You guys have done more than most would have. I think the city was in decline far before 2015, but there was a big uptick then. I believe it takes 20 years to destroy a city. I watched it start in Seattle, then Portland and Salt Lake City is closing in behind them. Those are the 3 cities i was most often in while living in the Nw for 39 years. We fled to Florida in 2021 because our teenager was never going to have a chance if we stayed in the powelhurts/gilbert neighborhood. Things didn't work out quite as planned, as the world never corrected after covid as we thought it would. But we do not deal with tents, homeless, graffiti, open drug use, human poop, gun shots or murder in our neighborhoods anymore. Our son is thriving again and we tell everyone that what happened to Portland can happen anywhere. Many just will not believe what we tell them is true and others have no way to place it in their brain having lived in Florida their entire lives, so it seems like a movie. I left another son on those streets when we moved and have spoken to Angela about him often. That is the most difficult aspect of being gone. I hate that my hometown is a wasteland and we often get homesick but what we are homesick for doesn't exist anymore anyway.
Thank you, and Angela (and Richard) for putting up the good fight on my and our fellow citizens’ behalf, comrade Jeff. In Portland/Multnomah County (and Oregon’s state government), where the gulag is our home and our community, where speaking against punishment is the greatest of all crimes, it is you and your cohorts who have been the greatest of our criminals. I salute you, one and all.
Thanks for the mention; one of the real pleasures of getting into social media in PDX has been meeting the duo behind PDX.Real. They're brave, smart, tough, and honest. Hard to find anyone like 'em in Portland's tired, corrupted, compromised, gutless local legacy media.
It's been amazing to watch the growth of pirate media™ over the past half-decade...new voices and viewpoints are stepping up to the plate (even Chloe Eudaly!). But they might not have taken the risk (and opportunity) absent Jeff/Angela's trailblazing.
Change takes time, guts, tireless tenacity, and (most of all) an independent source of income. The forces of decay in Portland are, essentially, on the government payroll (or government-funded nonprofits); each of those mopes on city council is getting $133K of our money--the ultimate income redistribution. Well, they're socialists, so whaddya expect.
There is simply no way that dissent and muckraking can be "monetized" in Portland. I know that J&A has had talks with money people around town; there have been dribs 'n' drabs, but nothing that would even begin to pay for the effort (not to mention psychological pressure) of doing a daily report. Which puts the abuse handed out by creeps such as Morillo into a different perspective.
When the big-bucks bunch won't put their money where their mouths are, you know the chickens run the roost. When no one in legacy media has taken a run at putting J&A on the payroll...well, it tells you something, doesn't it?
Can Portland be pulled out of its doom loop? Probably not. It will remain liveable for people with (1) enough money to be insulated from the spreading pockets of decay, (2) those who can game the extortionate government (Albina will return!), (3) the young and thick-skinned, (4) the feral, who will be ever with us.
That's not a recipe for urban success. No other city has ever made that toxic combination work.
So: enjoy what's left for as long as you can take it.
Then, being Americans, pack it up and move it out.
Thanks for the outstanding, comprehensive article. It had to be written, given all the phony, blind boosterism by the local media. In late March I wrote a letter to The Oregonian/OregonLive disputing their 3/23/2025 article which blamed Portland's "lagging recovery" on the lingering effects of Covid. Despite the letter meeting all their "standards" for publication, they, of course, sent it to the circular file instead. Here is the final paragraph of the letter:
"It's time to stop using Covid as the diagnosis and excuse for Portland's pre-morbidities. To paraphrase Shakespeare: The fault, dear Portland, is not in the pandemic but in ourselves, that we are underlings in a troubled place."
As for your mention of Ellen Rosenblum, I worked with her in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the late 1980s. Everyone--and I do mean everyone--pronounced it "bloom" at that time. For some reason it became "blum" when she entered politics.
I would like to offer you and Angela a BIG THANK YOU! for all you have done and sacrificed to be a voice of reason in Portland. Now is the time to lay low, drink some good bourbon and let the current crop of the local elected ideological zealots implode. It’s gonna happen. Then PLEASE convince Angela to run for Portland City Council. It’s time to get her into a seat of power (and make an easy $133,000/year).
We are still going to write and post, we are just going to slow down on the social media engagement. It's impossible to keep up with, as well as exhausting dealing with some of the individuals out there!
Theresa Griffin Kennedy posted some great programs that included an interview with a Lents advocate from 2017. It's really worth listening to. Thomas Legg made some very astude observations where SE Portland was heading. I also understand that Portland has loss its A+ rating which might "just" affect Portland's recovery? I can't figure out how the socialist think their salaries will be covered once they chase all the businesses and people with money out of town? 🤔
Oregon Roundup, Portland Dissent, Max Steele are good ones.
We've been to Bend many times as we often have clients there. It looks like the Feds might be starting to extract some of those homeless camps off federal land!
I feel like it took off with the Occupy Movement back in 2011. The police were hamstrung against the “protesters”🙄 who rained hell on the city. It’s never been the same, and decays year by year.
I lived in Portland 22 years, moved to Milwaukie for the next 35 ( North Clackamas schools used to be so great) when I had my kids. With the influx of the Max in 2015, along came the attendant crime and homelessness. I gave up and moved to Sandy. There are no encampments, and crime feels nonexistent although I’m sure it occurs. It’s worth the 45 minute drive into work.
Please don’t give up the fight….there are leaders & followers and few are the leaders…..but we the followers need the Angela & Jeffs of the world who get out front and lead the charge! I’m sure it’s demoralizing to see the continued failed cycles come round and round again…..and truthfully I now seriously doubt the integrity of our local & state elections…..personally I know NO ONE who would disagree with practically everything you post, everything you expose, everything you suggest or support….so where are these “people” that constantly vote for the same old sh…. 😳
Honestly I feel like the only potential to a real possibility of creating change is for Angela to RUN for election to a position in Government. I can barely think of anything worse so forgive me Angela for electing you to GO FOR IT 😊
I appreciate both of you immensely and you are both AWESOME….
I'm sorry to hear this, my dream has always been to retire to a house on the water in Portland. My hope is that PDX finds a way forward, many thanks to the author of this to at least try to make things better.
I've met many lawyers in my day. Most are reserved and pleasant, most want to help their fellow man. The few are arrogant assholes that need a nice kick in their nether regions.
Good Lord, this endless bloviating could have been summarized as “insecure, cowardly, rich white people were unwilling to do even the tiniest thing to preserve their way of life”🤡
Well put, though there's still hope in the masses reaching a critical point of weariness and fixing it themselves with vigilantism, or just strong vigilance. One example is the 85 year-old man who's been painting over graffiti for years.
On an easier scale, anyone can contact businesses with woke window signs (like BLM glass breakage insurance) and tell them why we won't spend money there. Call them out on social media so others know, but be informative, not rude.
Was "Pruitt-Igor" a subliminal typo alluding to a Frankenstein project? The namesake track from a 1982 wordless film suits a lot of ruined areas here.
All of this is such a shame, because the NorCal to Washington State area is one of the most beautiful in the entire world. I really love that coastal Oregon area in particular. Reminds me of that old John Carpenter move "The Fog" (though that wasn't set there).
One day the PNW will figure out some of these political issues which are dragging it down. When that day comes I might just move there!
You guys have done more than most would have. I think the city was in decline far before 2015, but there was a big uptick then. I believe it takes 20 years to destroy a city. I watched it start in Seattle, then Portland and Salt Lake City is closing in behind them. Those are the 3 cities i was most often in while living in the Nw for 39 years. We fled to Florida in 2021 because our teenager was never going to have a chance if we stayed in the powelhurts/gilbert neighborhood. Things didn't work out quite as planned, as the world never corrected after covid as we thought it would. But we do not deal with tents, homeless, graffiti, open drug use, human poop, gun shots or murder in our neighborhoods anymore. Our son is thriving again and we tell everyone that what happened to Portland can happen anywhere. Many just will not believe what we tell them is true and others have no way to place it in their brain having lived in Florida their entire lives, so it seems like a movie. I left another son on those streets when we moved and have spoken to Angela about him often. That is the most difficult aspect of being gone. I hate that my hometown is a wasteland and we often get homesick but what we are homesick for doesn't exist anymore anyway.
Thank you, and Angela (and Richard) for putting up the good fight on my and our fellow citizens’ behalf, comrade Jeff. In Portland/Multnomah County (and Oregon’s state government), where the gulag is our home and our community, where speaking against punishment is the greatest of all crimes, it is you and your cohorts who have been the greatest of our criminals. I salute you, one and all.
Thanks for the mention; one of the real pleasures of getting into social media in PDX has been meeting the duo behind PDX.Real. They're brave, smart, tough, and honest. Hard to find anyone like 'em in Portland's tired, corrupted, compromised, gutless local legacy media.
It's been amazing to watch the growth of pirate media™ over the past half-decade...new voices and viewpoints are stepping up to the plate (even Chloe Eudaly!). But they might not have taken the risk (and opportunity) absent Jeff/Angela's trailblazing.
Change takes time, guts, tireless tenacity, and (most of all) an independent source of income. The forces of decay in Portland are, essentially, on the government payroll (or government-funded nonprofits); each of those mopes on city council is getting $133K of our money--the ultimate income redistribution. Well, they're socialists, so whaddya expect.
There is simply no way that dissent and muckraking can be "monetized" in Portland. I know that J&A has had talks with money people around town; there have been dribs 'n' drabs, but nothing that would even begin to pay for the effort (not to mention psychological pressure) of doing a daily report. Which puts the abuse handed out by creeps such as Morillo into a different perspective.
When the big-bucks bunch won't put their money where their mouths are, you know the chickens run the roost. When no one in legacy media has taken a run at putting J&A on the payroll...well, it tells you something, doesn't it?
Can Portland be pulled out of its doom loop? Probably not. It will remain liveable for people with (1) enough money to be insulated from the spreading pockets of decay, (2) those who can game the extortionate government (Albina will return!), (3) the young and thick-skinned, (4) the feral, who will be ever with us.
That's not a recipe for urban success. No other city has ever made that toxic combination work.
So: enjoy what's left for as long as you can take it.
Then, being Americans, pack it up and move it out.
Thanks for the outstanding, comprehensive article. It had to be written, given all the phony, blind boosterism by the local media. In late March I wrote a letter to The Oregonian/OregonLive disputing their 3/23/2025 article which blamed Portland's "lagging recovery" on the lingering effects of Covid. Despite the letter meeting all their "standards" for publication, they, of course, sent it to the circular file instead. Here is the final paragraph of the letter:
"It's time to stop using Covid as the diagnosis and excuse for Portland's pre-morbidities. To paraphrase Shakespeare: The fault, dear Portland, is not in the pandemic but in ourselves, that we are underlings in a troubled place."
As for your mention of Ellen Rosenblum, I worked with her in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the late 1980s. Everyone--and I do mean everyone--pronounced it "bloom" at that time. For some reason it became "blum" when she entered politics.
Thank you, everything you said is true, and I love the Rosenblum anecdote!
We called it the COVID Defense.
Jeff,
I would like to offer you and Angela a BIG THANK YOU! for all you have done and sacrificed to be a voice of reason in Portland. Now is the time to lay low, drink some good bourbon and let the current crop of the local elected ideological zealots implode. It’s gonna happen. Then PLEASE convince Angela to run for Portland City Council. It’s time to get her into a seat of power (and make an easy $133,000/year).
We are still going to write and post, we are just going to slow down on the social media engagement. It's impossible to keep up with, as well as exhausting dealing with some of the individuals out there!
Theresa Griffin Kennedy posted some great programs that included an interview with a Lents advocate from 2017. It's really worth listening to. Thomas Legg made some very astude observations where SE Portland was heading. I also understand that Portland has loss its A+ rating which might "just" affect Portland's recovery? I can't figure out how the socialist think their salaries will be covered once they chase all the businesses and people with money out of town? 🤔
They’ll just add a tax on those making $1 more than them.
Great job. Keep up the good work.
I'm over in Bend, and have been for over 20 years now. We're downstream from what Portland does, so I have a keen interest in what happens.
Are there other Oregon based 'Stackers I should be aware of?
Thank You.
Oregon Roundup, Portland Dissent, Max Steele are good ones.
We've been to Bend many times as we often have clients there. It looks like the Feds might be starting to extract some of those homeless camps off federal land!
I feel like it took off with the Occupy Movement back in 2011. The police were hamstrung against the “protesters”🙄 who rained hell on the city. It’s never been the same, and decays year by year.
I lived in Portland 22 years, moved to Milwaukie for the next 35 ( North Clackamas schools used to be so great) when I had my kids. With the influx of the Max in 2015, along came the attendant crime and homelessness. I gave up and moved to Sandy. There are no encampments, and crime feels nonexistent although I’m sure it occurs. It’s worth the 45 minute drive into work.
Please don’t give up the fight….there are leaders & followers and few are the leaders…..but we the followers need the Angela & Jeffs of the world who get out front and lead the charge! I’m sure it’s demoralizing to see the continued failed cycles come round and round again…..and truthfully I now seriously doubt the integrity of our local & state elections…..personally I know NO ONE who would disagree with practically everything you post, everything you expose, everything you suggest or support….so where are these “people” that constantly vote for the same old sh…. 😳
Honestly I feel like the only potential to a real possibility of creating change is for Angela to RUN for election to a position in Government. I can barely think of anything worse so forgive me Angela for electing you to GO FOR IT 😊
I appreciate both of you immensely and you are both AWESOME….
Thank you for your work. May Portland RIP 🪦 😢💔💔
I'm sorry to hear this, my dream has always been to retire to a house on the water in Portland. My hope is that PDX finds a way forward, many thanks to the author of this to at least try to make things better.
I've met many lawyers in my day. Most are reserved and pleasant, most want to help their fellow man. The few are arrogant assholes that need a nice kick in their nether regions.
Good Lord, this endless bloviating could have been summarized as “insecure, cowardly, rich white people were unwilling to do even the tiniest thing to preserve their way of life”🤡
I attended a journalism conference in Portland in the eighties. The city struck me as beautiful and safe.
Now I am retired in Mexico City, which seems like a vastly bigger version of what Portland has apparently become.
My two cents worth: cities are easy prey to opportunistic politicians seeking power and wealth for themselves and their gang.
The fact that they rule over a ruin is unimportant to them because they live in wealthy, gated communities with poo private schools and policy.
private schools and police.
Well put, though there's still hope in the masses reaching a critical point of weariness and fixing it themselves with vigilantism, or just strong vigilance. One example is the 85 year-old man who's been painting over graffiti for years.
On an easier scale, anyone can contact businesses with woke window signs (like BLM glass breakage insurance) and tell them why we won't spend money there. Call them out on social media so others know, but be informative, not rude.
Was "Pruitt-Igor" a subliminal typo alluding to a Frankenstein project? The namesake track from a 1982 wordless film suits a lot of ruined areas here.
It wasn't traumatizing to me, Kim. But thank you for coming on here and showing all of our followers how unhinged you actually are. Always a pleasure!
All of this is such a shame, because the NorCal to Washington State area is one of the most beautiful in the entire world. I really love that coastal Oregon area in particular. Reminds me of that old John Carpenter move "The Fog" (though that wasn't set there).
One day the PNW will figure out some of these political issues which are dragging it down. When that day comes I might just move there!