I don't think this story is specific to Portland, but at least in my mind it is one that I can relate to the most. Portland, a city that I have never been to, was filled with violence and constant protest during the Trump Presidency and they also experienced some of the harshest lockdown regulations during Covid. This was quite common in most large liberal cities and now here we are a few years later and places like Portland have seen a large amount of people permanently leave the city. While the reasons could be varied, there is no denying that people probably don't like to live somewhere that riots and homicide are regular occurrences. Despite what they might say publicly about their decision to leave, they probably don't like the idea of living somewhere unsafe or volatile.
Other big cities have noticed people leaving permanently as well, but Portland is the one that people focus on the most because it is the one where it seemed that the government was actually helping the people create chaos and it at least appeared as though this was intentionally done to try to make it look like Trump had lost control of Portland, as if he had any control over that.
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I don't remember exactly because I wasn't paying that much attention to it at the time and have a profound lack of trust for media reports, but I want to say that there was more than 50 days of rioting, looting, and burning that was going on in Portland. If I was there and had the means to get out I would have done so as well.
Unfortunately for Portland, most of the people that decided to leave the city permanently were rather affluent ones and when they leave, they take their taxable income with them. I went to college with a guy who was living there in 2020 and even though he is extremely, sometimes annoyingly liberal, he left pretty quickly and quietly as well. He now lives in Nevada where riots aren't just part and parcel of living there.
According to something I read the other day, Portland on its own has lost over a BILLION dollars in taxable income from people fleeing the city since 2020 and they are one of the few large cities whose birth rates are actually outpaced by their death rates. I can't imagine any sane person actually wanting to move there either but will admit that I am biased because I am conservative, don't care much for big cities, and don't want to live somewhere that riots can just happen and you are not allowed to defend yourself or your property when it happens. If you do defend your self, your family, or your property, the police will likely come after YOU instead of the people who instigated the problem in the first place.
In stark contrast, we here in North Carolina have Castle Doctrine, meaning that you can legally protect your self and your property with lethal force. Almost everyone I know is armed, and we have very low crime rates. I'm sure there are a number of other factors involved such as the fact that New Bern is not anywhere near as populated as Portland, but we also have more of a community bond that doesn't appear to exist in places like Portland. When those people were rioting and burning stuff, I don't think they really paid any attention to who the property even belonged to. Busting out windows at Starbucks seemed to be kind of silly since that is basically a liberal stronghold shop anyway. You wont find may people in my part of the country paying $6 for a coffee.
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I recently discovered that Portland is the 26th most populated city in the United States and that has nothing to do with this story other than the fact that I didn't know that before now.
Although I have never heard the song, Try that in a Small Town is pretty popular and kind of epitomizes how I feel about the safety of New Bern and other cities like it as opposed to places like Portland. If people started running the streets burning random cars the police would get involved to stop it but honestly, they wouldn't have to. Something about a population having a very high percentage of the population legally armed with firearms has a wonderful deterrent impact on this sort of behavior. This isn't to say it is the wild west out here even though it is very common to see people open carrying on the streets.
It's quite the opposite actually. People here are not afraid of guns because they are used to seeing them. The people I know that carry everywhere they go - and I am one of them - are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and they have absolutely zero desire to harm anyone. However, they do know how to use their firearms and know that they are legally entitled to do so if things get ugly.
The type of things that happened in Portland couldn't possibly happen here and while I know the "gun debate" is a hot topic that gets under the skin of a lot of people, especially those who are not American, my city is living proof that an armed society is a peaceful one. I can't remember the last time we had any sort of violent incident here outside of a schoolyard scrap between a few teenagers.
For me, I would never live in a big city like Portland but I still don't with the people that do live there any harm. I get no enjoyment out of the suffering of others. It is kind of difficult to not look at this situation and not think that, to quote Joker "you got what you fucking deserve."
How can Portland and other large cities pull it back? Should they even try? I think that only once the brain drain happens due to talented individuals leaving the city and the departure of many industries happens will be the only time that some places will actually learn and by then, unfortunately, it will likely be too late.
It’s been decades since I’ve been to Portland, but a population exodus might, paradoxically, be a good thing for the city.
One of my sister-in-laws lives there, and her biggest complaint is not homelessness/crime, rather commuting times.
commuting times would be a killer for me. On the rare occasions that I go to sporting events in the larger cities here in North Carolina I get really irritated by traffic and can't imagine what it would be like to have that simply be a part of every single day of your life. We scoff at "road rage incidents" over here in the East of the state... but I only have to be stuck on a non-moving highway for about an hour before I start to relate to those people.
I just hope we do not get an overcrowding here in the Midwest due to the rush to get away from big cities. Nature should be cherished. We can't live without her.
Oregonains won't like tornado season or winter blizzards. A few days of -40° (C or F, same either way) will send 'em packing back to the coast!
I'll have to take your word for it. 😁🤣🤣
Here in the inland northwest, our new Oregon and California neighbors from the coast complain about the odd 0°F week in winter and ask if mild snow is "always this bad,"
🤣🤣🤣
I was unprepared for when I came out to Texas but I would never go back to the coast. I LOVE it here. Winters are pretty mild with little snow. The most we've gotten since I came in 2014 was that winter. We had a couple of feet of snow. My son (2 at the ) time had an amazing time playing in it. I got the pictures to prove it. 😁😁
I just can't think of any part of Texas as "Midwest" though. Texas is Texas.
It is west of where I was born and grew up. To me it is Midwest. 🤣🤣
haha, i was thinking the same thing. I do enjoy Texas although I have only been to touristy places like San Antonio
I haven't been to Portland in quite a few years. It was before COVID, and before the big spike in reports of homeless squatters on sidewalks and other public spaces. The city prides itself on being weird, but that weirdness includes a streak of authoritarianism masquerading as compassion. What annoys me most about the "left" is that while I can agree with them on a lot of problems, I fundamentally clash with their diagnoses or prescribed remedies. Same for the "right," actually, but that's another topic for another day. I remember a Portlandian expatriate to my small town expounding at length on the degeneracy she fled. I don't know how much to believe, and how much was stereotypical conservative boomer outrage, but I know there are real problems there for sure.
The friend of mine that lived there and quietly moved away said that the homeless would be bussed in from Cali. Not sure how true that is but it was what he said.
I'm with you on the "solutions" provided by left AND right. I don't think either side is really interested in helping anyone, just preserving and expanding their own power while pretending to give a damn.
The other thing about a small town is, if you did break the window in a StarryBucks (lets just pretend it existed) by the time that person got home, their parents would be talking to them about the busted window and how they would be fixing it. Even before the internet, the network in a small town is quite extensive.
That said, Portland.
What Portland is losing fastest, that they have no idea is leaving is tradesmen.
When you have a very physical skill like plumbing, and you know how to do it
You can find yourself a new job in a new place quickly.
And when you are hands-on, you are usually more conservative leaning.
So, the ones who see the writing on the wall and get out are the tradesmen.
Enjoy your 6 month waiting list to see a plumber Portland.
Maybe that is why people are pooping in the streets in SF? :-p
Trade skills are incredible and the people I know that went into those industries are generally a lot more happy all around than people who have office jobs. I remember when I was in high school how it seemed as though the guidance counselors were actively trying to discourage anyone from pursuing those fields and we were endlessly visited by college reps with bogus statistics about income levels that can be expected with a college degree.
I did both. I have a degree in construction management but I really believe that the real skills I have was by doing, not by learning. The degree opened doors for me as far as getting my construction business going, but I wouldn't have been able to manage something like that if I didn't know how to do the work myself. I think that if a lot of people could go back in time they would have attended a community college and learned something hands on rather than getting a degree in something like Business or Sociology.
There is a saying, i do not know where from
That the further man is away from the soil, the more miserable (or messed up in the head) he becomes.
This seems to be true.
And everyone in the future will be part time farmers.
These are the sorts of skills that should be taught in schools. It wouldn't surprise me if a majority of people that are in grammar and secondary school right now don't have any sort of a clue how to grow anything in the ground.
My controversial High School curriculum consists of killing, cleaning/plucking and cooking a chicken.
Nobody gets out of it. Kids need to know where their food comes from.
Wasn't Portland the place that voted to cut back on the police force? Sounds like a hell hole and not going to be on my radar when I eventually return to the US for a vacation. Crime can be controlled very easily if you enforce the correct power and with a woke society it would actually be very easy to achieve.
I don't know the specifics of it but I think so and now they have a problem with people not wanting to work in the police force there because the city seems to be actively working against law enforcement. The one thing I remember clearly was when the rioters were attacking the federal building so Trump sent in federal officials to protect it. During that time it at least appeared as though the city was allowing violence to try to make Trump look bad. It was a mess to watch and went on for ages.
I grew up about 40 miles from Portland, in the 1960s. It was a place to go to the eye doctor or back-to-school shopping. My parents didn't enjoy the traffic 'way back then, and the last time I drove through there (last year) it was ghastly. I'm not surprised people want to flee from that city.
I don't trust the media at all but if even part of what they are saying about that place is true, it sounds awful.