"Portland is broken."
Nicholas Kristof was quoting Portland's congressman Earl Blumenauer.
Kristof asked the question in a current article about Portland and other West Coast cities: "What's wrong with West Coast Cities?"
Portland has a one-two punch of special misery. Portland has a conspicuous problem of unhoused people living on sidewalks, roadsides, and median strips. This creates crimes of nuisance and disorder: garbage, blocked access, trespass. The second punch is the protests-turned riots of the long summer of 2020. They left a residue of closed businesses and bad relations between police and the public.
I am sharing two responses to the question posed by Nick Kristof. One is from a college classmate, Chip O'Hare. Chip is a mostly-retired businessman. He was formerly a Selectman (i.e. City Council member) for the city of Belmont. He volunteers in nonprofit work, including the Greater Boston Food Bank. "I'm a moderate who supports the poor, but I think the Progressive agenda and its politically correct narrative are a major part of the problem."
His comment on West Coast cities was:
I can’t tell you so much what needs to change as to what WILL change if the leadership vacuum is left to spawn solutions that clean up the mess without agreement on how to do it from both sides of the political aisle. I’m not sure that a constructive dialogue is possible, even on such a difficult issue. The right will eventually gain the support from the middle who want the problem solved and who have lost faith in the progressives and the Democratic Party. I don’t see how a more authoritarian approach is avoidable (like Rudy G. in NYC who cracked down on lower level criminals when he was mayor), only this time I see it being harsher and Trumpian. It may take a while for Portland to shift, but as of now, it’s rotting from the inside and the present situation is not sustainable. Even progressives will not tolerate dysfunction forever as the pursuit of happiness by law-abiding citizens will outweigh the policies of the far left.
In Massachusetts, where bad winters keep the numbers at lower levels, our new mayor, Michele Wu, cleaned up our only notorious tent city during the winter by offering alternative housing to those who lived on “Methadone Mile,” which had become a place where drugs were sold in public and overdoses frequent. A motel was offered, and housing at a closed hospital, which didn't solve the drug issue but at least kept the tents from remaining. The business community has been at their wits' end with everything, but for now it has improved somewhat.
We are heading for a more authoritarian and dystopian future, I fear. Hope I’m wrong.
Another reader, who goes by the pen name "Low Dudgeon," gives a parallel analysis. Democrats were like indulgent parents. I don't know who "Low Dudgeon" is. From previous comments I guess Low Dudgeon to be male, in his 50s, and an attorney living in Southern Oregon.
A couple of common misapprehensions and false distinctions need to be pointed out here. First, between the chronic homeless in places like Portland, and crime, including of the worst sort. Second, between Floyd protesters and Floyd rioters.
It has proven impolitic in area news media sources to note what is a matter of public record in two recent, otherwise well-publicized, topical and arguably emblematic cases: the arrestee in this professor's deadly beating AND the arrestee in the violent hate crime visited upon a Japanese tourist and child are longtime members of Portland's houseless community.
The Floyd riots were hardly sui generis, but a continuation of the Occupy and WTO-protest movements. Activist left-wingers, Black and White alike, Antifa and BLM alike, share convictions that America is so oppressive and corrupt that it must be burned down and built anew. Milder-mannered Democrats marched with and also cravenly deferred to these types as if well-intended, and their violent politicized excesses as unfortunate but largely understandable or unavoidable. Kamala Harris herself urged donations to bail funds for the worst offenders in all this, crowing that the mayhem must and will continue.
Suddenly many grown-up Democrats wonder, like bad parents, why the spoiled, tantruming adolescents continue to maim and destroy and degrade and demand, on ever more nebulous or unserious pretexts. They wonder why the people they indulged with tolerance and patience, from ingrate ersatz anarchists, to money-grubbing hustlers and hostile ignoramuses in BLM leadership positions nationwide, even after asinine calls to abolish police and prisons were uttered with a straight face in adult policy debates, NOW they wonder why these folks refuse to moderate their views and their conduct one jot for the common good.
Democrats sowed the wind, further wrecked the cities they have long run, and they will reap the election-year whirlwind.
Lisa, I am thrilled to have a strong defender of Portland read the blog and comment here. I consider myself a defender of Portland. I want its leaders to do a good job. The commenters af the home base for the blog (https://peterwsage.blogspot.com) feel they are DEFENDERS of Portland, too.
I contributed to Ted Wheeler's mayoral campaign, I have hosted fundraisers for Kate Brown and I have contributed to Kristof, Kotek, and Read, all three, hoping to find leadership who will defend and protect Oregon and Portland. I wanted to see tougher, more effective love. I wanted the legitimate BLM protests better protected from the interlopers who hijacked the protests, at huge cost to the mission--and to Portland.
Portland police aren't doing their part, either. Democrats are supposed to be the party of good government. If the police chief cannot command respect and bring morale to the police force, then the chief should be replaced. The state has a police force, too, and the AG can prosecute people just as well as the Multnomah County DA, who was reluctant to do so. Progressive politics and policies need an orderly community at least as much as do conservative policies. The poor and marginalized need good policing even more than do the comfortable. I am not encouraging cruelty when I say tough love. Indeed, the opposite. It is cruel to allow Portland to be as disorderly as it got.
But if you think I am dead wrong on this, please write me a comment and make your argument. I will probably make a guest post out of it.
Peter Sage peter.w.sage@gmail.com
Kristof- who was deemed unqualified to run for governor because he doesn’t and hadn’t lived, voted, or been an actual resident long enough to qualify?
Yes, I may be a bit of a Portland defender- I’ve actually spent 17 years of my life living there - UNLIKE ANY of your quoted commentators so far??!
Where is your college friend in Boston drawing his opinion forming information from? Oddly I’ll be there in MA for the next two weeks - maybe I should look him up for a healthy conversation.