So why is Portland Oregon a dying City? Many theories float around the internet as to what
happened who's to blame and what needs to be fixed I live in the Portland Oregon metro area
and I spend a lot of time in downtown Portland I've lived here for almost 13 years and I can
tell you that if this ain't a dying City I don't know what is is there hope for the Rose City can
Portland turn it around I think so will it happen in the next year I doubt it that's
a hill I think we'll take close to a decade to climb today's list is about 10 things that are
bringing Portland down and what needs to be fixed a few of the things on this list
sort of bleed into or overlap each other but I think they're all worthy of their own spot now
I'm sure some of you will disagree with what's on the list and some of you will disagree with
the order that they show up and I'm sure some of you will disagree with what needs to be done
and that's great I would love to hear about it in the comments section I'd also like to know
if there's a city you'd like to have done next get it got it good let's take a look
number 10 Rising rent prices so up until 2019 Portland didn't have any form of rent control
and this made rent prices way higher than I think they should be I think most people think that
unless you're a landlord then you're perfectly fine with it but most people agree that up until
2019 and even today rent prices are too high that's how it used to be rent prices could be
raised any dollar amount they want at any time of course after release if you had a lease they kind
of had to stay that way legally but once you're out of lease and if you were going month to month
they just keep raising your rent oregonians used to just blame Californians when in reality it
was kind of the laws we had in place or lack of laws that let them put it at whatever they
wanted currently there's a few companies that are going through some legal troubles because
of rent fixing they had an algorithm that kind of artificially inflated rent prices when it
comes to fixing this problem I think the steps they've made have helped it'll take a few years
before we really start seeing the effect so that one sort of it still sucks but let's see
number nine Rising violent crime when I first moved to Portland Oregon the crime rate was
pretty decent and their violent crime rate was below the national average which is outstanding
it's not a major city it's considered a medium City but to have a violent crime rate that's
below the national average for a city that's outstanding in the almost 13 years I've been
here there's been a change and in the last three years been a big change the violent crime rate
in 2018 was 2 percent below the national average which is respectable keep in mind like I always
say there are cities like East St Louis and Detroit in this country where the violent crime
rate can be two and three hundred percent above the national average so couple percentage points
below the national average is not bad here in 2022 it is 35 percent above the national average that's
just the violent crime rate their overall crime is 124 above the national average and
their property crime that's at 142 percent above the national average when 2022 is over I'm sure
it'll be closer to 45 percent above the national average for the violent crime
rate so something needs to be done and don't leave in the comment section that we shouldn't
have defunded our police Oregon and Portland never defunded any police some cities in the
country have taken let's say money from buying more military style equipment and put some of
that money into training their officers for Mental Health crisis and stuff like that it's
not funding they're just shifting some of the money around what Portland needs to do is crack
down on some of the neighborhoods that are kind of out of control now I mean out of control for
the Pacific Northwest not South Side Chicago out of control it's a proven strategy once
the police start focusing on a neighborhood crime will go down so basically they do need
a little more manpower of course that takes money which means more taxes or cutting back
other places and then as you'll learn on number one on this list the tax base is being affected
number eight the housing shortage it's estimated that the Portland Oregon metro area needs about
a hundred thousand more housing units whether it's apartments condos houses whatever now 100
000 is the over dramatized numbers that you might get from some organization that has some
unrealistic views of the present but really they're thinking about the future a hundred
thousand should be great but realistically what they need now is about twenty five thousand
housing units since they don't have enough houses this of course means there's higher
rent and there's higher home prices when landlords and homeowners are in competition
to get your dollar to rent or buy prices go down but with the serious housing shortage
that's been going on for about a decade it just creates more problems I mean almost everything
on this list and any bad thing with a city town State whatever creates other problems
not just one problem there's always a spider web of problems that happen whenever anything is bad
number seven it's no longer a walkable City downtown Portland Oregon used to be a very
walkable City you could walk anywhere have a good time just walk around downtown and
it was really nice now with the crime rate the way it is and other problems they have
downtown it's definitely not a walkable City I mean people still do it's just not
as comfortable as it used to be and I think a lot fewer people are out walking around let's
say at night than used to be when I first got here it was great people seen shows walking to
restaurants walking to bars now everyone gets in their car or an Uber and gets out of there
as soon as they're done doing whatever they were doing there used to be a comfortable
Vibe downtown Portland Oregon that just isn't there anymore you're always on guard
number six mass transit hasn't recovered the ridership for our mass transit here which is
known as the max or TriMet has been down look at this chart since the pandemic hit it dropped
like all places it just hasn't recovered not as many people are going downtown for
work but just more people are choosing to drive downtown instead of taking the
train this course has caused more traffic in the last four or five years more people
have started to work at home so there should be less cars on the road during the heaviest
commute times you know before work and after work rush hours should have kind of mellowed
out no that ain't happening I would say just my guesstimate it's actually worse now than
it was before the pandemic Rush Hour sucks in Portland and it's just getting worse and people
not riding the train is part of the problem my opinion it's a big part of the problem
number five our weirdness is now a liability Portland Oregon is known for being kind of
weird originally that weirdness came from the artist types that we had here the musicians the
young people that lived downtown that's how it got that kind of saying Keep Portland Weird now
it's being attributed to all the people that are suffering from mental health problems that are
living on the street then you have the political climate in the United States and that's one of
the first things they go to oh they're keeping it weird in Portland they've got this problem
in this problem and it's a failed State and all that other stuff that they say whenever they're
talking about politics that always seems to be one that's brought up Keep Portland Weird and
it's not the artists anymore they're talking about are the people on the street that are
suffering from severe mental illness so instead of having you know a Cool vibe or a funny saying
Keep Portland Weird now it's become kind of a slur in a way not sure what's going on over
there over my shoulder but it looks like he's falling sleep on his hands and knees
number four it's dirty that's right downtown Portland Oregon is a dirty place there's a few
different reasons for this the city has bigger problems to take care of than cleaning up the
streets it's dirty in a lot of different ways and I think number one on this will shed some
light on why it is so dirty there's so many different issues a lot of them we've named
here going on downtown Portland that this is like an afterthought for the city you know cleaning
up streets getting paper off the streets it's just not how it used to be it used to be a very
clean City now there's graffiti places that I never saw it before there's just trash in
the streets wherever you look it seems to me if anything's getting cleaned out on the sidewalk
it's whatever business owner or whatever company happens to own the building where that sidewalk
or curb is that's who's cleaning it a lot of the times downtown near Pioneer plazar Pioneer
Square they have these really cool like Bronze Statues of like a trout family of deers some
beavers some bear errors things like that and they're really cool and they're all around and
they're in these like little fountains I walked by the other day the fountains were I would say
half full of trash like someone decided these were no longer fountains there's no water in
them right now but someone decided that this is where they should put their trash and then
everyone started putting their trash there and it was kind of sad made me kind of upset now
if you go up by the college that's a little bit different you know it's a little cleaner
and I think a lot of that has to do with the colleges cleaning up things around there but
most of the downtown area and especially in the Chinatown area it's pretty gross
number three downtown at night sucks it didn't used to like I was saying earlier
people used to hang out down there you go to different bars go to the different clubs see
a movie see a concert and then you'd hang out downtown a lot of the businesses have
gone away that used to cater to that crowd a lot of the bars and a lot of the really
cool pubs are no longer there one of the best comedy clubs on the west coast Harvey's they
shut their doors now I'm sure some of that had to do with covid but I think covid was kind of
the straw that broke the camel's back the area around Harvey's it absolutely sucked it didn't
used to it's another situation where I've said that a lot it didn't used to it actually used
to be okay now it freaking blows they have an old school retro arcade like from the 80s it's called
Ground Control which is in the old town area or Chinatown area of Portland I haven't been there
in like four years I love the place it's so cool the bar it's a restaurant it has like real Donkey
Kong Pac-Man and games like that Space Invaders I played Space Invaders there and it's like the
original cabinet I want Old Town Portland to be better just so I can go to Ground Control
number two civic pride is dead it used to be kind of a cool thing to live in Portland
Oregon you kind of took a little pride in it I mean that's why so many people were irritated
Californians were moving up here because they love their City their city was the king these
days you talk to someone they don't tell you they're from Portland they kind of hide it
there used to be this overwhelming Vibe of you know this is a great City if you don't live here
you just don't know you're not cool to use the old phrase from the 1960s if you didn't live
in Portland you were kind of a square that's how they acted here I mean it was cool to live
in Portland that's not a thing anymore it's like the hipsters left town and that was it
all right before we get to number one if you're planning on moving to another city another state
there's a link for a website called home and money I've teamed up with them if you're looking for a
real estate agent they'll help you get in contact with one anywhere in the nation their website has
all kinds of neat tools too if you're thinking about buying a house all right on to number one
and number one the sidewalk camps now Portland has a homeless situation just like most major cities
in the United States on the west coast it's obviously worse California has more homeless
than all the other states combined Portland's no slouch either as Seattle and that's I mean
that's horrible and those people need help and I'm all on board with helping them I think more
help needs to be given to these people help get them off the street help them get their life back
together rehab whatever their situation might be the part of that situation that's killing the city
is the homeless camps on the sidewalk they are on every street in front of businesses in front of
apartment buildings anywhere you go downtown you will find tents now in recent weeks they've been
trying to clean that up but a lot of damage has been done to Portland because of those camps they
let them go on too long now everyone has a right to do whatever they can to survive in my opinion
I mean as long as it's not affecting other people this is affecting other people there's businesses
that are closing up shop maybe moving elsewhere so it's just this Snowball Effect they've been
cleaning it up like I'd said over the last month month and a half or so I'm actually working on a
video with it I've been going down like every couple weeks to film this one area to see how
it's looking but the thing is they've been cleaning it up and if you walk all the way
around any block I guarantee you're going to see a few tents on the sidewalk three months
ago six months ago you'd probably see 15 tents on the sidewalk on that block they are setting
up these safe camp areas where people could do that and get them away from the businesses
it's not a perfect solution but it's something if they fix that situation most of the things on this
list will fix themselves it won't be as dirty The Nightlife down there might be decent again
you'll be able to walk downtown and maybe just maybe civic pride will return to Portland Oregon
all right that's today's video hope you guys enjoyed it hope you got some
information out of it now go out have a great day and be nice to each other