Morning.

Exploring local issues today.

If you have the time the full article below is worth a read and the New Yorker writer has the quirky humor often found in the publication. Oregon is a trend setter, historically slipping into economic downturns before other parts of the country. Might see some additional trends which are showing up in your local area or maybe just the opposite.

Not in the article but mentioned on C99 is the rise in grocery prices. Personally been experiencing a continual lowering of prices at the grocery store the past year. Maybe it is the expansion of on-line shopping options creating more uniform pricing nationwide. The local area has been resort town pricing for as long as I remember.

Model City: Portland’s Journey From Symbol of Chic to Shabby RealClearInvestigations, Mark Hemingway Feb 05, 2026

In December, bestselling author and humorist David Sedaris wrote a New Yorker magazine essay about a recent trip to Portland, Oregon. While on a walk to a donut shop, he “lost count of the strung-out addicts I passed on my way” before eventually encountering four homeless people huddled around an empty baby carriage and smoking drugs right on the sidewalk. Moments later, a dog belonging to one of the addicts rushed out and bit him.

Following the incident, Sedaris, a former methamphetamine addict himself, was struck by the fact that most people in Portland didn’t seem concerned about the state of the city – even the medical worker who treated him appeared more concerned with the dog’s well-being than what had happened to him:

I mean, how hard should it be to get a little sympathy when an unleashed dog bites you? What if I were a baby? I wondered. Would people side with me then? What if I were ninety or blind or Nelson Mandela? Why is everyone so afraid of saying that drug addicts shouldn’t let their dogs bite people? Actually, I know why. We’re afraid we’ll be mistaken for Republicans, when, really, isn’t this something we should all be able to agree on? How did allowing dogs to bite people become a Democratic point of principle? Or is it just certain people’s dogs? If a German shepherd jumped, growling, out of one of those Tesla trucks that look like an origami project and its owner, wearing a MAGA hat, yelled, “Trumper, no!!!,” then would the people in my audience be aghast?

That one of America’s most progressive cities has become a laughingstock in one of the country’s more progressive magazines is a sign of Portland’s ongoing troubles. Like other big cities with major challenges, such as Chicago and San Francisco, Portland boasts many lovely areas and vibrant neighborhoods. But it is also defined by a range of pervasive problems – including crime, homelessness, drug addiction – that are less the consequences of modern society than self-inflicted wounds created by ineffective policies. If Portland stands out from other beleaguered cities, it is because its decline has been so swift.
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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.
Economic Doom Loop
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Echoing Sedaris, Eager says one key reason why the city’s massive crime problem goes unaddressed is that it’s largely self-inflicted and driven by ideology. “Hard core progressivism has destroyed what old school Oregon liberals built – farmers markets, parks, walkable communities, transit, and all the good kind of Portlandia-era liberal lifestyle stuff,” said Eager. “This brand of progressivism is just so against the rule of law, it’s ruined all those institutions that made Portland a cool, trendy, quirky place. It's not really quirky anymore. It's dangerous.”

Portland now has the second-highest crime rate of any city in America, behind Memphis. About one out of every 16 people in the city is the victim of a crime every year.
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The city is also enduring a full-blown economic crisis. Businesses have been fleeing the city. As of last year, Portland had the highest commercial real estate vacancy rate of any major city in the country, and it remains at record levels. Anything above a 20% office vacancy rate is said to indicate “severe distress,” and Portland’s office vacancy rate is 34.6%. Powell’s Books, America’s largest independent bookstore and arguably the city’s most iconic retail operation, had four rounds of layoffs last year.

The city’s biggest office tower, the 42-story U.S. Bancorp building, was sold in 2015 for $372.5 million; last year it sold for $45 million. Residential real estate isn’t faring much better. In 2024, the Ritz-Carlton began selling luxury condos in a building downtown. Only 11 of the 132 condos have sold since then, and it recently announced its price was being slashed by 50%.

“When you enter one of these economic Doom loops, we could be 10 years trying to dig ourselves out of it,” says Diehl. “The problem is, we need a healthy, vibrant Portland.”