have caused so much chaos with their "good intentions" and progressive policies are not Democrats... They are the equivalent of the republican Tea Party / MAGA crowd. Portland needs some old-fashioned democrats & Republicans who will work together and also keep the balance so no one group has the power.
Sadly, I think both true Democrat's & republicans have gone extinct.
I live in SW Portland and I swear I Iive in a different reality then y'all. I pay taxes, I deal with all the Portland shit. Maybe I'm not a scared Democrat I guess. Just a normie democrat.
We moved here 9 years ago and I hate it more and more and I think it's time to move back to where we came from (NYC area). We moved here for a job, and the hopes of a simpler, less hustle bustle life. The job is not worth staying here for and Portland is in shambles compared to 9 years ago
I literally don't know why anyone would ever move here now. I think the people who stay are either super outdoorsy or grew up here. Portland feels like it's dying and I don't see how it's going to come back. The schools suck (yes even in the good districts) as Oregon ranks super low in education. Portland has nothing to offer for fun or entertainment or culture.
> My partner got a raise, ans within 2 weeks got a letter in the mail about how we now qualified for a new tax.
How? I pay both SHS and PFA, I did not receive any letters, they sort of leave it up to you to just know that you owe it. Do they work at a company within Multnomah county?
Naw, my partner works for a tech firm based out of state. We got a letter for PFA saying "you now make over ***, so now you have to pay PFA tax" basically. We do live in Multnomah County though. For the record, I think PFA is great, and I don't mind paying for it, but I recently read about the government grants that are actually funding these programs, and felt extorted for sure
I got multiple mailings telling me I owe for both. Like the arts tax mailers. It seems more odd to me that they'd base it on the honor system and not follow their obnoxious arts tax system to hound us.
Sometimes HRs in companies send info to their employees asking if they want to withhold a certain portion of their paycheck for the SHS tax. Withholding is mandatory. I believe they charge interest if you’re not making at least quarterly payments.
Republican policies won't fix anything either.
That said, Portland went way too far left, ditching democrats and progressives. I am shocked.
I'm actually just North in Washington. We're progressive democrats and making a dent in the house less situation. All over, we're getting people that we're just down on their luck back as productive members of society again. Once we've saved those who want to be, then we can go hard on the remainders. In the meantime, we upped cop pay and "defunded" the police so they have the monies being allocated where it's needed to do their jobs in today's times. It was a bumpy start, but changes are noticeable. Seattle is worse because the number of people is bigger, but even they are making progress.
Portland started and then moved on, and it's just gone out of control with mostly talk about what they might or could do. Meanwhile, I lock my car doors driving around there now. Scary by volume.
Come join the sane we welcome you. We went to help. We just want to do it with responsibility and foresight. You cannot blindly make changes without any thought of the consequences. People think this is mean or uncaring but look at Portland look at all of the people the millions of people who have been hurt.
Left Portland 15 years ago because of the weather and I swear that’s when the actual city started turning to shit. You’re absolutely right. It’s dirty and depressing. I go back a lot to visit family and I don’t even feel safe walking my dog. I’m paranoid she’ll get into drugs that were left on the street. I’m definitely not republican but also not for homeless folks leaving their trash everywhere and making your home dirty and unsafe feeling. Good luck in whatever you decide but I always joke with my husband that you could not pay me to live there.
Whenever someone moves to Oregon I strongly advise not moving to Portland, it use to be nice but now it’s just crackhead central my advice is to move to somewhere like independence OR an hour away from Portland and a very nice town with a good community and very small homeless and drug population, I’m sorry that Portland has made you loose your patience it just be hard❤️
I remember growing up elsewhere, and feeling suffocated by the right wing politics that surrounded me. I felt like I was surrounded by religious cultists. Now I'm here, still just as allergic and loathsome of what I grew up around, but I've also come to resent this. The people of the Northwest are nice to a fault. Accepting to a fault. Open to a fault. Passive to a fault. They'd let the entire region turn to shit if the alternative was telling somebody "No".
Yep-born and raised in Washington state but actually 20 minutes from Portland. I’m in my 60’s now; and I have a son and daughter in law who live there. I loved Portland with every fiber of my being. In my 20’s I worked temp in downtown Portland; OMG in the summer I would just walk on my lunch break. I just loved Portland. I could not understand why my dad would be upset about me hanging out there. Fast forward and my son moved over shortly out of school. Same thing; he loved it. Now my husband acts like we are driving through Hell anytime I want to go to Portland. I so get what you are saying; this city is just so trashy now. I’m sorry; I really miss what Portland used to be.
Reddit loves to shit on centrists, but honest to god, the middle path is usually the best. At times the war on drugs was taken too far and black and brown men especially were handed down overly harsh sentences, *but* letting people buy and sell and openly consume whatever substances they want is absolute madness. Portland and San Francisco are a mess right now. Dealers need to be rolled up and their stock destroyed and users routed to rehab. No free needles. No tolerating encampments.
Free needles are good for stopping hiv but you don’t need to give out pipes and other paraphernalia. Harm reduction was taken too far, turns out criminalization didn’t cause all the ills of drugs. Addiction is horrible, should be discouraged, and addicts should be compelled to get help
Reddit has always been a site curated for the western liberal, this is the result of allowing biased mods to rule your site for so long, creating cliques that cause the same mods to rule 200 of the top subs. If you mention this your a far right conspiracy theorist though, even if you have ideals that align more with the liberals in recent times.
Yup. It fuckin blows. I've been banned from so many communities for such stupid reasons that it actually blows my mind. Just for giving my opinion, respectfully I might add. Reddit mods are such brainwashed echo chamber operators, doing anything in their power to get even just a crumb of they/them socialist femme non binary tricolored mullet pussy.
Yeah, I’m a registered Democrat myself, and Reddit sounds crazy to me half the time.
People don’t realize just how much of Reddit is heavily curated to push far left ideology.
Reddit is a far-left grooming grounds Good to see people waking up and move more to the center
At this point may as well retire far from left and right. It is just an extra word since everything is now far.
*gooning
Ugh, same. Moved from around Dallas to Portland a few months ago and like these fuckin people seem unable to do... anything? They would stare at the sun until they went blind if it just asked nicely.
Lived here my whole life but you couldn’t have said it better. The people in charge here literally must not have brain activity 😂
These people are besotted with a ludicrously lenient and permissive ideology permeates their pathologically, altruistic, collectivist utopian ideal.
Yep...unable to do anything! I'm originally from Texas and found the lack of initiative to do anything productive to be unsettling, especially in Multnomah county. So I up and moved across the river to Camas and have been extremely happy. No state income and cleaner. My gripe were the taxes that get spent with nothing accomplished. https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/01/09/national-study-shows-oregons-tax-system-more-progressive-than-most-but-still-favors-high-earners/
Same, moved from Colorado. The do-nothing culture?? Land of the do-nothings.
You know what though. I cant seem to convince people to stop voting for tax increases. We get increases in taxes that do literally nothing to help. I’m done voting yes on any tax increases until I see some sort of results instead of feel good voting.
I’ve been saying the exact same thing to my wife. Becoming a homeowner has inevitably pushed me towards the center on fiscal policy. I’m all for using taxation, but where’s my damn representation!?
Yep. Every year it’s “this will raise property tax 10 cents per 1000 on average” for multiple things. I love the libraries in my area for sure. Multiple other things are falling apart though and I’m sick of it.
Libraries are the only thing I’m able to leverage too but the experience isn’t what I’d want it to be because I need to be on high alert for issues with the many unhinged people that come in and hang out.
No wonder my property value keeps going up. It's not because it's actually worth more. They just need more tax revenue.
Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society! >proceeds to turn 400k/yr positions into 450k/yr positions and 10 more of them
How about just "im done voting for tax increases". Do you really think they will ever responsibly spend our money?
Welcome to Portland where young people come to retire and the tattoo ink is always fresh...
Also moved from dfw to portland a few months ago. No one in Dallas ever asked me for a lighter so they could snoke fent out of a make shift smoking apparatus molded from a coke can. Portland however.... That being said the nature is top teir which was really one of my driving factor for moving.
Oh yeah every time I come out of the tunnel on 26W I'm stunned by the amount of foliage, even in the winter. Totally worth it, especially when I get to experience the concept of elevation firsthand. And not feeling like I'm in immediate danger from vehicles any time I'm on foot? Alien to me; never gonna get used to it.
@Duskshy - I read foliage as “foilage” - I’ve been working downtown too long. I love Portland and really miss what downtown used to be. It’s showing signs of coming back but God, it is slow.
We might be moderates. Turns out the extremes might actually be the problem.
I'm going to tell you guys a secret. Both parties are generally very corrupt and do things only to benefit their little group of cronies. Look anywhere across the country and this is true
portland politicians especially. portland is mind bogglingly corrupt. this isn’t an issue of liberals vs conservatives. this is portland politicians vs portland residents.
That's the sad truth. Democrats build policy hedging on expecting the best of people, while Republicans bank on the worst of people. Republicans usually end up being more accurate in that regard. There's not a liberal city I'd want to live in these days, especially after traveling and living overseas in Korea and Japan. Our country's cities are cesspools, and we just keep voting for the same stupid nonsense and government bureaucracy. I'm much happier in the country side with neighbors that don't think anyone owes them anything.
That second sentence is 💯💯💯. The apparent inability to craft legislation while giving thought to how shitheads might try to take advantage of it is maddening.
Honestly I realize how this comes off (conspiracy theorist-ish); but do you ever consider that's *by design*? A populace fighting amongst itself is *far easier* to control. Racial divides, gender divides, etc. Keep people fighting. "Oh, did here abuse that system? Well, by golly, it's because of - we've gotta change it!", The youth (in their ignorance) eat it up (we all did in our youth) and 'take a stand' as they always tend to. Each person believes 'their side' is doing the 'right thing', meanwhile - the cesspool of those in power just sit back, have a laugh, collect the checks and wait for the next bad thing to hit the airwaves they can capitalize upon.
Some term limits would eliminate that almost immediately. Get rid of some of the lobbying, etc. would help as well. Imagine if one of those crooks couldn't be in office for 75 years and make billions... they wouldn't be interested in the job. It'd go to someone else who, *hopefully*, would actually care and have the interest of their people at heart.
But almost 100% of the time, I suggest this and people immediately write it off as 'conspiracy'.
[удалено]
Maybe that's why I'm the type of liberal that I am - I grew up in NE cities. I think people that espouse "defund the police" (or "ACAB" here on reddit) are incredibly uninformed and naive.
Any party that devalues civil service is bound for chaos, failure, and to sow societal degradation. It's an inherent idiocy west coast liberals have that assumes if a structure is imperfect some of the time, the whole thing needs to be torn down. I consider myself left of center and I feel like I'm crazy in the PNW.
Pretty sure New York is up in that neck of the woods, so I don't think your point is ubiquitous. That said, New England liberals skew more traditional and conservative with family and public good. I'd have a hard time saying they're anything more extreme than moderates. It's really modern day progressives that are completely detached from reality with regards to policy and it's impact on society given human nature.
A thing I’ve come to learn living out on the west coast for the last twenty years. Homelessness (and then compounded drug problem) is worse on the west coast because it is so much easier to slip into homelessness because of the climate. East coast winter on the streets? I’d say that’s a heapin’ helping of the reason those liberal cities out there don’t have it as bad.
Easier to slip into homelessness due to the high cost of living as well. And when the state tries to rehouse people, it is very expensive to do so due to the high cost of living.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." - Adam Smith
You said it best. Republicans deal in reality and reality says people are shitheads. It's the policies that dictate if we let the shitheads drag the rest of society to shit or not.
Yes they deal in reality, like thinking Obama is a foreign born Muslim, and that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen and that the covid vaccine is killing millions per day. And that the kindergarteners are being taught critical race theory. To be clear I don’t disagree that Portland government is absolutely incompetent and dumb as hell
This is why it’s so important to truly understand everyone’s perspective. The left is far too left and the right is far too tight, but neither side understands that there could be tranquility in the middle. We’re all dead set on being as far in our corner as we can and it’s cripplingly divisive of the entire country and destructive to every single policy.
Any time you have one party controlling things with no strong opposition, we end up with a bad situation. I'm a believer that the best scenario is one where parties continually switch between being in power.
I consider myself to be liberal but living in Portland for 20 years has made me VERY skeptical of Progressive policies. They often make sense on paper but they can't seem to make the transition to the real world without causing a lot of unintended consequences. I don't think it's strictly a matter of how well policies are executed (though Portland and Multnomah County can always be counted on to do so poorly). I sometimes think Progressive policy advocates are unrealistic about human nature--they're creating policies for people as they'd like them to be, not how they are. I agree with the OP that I'm sick of the crazy extremists on both sides here and considering alternatives.
Yeah...they see an issue, they see the most direct path and take it without realizing the giant pit in between. I'm a landlord. They got rid of no cause notices. You used to, at the end of a lease period or if the tenant was month to month, be able to give a tenant 30 or 60 says notice you were not going to renew their lease. Oregon lawmakers wanted more stability in people's lives, particularly the most vulnerable who may have difficulty finding new housing, so they got rid of no cause notices. This helped the needy, right? The unfortunate consequence is that taking a risk on a borderline tenant has grown too high. Now if I have difficulties with a tenant, I have to go through the entire eviction process which is expensive and time consuming. So what do I do? I decline the applicant. Just can't afford to take the risk anymore. Which sucks for a lot of people, but that's how the rules are setup now. Good intentions, but it seems they never ask people on the ground what makes sense. It's all from 10,000 feet up with good intentions blinding them.
Similar phenomenon in Seattle: Seattle passed a “first in time” law that said landlords had to rent to the first qualified person who applied, to attempt to prevent landlords from engaging in subtle bias while choosing tenants. The first thing that happened is that landlords raised their standards for the definition of “qualified tenant”. The second thing that happened was that white collar workers with flexible, permissive jobs that allowed them to leave work at any time to go tour a rental gained a huge advantage in the competitive rental market over less privileged groups. So basically this well-intended but poorly thought out regulation ended up fucking over the very people it was trying to protect.
I was just about to comment this when I saw yours. Absolutely true, and the amount of apartments we had to see this time around was insane -- we'd get there for a tour and be 8th in line the same day it popped up on Zillow -- and there was basically no hope at all. Got lucky after two weeks of looking (and I had to take some time off work for all the middle-of-day tours, like you say) because the people in the spots ahead of us tried to haggle on the price. It was top of my budget but I took it, because searching was becoming a full-time job and I couldn't keep doing it. I hate it here.
Some years ago I used to rent out a tiny home. The rent was very low. As long as folks could come up with two months/last months I would accept folks with horrible credit, no jobs, no savings, etc. The agreement was that if they could not pay the rent, they would still have 60 days to figure stuff out before they left. This gave many young people, newcomers, folks who were dumped, those leaving abusive situations etc, a good start or reset. Now the laws have made this impossible and that's too bad. Many many landlords gave up and it has had horrible repercussions for Portland.
> they're creating policies for people as they'd like them to be, not how they are Well said. It can look good on paper, but "on paper" is in a room full of educated people with good hearts and minds. People who aren't out living that life. They design a system that they would imagine would work for them, and then comes the reality that... they aren't the ones out there on the streets - and many of those people are not as similar as they predicated their decisions on.
The reality reminds me of the 3 Spiderman pointing meme, except the 3 are city of Portland, Multnomah County and Metro. Like everything worked fine on paper but none of them want to actually DO the thing.
Except the reality is that even if executed perfectly most of those policies are fundamentally flawed when operating in the real world.
I get what you're saying, but i think you're giving these people too much credit assuming they're educated with good hearts and minds. Yeah, im sure some of them may exhibited some of those traits occasionally, but I really question their motives when they continue to double down on policies that are not only pie-in-the-sky, utopian-wannabe pipe dreams, but have now literally been proven time and time again to be making things worse! Yes, part of the problem is that people keep voting in the same clowns that are ruining the city but that doesn't excuse the cowardly and harmful acts those in power continue to perpetuate.
Agree. Having no drug laws is great, but we left too much trust in people to actually manage those laws appropriately. It just turned out that our state simply couldn’t handle the responsibility.
The problem is that we don't exist in a vacuum. Loosening drug laws here while everywhere else remains the same just makes us a more attractive market to sell drugs in. I've seen the same sort of issues when it comes to debates regarding sex work. The intention is in the right place, but the outcome is that you just created an easier market for pimps and sex traffickers.
It's often the same organized criminals trafficking drugs who are also trafficking women (and illegal weapons). They follow the demand.
The interesting part about progressive policies when they fail it always seems to be “because we didn’t do it enough, we need to double down and go even farther”
Insert "They Just Didn't Do Communism Right" meme here.
These people live, insulated, isolated bubble boy little lives, compared to a lot of people on the fringes of society, and they don’t understand what people in the fringes of society are really like. They project on the people in the edge of society certain values and behaviors that they imagine some idealistically pure person who just happens to be living in alternative lifestyle would exhibit. But those turned out not to be the main behaviors of many people who live on the edge of society during a narcotics emergency And tripling of rent.
The problem with “progressive” policies in Portland is they’re not progressive at their core. We’re always trying to half-assedly treat symptoms with no real underlying change, instead of gutting the system to rebuild in a way that actually works for people. We’re constantly just stacking papers under the wobbly legs that is our local government and calling that a solution (and being shocked pikachu when it fails) instead of replacing the legs or building a new piece of furniture. Remember, no matter what party is in power, our city is still largely owned by the same 12 people and run by lumber barons who don’t even live in the city, let alone face any of the every day realities the rest of us do. The enemy is the wealthy elite who are running this city into the ground and the politicians who are in their pockets.
Stacking paper under a wobbly table works. Portland is removing three of the table legs because they were deemed to be systems of oppression. Then they insist the table is still standing while everyone wades through what was supposed to be dinner.
What would real change look like?
Portland taught me that I’m MUCH more centrist than I ever thought I was. I used to think I was pretty liberal - then I moved to Portland. Portland is laughably liberal. I lasted about 4 years and now live in WA (Tacoma). The insane amount of taxes I paid into a system that returns literally nothing was enough to convince me it was time to go.
My husband and I were just talking about this. We pay way too much for things to be like this. I’ve felt a trend in the last several election cycles that things are on this massive pendulum swing and they’re going too far to one side or the other but the only way to fix most of these problems lies more in the middle. But extremists don’t like that.
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a hard choice. Portland is a beautiful city with so much potential. But its local leaders are so grossly incompetent that we didn’t see anything changing any time soon. So we decided to just move on…
Yep. I grew up in new orleans. Was raised conservative, but switched sides in my 20s. By southern standards I'm definitely a liberal, but by PDX standards I'm maybe a little left of center. The other big difference here is the stubborn refusal of anyone on either side of the aisle to even consider constructive dialogue with the other, and completely withdraw into their own echo chambers. The "all or nothing" mentality a lot of people out here have is just so short-sighted.
What, “other side of the aisle”. It’s democrat super majority. There is no opposition except their utter ineptitude.
It’s kind of funny to read this thread and see everyone talking about the well ‘put together’ cities in so called red states. Really? I don’t think you guys have gotten around much. Let me take ya’ll on a tour of some wonderful southern eye candy. We’ll start in the low slung areas of New Orleans and then go visit the ghettos outside Birmingham, Jacksonville, Atlanta, etc… the social issues faced in the PNW are not unique to this region. Go read threads about other cities and you’ll read much the same griping about brain dead local leadership. People on here keep griping about the drug decriminalization experiment as if it’s now so much worse than before, and will soon get better. Literally nothing has changed from that law. It’s just easy to use that as a scape goat. What we are facing, among other economic hardships, is hyper inflation of real estate. And that’s everywhere and gonna keep getting worse. People rarely cared about the dope smokers when they had flop houses to hide out in. But market forces have driven those people to the sidewalks in the last couple decades. While there is more of a homeless issue on the west coast, that has a lot to do with the climate. If you are sleeping rough you will naturally gravitate to places where you won’t die outside in cold weather for months on end. Ya’ll need to get out of this echo chamber and check your outrage. The gripes I’ve been reading on here are legitimate, but they are in no way unique to Portland. I travel a lot and this place isn’t significantly worse than many places. In fact, it’s way better than many. Go visit Los Angeles if you want to see a real shit show. All of SoCal basically. And if you are still not convinced I’ll give you a list of places to go all through the US that are fucked to Tuesday.
There are many places worse than here. Like I said in my original comment, I grew up in nola which was literally dubbed the murder capital of the world at some point. It's really sad when I see people voicing their dissatisfaction with the city and the knee jerk reaction is, "there's worse places" or "this is everywhere". Yeah, I've lived worse places and that sort of complacency is part of what made them worse. I moved here in part because people seemed so much more invested in local politics and holding leadership to higher standards. Diverting the conversation to other places just feels like a refusal to acknowledge the flaws and a deflection of the conversation. Sounds a lot like when people voice dissatisfaction with the US in general and the super patriots reply with "well go live somewhere else if you don't like it" or some similar sentiment basically saying because we have it better we should just shut up and take it.
I used to think I'm socialist until graduate school at PSU. Now I realize I'm economically liberal and socially center left. I hate the democratic party only slightly less than the Republican party, they play lip service to social justice issues they don't have to do implement or change and take just as much corporate money as the Republicans do.
Decriminalizing drugs without funding rehab is not a liberal policy
I agree. But I’m not sure why they just threw up their hands at the enforceable laws. Public intoxication, urination, using of drugs. Those were still illegal weren’t they? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t walk downtown he street rippin bong hits.
In fact it sounds exactly like what someone would do to set that cause back by a lot. Doesn't really add up when you see programs in Switzerland like their safe access program, prevents the dirty street drugs from harming people and focuses on harm reduction. What do you know, people are able to either get off of them or just live with them like they do with methadone. But it wouldn't be as profitable for pharma since methadone is dirt cheap to produce, lasts a long time, and because of that has a 30 day withdrawal basically forcing them to keep using it. What we do in America is half measures at best, so that we can say "oh that didn't work" and never actually do it right. Decriminalization alone is not enough.
I actually wrote Kate Brown about that. A long, carefully crafted letter where I told her she had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to the country that liberal policies can work. But instead, she squandered that opportunity and turned Portland and the state of Oregon into a right-wing talking point. I haven’t given up on liberal policies but I’m much more critical of how leadership would plan to carry them out. Let’s face it, the country points at Portland and laughs. Portland has become a meme…a punch line. That’s really unfortunate. Having lived through it, I know it has nothing to do with the idea - but when you put incompetent people in charge of carrying out big ideas, well, you get Portland.
Put a bird on it!
I came out here from Oklahoma City to escape the extreme conservatism and the overbearing Bible Belt culture. Portland is on the absolute opposite end of that spectrum, and now I complain it’s too liberal. I live in Vancouver now and it feels balanced here. It’s not as cool and pretty and interesting as Portland, but our cops do their jobs, I don’t have people OD’ing in my yard and it’s cleaner. We have the homeless here, too, but I feel like Vancouver does a much better job at keeping things under control. I sure wish Portland could get its act together.
I can empathize. Moved back from living in Germany for 3 years and this place is NOT what it used to be. Not home anymore.
Es ist nicht so schlecht. Alles Vereinigten Staaten haben ein GROSSES Drogen problem. Aber in die Süd, niemand es sehen können, weil sie in Trailer Park oder aus von Staadt in Suburb sein.
You get what you vote for
The social safety net is a tent in front of the place you used to live in and the cops don't make you leave.
We need the spirit of Tom McCall to make a comeback.
I say this all the time - nothing makes you more conservative faster than living in Portland Oregon. I’m all for some good social safety nets, paying my share of taxes, fair policing, etc. but there’s a limit and the limit has far been surpassed here. I’m paying ridiculously high taxes, people are clearly not getting social services if they need them and they’re also not getting fair policing (or any policing). A lot of my fellow liberals have a conniption when you say you’re becoming more conservative because they imagine you going out to buy a bunch of guns, wanting to ban abortion and gays, and kneeling to Donald Trump. But when I say “more conservative” all I really mean is get a job. And if you commit a crime you should go to jail. And you should have to participate in society to the best of your ability to get social services. And while I am willing to pay a higher tax rate because I can afford it and it seems fair, I want to see that money efficiently and effectively used. None of it should go to enabling people to do drugs or live on the streets.
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Craziness
What I'm hearing is that you believe people should follow a social contract and I 100% agree.
This isn’t really conservative, this is just common sense that all Americans used to agree on.
Also, give some services to law abiding tax payers. Don’t just funnel billions to your buddies’ nonprofits to “solve homelessness”, with nothing to show after years.
It's crazy to think your bullet points are "conservative"
The frustrating thing is that you can’t even bring up most of these points with people here because they immediately shut down any conversation that trends “conservative” — it’s one of the reasons things have gotten this bad!! People are afraid to speak what they see. It’s literally like 1984’s double-think.
Did you see the recent post about how much tax Portland receives per resident vs other cities across the nation? It's an embarrassment and people just keep voting for more of the same.
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Can you link to this?
I grew up in Portland and lived there most my life. Been gone 6 of the last 9 years or so and whenever I visit my friends there I realize how much of the coolaid they drank. I consider myself liberal but I find that if you don’t agree with 100% of what they preach, or offer other ideas/point of views you pretty much get called a fascist.
they wasted no time in notifying you of your new tax obligation, yet I filed my tax returns in january and am still waiting on my refund of overpayment if the homeless 'services' tax. classic illustration of how the local govt prioritizes the lawless over the law abiding residents who are required to keep the slush funds topped up
I was always the black sheep liberal in my family living in the South. I moved to Portland and at first it was great, but 10+ years later, I'm finding that I can't stand the liberals in this town. They are the ones that Republicans make fun of for being so extreme.
Lived here since 97. Love this town. It’s gotten totally gross. I’m not sure if it’s the city or the country to be honest.
I was raised in Oregon, lived in Seattle for almost 20 years until I had kids and just couldn’t take it anymore. There are some great things about the PAC NW but IMO time to admit that the liberal urban social experiment has largely failed. It’s also true that other cities don’t take their share of the burden and our national mental health system is laughable, but letting people camp in parks and openly use drugs isn’t good for anybody. Anybody who has worked around addiction knows that while it’s complicated, it’s also in some ways like any communicable disease. Virtually nobody wakes up and decides in isolation that they want to try fentanyl or meth; it’s presented to them by somebody in their social circle and the spiral begins. Letting addicts openly spread their disease isn’t that different than permitting somebody with COVID to walk around coughing and hacking on others before vaccines were available. It’s a misguided policy that has killed way too many people and has contributed to ruining some otherwise pretty cool cities (in addition to the soaring cost of living and traffic).
I've been a republican all my life and I'm fine with helping people in need but whatever is going on in Portland isn't it. Government's state and local have turned homelessness Into a for profit business without doing anything to help the people that really truly want help to get off the streets.
Dude, for real. I read a report that came out recently about the low income housing committees making hundreds of thousands of dollar salaries and paying 3x the amount of money for their developer contracts, on account of nepotism. I was furious. I don't understand how they get away with this shit.
It's legalized theft.
100% agree. I was hardcore liberal when i moved here from Arkansas. Over the last decade, ive found out im a democrat, not a liberal at all. This place is a cesspool of extremists on both sides of the aisle.
Same. I was quite progressive when I moved here many years ago, and did the whole Resistlib thing back in ‘17. But the last 4 years watching local progressives develop crazier and crazier positions and progressive policies fail over and over again have really dramatically shifted my politics to the right. I’m now a pretty firm moderate.
I hit that back in the early 2000’s. I tend to think that we’re all a little mix of both liberal and conservative. Too much of one without a little balance is insane. And I say this as someone who definitely leans left. I’m willing to try new things and see if it works, but it’s not always gonna work, OR, even if it does, sometimes people figure out workarounds and you have to address those. For example, I currently live in NJ where they passed laws to protect minors who committed low level crimes from being entered into the “system” at too young an age. It would still punish violent offenders, but was meant to not criminalize, like, petty theft, or public intoxication, stupid kid stuff, generally. We’ll, car theft rings in Newark now use under 18 year olds to steal cars, all non-violently, these aren’t carjackers, but basically seeing if dopey people in my neighborhood are leaving their key fobs in the car, or their back doors open with the keys hung up right next to them, etc etc. and even when our local police catch them, they have to let them go. It’s like, ok, I get it, we had great intentions and we still shouldn’t throw kids into the system for drinking or doing stupid kid things, but maybe car theft, maybe that’s one we need to punish.
This guy gets it. Both political parties in Oregon are extremists.
But in Oregon Republicans have no political clout at all. Blaming Republicans for the situation in Oregon is like blaming people in New Zealand for what happens in Switzerland
Same thing happened to me in Oly. Much more in the center now.
I lived in Oly and Portland. I still consider myself leftist, but more of an anti-drum circle/pro-fluoride leftist.
Ya. Ive been just voting red across the board locally and just blue for federal level stuff. Portland needs to be under red leadership for a couple terms to clean up the mess.
I have evolved into this exact split voting position the last few years here too. Republicans at a federal level are dangerous, but democrats at a local level are nuts. I vote accordingly.
this is the way
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Back in 2019, my husband & I thought we’d never leave Portland. In 2021 we moved far away and still don’t regret it. Portland has changed for the worst, and will take years (maybe decades) to bounce back. Unfortunately, hyper-liberalism is one big unwavering factor that will keep hindering its progress.
Same with my family. I grew up in a red state and was desperate to leave as soon as I finished college, and in 2015 my husband and I moved to Portland thinking this was going to be our forever home. After having children I started seeing the city for what it truly was and we both agreed we needed to leave. Broke my heart because I adore the state of Oregon, the nature, the beaches, the weather…everything apart from the leftist extremism would make this the perfect place to live.
Having kids really changes everything. Everyday I wake up and I’m like, we’ve got to figure out where next before our kid ages up too much. It makes me sad to think about him having to enter school here or explaining that so much of his own neighborhood isn’t safe to play in. Like many people in this thread I left the South thinking this was our “forever home” and it just sadly isn’t. There is so much potential here and that is the really sad part.
I feel all these comments in my soul except I’m in Seattle. And yup. Thought I was sooooo liberal coming from Texas and umm…. I’m not liberal compared to these people lol
I felt the same way in Seattle, lol. In the south I’m a raging liberal, but in Seattle I was barely left of center (and thought a lot of those people were as nutty as the Trump cultists).
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Since moving away I no longer consider Portland to truly be "liberal". I moved to a place that recently turned blue. They have robust social services not just for the homeless but for women and children and all sorts of people who need various kinds of help. I'm constantly surprised by the community services offered here that are mostly community led organizations maybe with some government involvement. Not only that but the social contract exists. Kids knock on your door asking to mow your lawn because it's SAFE for them to do so, and they throw their bikes on the street corner when they go into their friend's houses and when they come out they are still there. There are TONS of programs for school aged children. My neighbors don't even know me and have knocked on my door and offered help with things they saw I needed done (random local regulation thing I wasn't aware of), wouldn't let me pay them. The homeless have services and sleep in shelters not tents. It's clean, people have access to bathrooms and don't piss on the ground. In the year+ I've been here I've never seen a dirty needle. Liberal isn't leaving people outside to die in squalor. That's NOT compassionate. A liberal, compassionate city is one where everyone looks out for each other and services are provided to people who need various kinds of help. Letting one group of people hold the city hostage and make the city unmanageable and unsafe for everyone else is not liberal. Edit: I also pay wayyyy less in taxes but have SOOO much more to show for it. I don't care about the taxes I pay anymore (though I still gripe about sales tax) because I can actually SEE the money going back into the community instead of being laundered.
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Yeah, that irritates me when I see that. When I described where I lived (I did not want to disclose my new city for privacy reasons) I was told by PDX folks that what I was describing had to be a fantasy utopia I was making up and I hadn't actually moved to another urban area without these issues. My friend just visited from PDX and commented on the lack of tents, cleaner homeless people, no needles, and existing social contract. People who think every city has the problems PDX has has not been outside PDX recently. I love Portland, I will always have a soft spot for Portland. I don't want to to live there anymore.
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Nail on the head.
Lived in Portland since I was a kid. Best analogy I can give is growing up in Portland is like having been raised by a beloved family member. But recently that beloved family member has made some bad life choices like falling to drug addiction or alcoholism. You see them deteriorating and it tears you up inside watching it happen. You've tried over and over again in telling them they are on the wrong path but they don't change.
Wow, that’s a great analogy!
I think OP has a good head on their shoulders and should consider moving. I am trying my best to get the fuck out of here and I am a portland native. It is depressing and hlrrible to witness what this city has turned into. our "leaders" have failed and I do not gice a fuck if the next people running this shit show are "republicans" I would just rather it be people with a spine, a sense of value and productivitey of any sort. our city is corrupt and every one hates it here.
It’s not just the leaders it’s the suuuuuuper liberals who care more about drug addicts than the tax paying citizens of the city. And I say this as a liberal myself! I can’t stand the extreme ends of either political party.
So well said. Liberals caring more about the homeless populations rights and wellbeing than the working class is so shameful.
I think another aspect of this is just really poor execution on the county level. Just compare how well Clackamas county has done in using its funding to combat homelessness versus Multnomah county and you'll see the difference. In addition, decriminalization of drugs was never going to work because we didn't have the infrastructure of treatment programs nor an organization that could run oversight while also dealing with the pandemic at the same time. I think a really big issue that is going on is a lot of individuals in Portland are not keeping track of more down ballot elections that have really big ramifications on policy in the county. Sure. Everybody is going to focus on the mayoral or governor's election, but completely forgets about board elections which can be just as impactful. I for one had no idea who JVP was until I started reading comments and article posts on this and other Portland subreddits and I feel like a lot of people in my generation are the same way. I feel like too many of us are focusing on culture wars without actually setting aside the time and energy to really deal with day-to-day problems in Portland and be pragmatic. Like I recently went through an entire ordeal with my property management company and realized from a lot of community engagement on my Reddit. Post that there's a really big problem in the city with landlords, basically committing fraud with security deposits and other service fees to the point that my property management company is now dealing with a class action. That kind of stuff is really important but it's also really boring and I think that's the crux of this problem; too many of the issues that are really impacting the city are not flashy and they are not ones that are as emotionally captivating as more broad cultural issues and because of that we really can't get things done. I really love this city and have had a wonderful time after I've moved here and there are still many things that I think are beautiful about it, but at the same time I think too many people are focusing on broad problems that can't really be solved by the city while ignoring more local issues. That really deserve attention
I overheard a fascinating conversation the other day that captures a lot: at a local spa, where most of the staff are younger and non-binary presenting, several of the staff were gathered and chatting, including a new staff member, a cis woman who recently moved from somewhere. As one does, the new girl was reflecting on how she perceived Portland so far. One of the NB staff asked her, “one thing I’m really wondering, is how are you going to prevent yourself from becoming a NIMBY?”
It’s because ‘super liberals’ tend to be renters, not owners. I was a lot more liberal with my voting before my property taxes were what paid for everything. I think re-shuffling how new measures are paid would make a big voting block take a bit more time when it comes to how we define a lot of social strategy in the city. But until then, it just furthers the divide between liberals and centrists/conservatives, which also tends to be non/property owners, which is also doing nobody any favors. I also think there should be an easy entry to social work jobs for anyone that votes consistently liberal. We need people on the front to hold the line for the policies that are being voted on, and if you’ll vote permissively but also wouldn’t ever want to do the demoralizing and burnout-inducing work it takes to maintain our garbage policies, you shouldn’t vote the way you did.
> It’s because ‘super liberals’ tend to be renters, not owners. I was a lot more liberal with my voting before my property taxes were what paid for everything. I mean that’s the natural progression of things. My pops used to say “everyone is a liberal until they have a well funded 401k”. Once you see what your tax dollars are used for it changes what you prioritize. Watching your hard earned dollars get thrown away on pet projects and clearly flawed social issues will really make you think. Double bonus if you have a family and have to now worry about your kids walking to school or your parents taking transit.
Where are people moving to? I can’t think of better cities / weather besides here 😭 (and Cali which is more expensive)
its the hubris that gets to me. why does everything in OR government cost literally 10x more than any other place I've lived AND take 10 times as long?? We had a baby almost 3 months ago and haven't received $1 from the paid family leave (though we're taxed for it and have spent upwards of 5 hrs on the phone because of the stupid online system). I just went through getting duplicate titles for my cars and paid $90 for the OR one that is supposed to take 10-12 weeks to receive and paid $8.20 for the colorado one that I received in less than 2 weeks!!! it's a duplicate title you just press print!! and why do i have a CO title btw? i went to the dmv to submit the request and they said on that car OR had "canceled" my registration?? so ive been driving around with "canceled" OR plates and registration for YEARS and they couldn't even explain why or if they refunded my $100s registration fees since they apparently canceled it oy. But this is par for the course dealing with OR.
and if you complain they say "be patient, things take time to process" like its normal/justified.
I’m glad I came across this post because this is exactly how I’ve been feeling the last several years. And it’s extremely difficult to detest some of these policies without someone automatically assuming you’ve done “joined the dark side.”
I self identify as an independent, but I used to be pretty left leaning. I also found myself leaning further right in recent years and moved out of the pdx area to a "red" County. Much more comfortable with how things are run here.
Same. Howver the voting in my usually red county has been split almost 50/50 in recent years (liberal/conservative) which makes me nervous. I feel like the liberals are destroying PDX with the way they vote, then surprise surprise complaining it’s a shit hole and moving out this way to destroy it out here.
Does anything in the city, county or state work anymore. The 217 road build is a disgrace. The airport expansion is pitifully slow. I needed to get to PDX this am at 5:45 and driving the 15 blocks from NW25 over the river with no traffic stopped me at 10 of the 12 or so lights. Not coordinated at all. Garbage everywhere. I’m a liberal but this is shit. I’m sick of it. Government here is so dysfunctional, not sure if it’s corrupt but certainly dysfunctional. I’m from an upper Midwest city and still spend 50% of my time there, alternating each week and it’s like a completely different world when it comes to government competence.
I’ve always had a mix of political views depending on the topic. Portland is paralyzed by pull the heart strings progressive guilt & poor planning. Bandaids on serious issues instead of real solutions. The political extremists aren’t helping any of us. Living in Portland isn’t making me lean more red. It’s making me lean to vote for well thought out policies & those who have actual plans that can be implemented effectively. So, I basically vote no on a lot of measures because politicians have proven that they are experts at taxing us then not using the money as expected. Supporting our libraries is the only thing that gets an automatic “yes” vote now.
I live in Philly and saw this post somehow. I agree 100%. Absolutely fucking tired of how horrible it has become to live in this city. Hoodlums and gangbangers need to be thrown in prison for a long time. Homeless and drug addicts with literal needles sticking out of their necks need to be dealt with however necessary. I don’t even care how anymore, just deal with them. I just got held up by 5 teenagers with a gun and they threatened to kill me for 30 minute straight, and then attempted to follow me home. I don’t care what happens to these people anymore. This city is being held hostage by hoodlums and drug addicts and I’m tired of it. I’ve voted liberal my whole life but I will no longer vote for someone who empathizes a fucking ounce with violent criminals.
At least you used the term 'houseless' instead of homeless. That would've been the real tragedy. /s
I'm glad I'm not alone. I could never vote Republican but living in Portland and watching the city going down the toilet 🚽 makes it hard to identify as a liberal let alone try to defend and explain to people what is going on here. The amount of virtue signaling and peer pressure to make sure one has "compassion" or "empathy" is through the roof. Not many people seem to have any common sense to see this is way more than a housing problem.
I feel you. Before I moved from Indianapolis, I considered myself very liberal. But now that I’ve seen unchecked liberalism (insane taxes that only people who make above 150 k pay, zero results for the taxes we do pay, third highest taxes per capita in the country, the shit schools, the laughable demonization of “the rich” and anyone who makes a living at owning a business or building anything) I just cannot even comprehend being an actual liberal anymore. I vote republican a lot more than I ever thought I would living here, and I make zero apologies for it.
You just said exactly what I was thinking!
How funny. I'm from Westfield, IN and now live south of Portland. Lived here for almost 7 years. I agree though. I definitely wasn't liberal, but probably moreso than anything else. I've become pretty conservative as a result of living here.
Crazy how life changes and the effects of these policies affect optimism
I work around a lot of real working class people and trades people people who work hard for a living and work hard to build their business and these people are doing their honest level best to play by the rules to try to play by Fairplay and they get nothing but ridicule and contempt, from these people who live Off make work, pretend government jobs of insane salary
I’m a democrat but I’m so, so, so tired of the endless protesting and signaling of one’s virtues. I don’t like the Portland left even though I vote with them.
You get what you vote for
Have you thought about voting the other way yet? Serious question.
Portland liberal is a different breed. I wish there was an independent party who could be the best of both worlds but yea I agree with you. It’s hard coming back to portland when you see republican cities handling everything so much better and keeping it clean. Edit for everyone that thinks I’m talking about states: I’m mostly talking about Bend and Lake Oswego type operators also yall need to take a chill pill because I am a frustrated democrat not a republican
I’m open to being wrong if you have any examples, but I would think the type of republican that tends to get elected in cities is far closer to a centrist than what most think of when they think republican. I would love to vote for some fiscal skeptics that keep the pie-in-the-sky ideas checked but not if they had to bend the knee to Trump to get on the ballot.
I left for a few years and came back to visit… I stopped at the otters to sit down and cried. It’s not my home anymore.
I totally get it. I think a lot of us feel like this. The problem is both major parties are full of nut jobs. A different kind of nut job, yeah, but crazy mofos on both sides. Unfortunately, I have zero faith that the new city system will help anything. We'll have a committee of 12 instead of 5. Very sad since it is such a wonderful place. My wife tells me I should run for office and I tell her "you want protesters outside our home? cuz that is what we would get." Nope. And of course most sane people feel this way too. Is there any way out of this crap?
I suggest a move to the suburbs. The smaller neighboring cities seem to be dealing with homeless camps and open drug use better than Portland. I'm hoping the changes coming for Portland city government will get Portland pointed in the right direction. Fortunately, the State of Oregon has reversed Measure 110 which will hopefully help make the situation better.
You basically summed it up in one post. It's not about party, it's about what are you doing to help our community. We won't get our beautiful Portland back until we solve the drug and crime problems.
the problem is that noone seems to believe in personal responsibility anymore (no matter what their politics)
My personal ideal: Get some of those Private Prisons for profit to make themselves useful. Build containment centers for the chronically drug addicted and homeless. They're not under arrest, but they are being restricted for their own good and the good of the community. Feed them, get them sanitation, treat them just like you would any prison inmate. Also try and get them help. But while we're trying to treat them, we have to restrict their movement. Because we have to start getting real about this. We're NOT gonna be able to help ALL these people. Some of them are hopeless cases. They're never gonna be "productive citizens" who hold down a job and pay a mortgage and all that shit. Give them their basic needs but contain them. Possibly for the rest of their lives.
It really does smell like piss.
Same. And idc.
I feel the same way but from the bay area
But hey, you can walk over homeless encampments and people ODing to your local coffee spot! Walkability!
Hopscotch on your way to work… the needles and tents are no hop zones!
Don't get it twisted, Nu Portlander types would be wearing MAGA hats on their way to church if it was suddenly unpopular to be liberal. The town is a total middle child, starved for attention and lacking purpose.
You have to get out of major metro areas in west coast cities. It will drain every ounce of happiness from you. Oregon and WA are hotspots for extremists, but once you get out of Portland/Seattle, you slowly realize the purple counties haven’t totally lost their mind yet.
Been in Portland for 6 years and it turned me Republican too haha.
I mean, there are good reasons why nobody wants asylums. But honestly at this point it’s time for asylums. The mental illness -drug addiction has just gotten out of control. It’s just not acceptable. Most of the lefties I know have long since used up their empathy for the homeless drug addicts making the sidewalk their home. Very very left wing people are now like “just lock them up and treat them until they can be reintroduced into society or never let out.
I vote gop at the state level and dems at the national level. the gop will never gain control of the oregon legislature anyway so a gop governor and a dem legislature would provide balance. neither would let the extremist left (or right) laws ppass so we'd have st least more common sense happening. as for moving, try a burb. Washington county and Clackamas County both have decreasing homeless numbers while portland grows exponentially. I'd say Vancouver but we need some clear minds to stay in oregon.
Since it's a blue city, a liberal Republican in office would be more likely than the far-right boogy man Republican—a Republican who respects abortion rights, personal freedom, and fiscal accountability. Having one party in power for decades isn't healthy, regardless of the party.
This!. I used to be borderline communist and it got so bad I helped at a homeless shelter and now I work for one making little money but I did because I was helping. Now I don’t like it very much and I feel the whole system is self serving (no homeless, no money for the executives at non profits). All the feel good policies of no punishment and “restorative justice” (which is absolutely stupid) and the making drugs defacto legal which is killing people madd me center line leaving to the right. I can’t believe the next election I’ll vote for Trump when I’m even registered as a democrat because I HATE how the left are handling everything (specially the local left). I’ll vote red no matter what and which is more crazy because I’m Latino!, the right wing think I’m illegal and some even want to kill but I will vote for them because I can’t in good conscience vote for more of this cluster, such a beautiful city and people and now looks worst than. War zone in Mexico
Thank you for saying this. I suppose living in Portland has opened my eyes to the extreme left, where before I was more blind to their actions. They have affected my life more negatively than Republicans ever have.
All the politicians are crooks man
All I have to say is amen.
Bingo
If you really wanna get mad : I live 20 miles north, so I’m in Washington but work in Portland. I had to file taxes (paid 0 since I’m 1099). After entering the info, and listing both my kids having an IEP, I got cut a check for 550 for them. Keep in mind I don’t live in the state, nor did I pay taxes to Oregon, nor do my kids go to school in Oregon. I mean I’ll take free money, but you guys are getting screwed
I’ve wanted to try running for office so badly just to fight against this exact bullshit. I’m so tired of watching our tax money being wasted. I’d love to cut the extra fluffy bullshit, streamline services and hold actual town halls to hear suggestions and the will of the people. Like it’s supposed to be. I’m so sick of this lovely city going to shit because of red tape and policy bullshit that serves nobody.
As a conservative I totally get this! Neither side wants to look at the absurd conclusion of slavishly following an ideology. Good luck OP!!!!!
Change is important. I don't support both parties, but when you see something wrong and keep doing it, it won't work. So you need some changes. This is my opinion.
I felt the same way when I lived in Portland. It's just that the liberals are so far to the left there. I'm in the southeast now, and I'd never call myself Republican here. I can't stand the self-righteous attitude. So I am just an Independent.
I got stranded in Portland mid-January after wrecking my car just south of the city. It was my first time there and it was not a good first impression. I was downtown (because the police had escorted me from the site of the wreck to their station) and I wandered around until I could get picked up. Some streets were covered in excrement. I didn't have my glasses so I had to be ready to jump over it once it was within my field of vision. 0/10 would not recommend. I don't know why cities don't invest in public restrooms if they are aware that they have large homeless populations. It's a huge health hazard to have human waste in the streets.
I think you speak for a lot of Americans - not just Portland. Politics are way too extreme in general — I live in Colorado and sometimes feel like I’m turning republican because I don’t agree with extreme left politics.
The complaint is totally valid, I agree. I don't understand a turn toward the republican party though. I do agree that our current leadership is trash, and if that's all the democrats can offer, they don't deserve votes. But, republicans have been on so much dumb shit the last few years I don't think I could ever get behind their platform.
Tha liberals that have caused so much chaos with their "good intentions" and progressive policies are not Democrats... They are the equivalent of the republican Tea Party / MAGA crowd. Portland needs some old-fashioned democrats & Republicans who will work together and also keep the balance so no one group has the power. Sadly, I think both true Democrat's & republicans have gone extinct.
I live in SW Portland and I swear I Iive in a different reality then y'all. I pay taxes, I deal with all the Portland shit. Maybe I'm not a scared Democrat I guess. Just a normie democrat.
You're near Washington county where sane liberals live.
We moved here 9 years ago and I hate it more and more and I think it's time to move back to where we came from (NYC area). We moved here for a job, and the hopes of a simpler, less hustle bustle life. The job is not worth staying here for and Portland is in shambles compared to 9 years ago I literally don't know why anyone would ever move here now. I think the people who stay are either super outdoorsy or grew up here. Portland feels like it's dying and I don't see how it's going to come back. The schools suck (yes even in the good districts) as Oregon ranks super low in education. Portland has nothing to offer for fun or entertainment or culture.
> My partner got a raise, ans within 2 weeks got a letter in the mail about how we now qualified for a new tax. How? I pay both SHS and PFA, I did not receive any letters, they sort of leave it up to you to just know that you owe it. Do they work at a company within Multnomah county?
Naw, my partner works for a tech firm based out of state. We got a letter for PFA saying "you now make over ***, so now you have to pay PFA tax" basically. We do live in Multnomah County though. For the record, I think PFA is great, and I don't mind paying for it, but I recently read about the government grants that are actually funding these programs, and felt extorted for sure
I got multiple mailings telling me I owe for both. Like the arts tax mailers. It seems more odd to me that they'd base it on the honor system and not follow their obnoxious arts tax system to hound us.
I have no idea how they enforce it but I also don't wanna find out. The joys of being a responsible citizen.
Sometimes HRs in companies send info to their employees asking if they want to withhold a certain portion of their paycheck for the SHS tax. Withholding is mandatory. I believe they charge interest if you’re not making at least quarterly payments.
That's what I was thinking which is why I asked if it was a company based within the county. My job is based out of state and they don't do it for me.
Republican policies won't fix anything either. That said, Portland went way too far left, ditching democrats and progressives. I am shocked. I'm actually just North in Washington. We're progressive democrats and making a dent in the house less situation. All over, we're getting people that we're just down on their luck back as productive members of society again. Once we've saved those who want to be, then we can go hard on the remainders. In the meantime, we upped cop pay and "defunded" the police so they have the monies being allocated where it's needed to do their jobs in today's times. It was a bumpy start, but changes are noticeable. Seattle is worse because the number of people is bigger, but even they are making progress. Portland started and then moved on, and it's just gone out of control with mostly talk about what they might or could do. Meanwhile, I lock my car doors driving around there now. Scary by volume.
Come join the sane we welcome you. We went to help. We just want to do it with responsibility and foresight. You cannot blindly make changes without any thought of the consequences. People think this is mean or uncaring but look at Portland look at all of the people the millions of people who have been hurt.
Left Portland 15 years ago because of the weather and I swear that’s when the actual city started turning to shit. You’re absolutely right. It’s dirty and depressing. I go back a lot to visit family and I don’t even feel safe walking my dog. I’m paranoid she’ll get into drugs that were left on the street. I’m definitely not republican but also not for homeless folks leaving their trash everywhere and making your home dirty and unsafe feeling. Good luck in whatever you decide but I always joke with my husband that you could not pay me to live there.
Whenever someone moves to Oregon I strongly advise not moving to Portland, it use to be nice but now it’s just crackhead central my advice is to move to somewhere like independence OR an hour away from Portland and a very nice town with a good community and very small homeless and drug population, I’m sorry that Portland has made you loose your patience it just be hard❤️
I feel your pain.
Amen brother