MARK HEMINGWAY: Model City: Portland’s Journey From Symbol of Chic to Shabby.
If you’re familiar with the recent history of Portland – I am a third-generation Oregonian who has lived in the city – it was once the epicenter of urban cool. In 2009, there was so much tourism that The Oregonian newspaper ran a column headlined, “Sorry, NYT, We’re Just Not That Into You,” grousing that all the glowing national press about the city was making it harder for locals to get into their favorite restaurants. By the time the popular comedy show “Portlandia” premiered in 2011, the city was a genuine cultural phenomenon.
Last fall, after the city acquired a reputation for crime, homelessness, and dysfunction, Oregon politicians rushed to media outlets to assure the nation that the city was not literally on fire. They were responding to comments from President Trump, who said, “the place is burning down, just burning down,” following violent protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. CNN ran a “fact check” on Trump’s multiple statements about the city burning.
Oregon politicians were probably right that the president’s hyperbole was not helping defuse a tense situation. And unlike other cities famous for urban blight, Portland is still a beautiful place to live. Located at the base of 11,000-foot-tall Mt. Hood, and built around two major rivers, it has one of the most spectacular natural settings of any city in America. Last fall, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden traveled around the city and posted videos highlighting the picturesque neighborhoods to show that Portland can be a wonderful place to live, in contrast to Trump’s claim that the city is “war-ravaged.”
But in a figurative sense – and at least one literal sense – Trump is right. Portland is constantly on fire. In the year following July 2024, Portland had 6,268 fire-related incidents – and 40% of the fires in the city are a direct result of Portland’s out-of-control vagrancy.
Even city leaders feel the heat. In 2024, Portland City Councilor Rene Gonzalez’s car burned in a fire that authorities believe was intentionally set while it was parked in front of his family’s home. No one was arrested, but a website associated with Portland’s notorious Antifa network claimed responsibility. Then last October, a fire consumed a carport belonging to Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos, burning her car and damaging the side of her house. Authorities eventually determined the fire was started by a vagrant trying to stay warm.
The city also has much more sophisticated criminal problems. As Minneapolis uncovers evidence that it has lost billions of dollars in fraudulent schemes by the city’s Somali community, Jeff Eager, the former mayor of Bend, Oregon, has published a series of alarming reports revealing that Portland may have a similar large-scale problem with its welfare programs – some of it connected to more menacing kinds of organized crime.
Read the whole thing, which has rare bipartisan approval:
UPDATE:
