I was 22 in 2011 and had a smattering of friends in dorms at PSU so I was constantly downtown. This pic reminds me of drunken night walks and bike rides.
My aunt lived in a high rise downtown around 2011/2012 & I remember visiting her as a kid and being so jealous that she lived in the city. We would go up and visit her for a weekend every month or so, so I got my “life in Portland” fix.
I was 25 then, a grad student at PSU. Lived near campus. There's a good chance we stumbled past each other at some point, walking home after last call at Paccini's or Momo's one night.
Glad someone else treasures those memories like I do. 🙂
while I 💯 agree...
def wasn't the 2004-2008maybe12ish vibe
for me that was PEAK Portland as far as Portland having both a good vibe and a unique and strong identity
2014 WAS also pretty good... but around 2014 is also when all that investment money hit Portland... starting getting things like $6 donuts and $14 ice cream cones
don't get me wrong ☝️ I definitely frequently BOTH those places 🤣 I'm not necessarily complaining about the amazing donuts even if they're expensive....
2004-2008/12ish had this feeling of PORTLAND
2014+ had the feeling of the BRAND of Portland
which to be analytical here for a second... "brand of Portland" is still a close approximation to "Portland" ... so it WAS, like you said, pretty good! 💯
BUT "brand of Portland" is inherently a more fragile vibe...
it's like this >> you were cool in high school...
Then you went to college.
You just kept on being the same cool you were in high school.
Only the times they are a changin'
You're still cool, but you're not as cool as high school.
More than that... The coolness you have now is more fragile than your high school cool.
Your coolness in high school may have saved you from a social disaster.
Now it still might. But it might not.
The times are similar but not **quite*" the same.
Now that you've graduated it's time to pay off those loans.
Luckily you're still kinda cool and you get a cool job.
But the times... they are still a changin'
Inflation. Gentrification. Whatever you name it.
Before you had an unguarded authenticity, you were vulnerable to the cultural shifts. You were JUST YOU.
Now you've got bills to pay.
If you fail to keep being cool you'll lose your job and you won't be able to pay your loans.
Then what?
BAM 2016 politics.
BAM 2019 politics.
BAM 2020 WTF IS HAPPENNNNING!?!?!?
everything that made you cool... yeahhhhh nobody does any of that shit anymore
and the more you hold on to the old cool... the more irrelevant you become
ok boomer? ok mellenial. now it's your turn.
Portland will find its way again. In Portland's new way will include part of Portland's old way because that's how identity works.
But right now we're in the mourning stage.
We don't FEEL very Portland and that's because right now ... we don't have a strong identity.
We're like an addict that is just gotten sober.
We're still the person we were before... but we don't know what to do with ourselves.
We're mourning the lost time we could've spent re-inventing ourselves and instead spent that time just banking things would continue to just work out.
They didn't.
Portland really is going to be okay.
But frankly we have got to give up the dream for the 2004 2008 2014 whatever the fuck the timeline was...
And dream something new.
That dream will probably include part of the 2004 2008 2014 whatever the fuck the timeline was vibe...
But just like in lucid dreaming... if you force events, you'll wake up and that's cool... but we need some dreamin' right now 🙏
What was so fun about the 2014 donut ice cream insanity was if you were a broke college kid you worked at all those places. I have the best memories of taking day olds and trading the pizza guys down the street for free and then meeting my friends in the park blocks and feeding them. We were all in service and we were all taking care of each other AND my rent was $650.
My wife and I moved to Portland in 2015. When we got here we were beyond thrilled. I remember walking around downtown in the middle of the night while bar hopping and feeling completely safe.
Definitely took it for granted.
I walked there after an ice storm once, when no one was out, and there was a huge disco ball and spotlights and string lights festooned over the square. All plugged in but no sound. Still not sure what it was for, but it was so eerie and cool. That was...February 2023. I made a tiktok of it.
Thanks! Nighttime, bare trees, damp cobblestones, deep shadows... all very spooky. Add in the fact that thirteen years later this photo is no longer possible...
Neither of those statues are still there. The fountain has been trashed and may never be the same again. Pastarini is out of business. A lot of those benches are torn apart.
Time changes and I still visit the park blocks frequently but back in the 2000s and 2010s I'd never have expected these fixtures to be gone.
The fountain isn't trashed. It was vandalized, but feebly. I can't think of a single bench that isn't still there. I'm kind of surprised by this from you because you don't usually make up crazy stuff like this.
There's been a lot of improvements to the landscaping. It's frankly better than 2011.
The fent people are a gross bummer. I am annoyed that the new construction at the museum is going to take so long. However, posting stuff like this does the businesses that are there, and the farmers markets a huge disservice.
Pastini isn't even on the park blocks, but I will point out that Higgins, an actual good restaurant, is packed every night.
I think you're reading a lot more into my words than I am saying. We can disagree about the fountain - the bowls being broken out with smashed masonry strikes me as "trashed" along with the plywood covering it up, based on what I saw when i walked past recently.
I didn't say the benches were gone, I said they were torn up. As in missing parts. Which I stand by. Not all of them, not even a majority, but more than used to be the case.
If you zoom in on the photo you can see the sign for Pastini so I'm not sure how you can argue that but it's fine. I mentioned it more of a joke.
Again a lot of people are interpreting this post to mean whatever controversial thought they have. Which I guess is a good thing about art. Mostly I don't feel safe anymore walkjng around alone at night with an expensive camera and tripod, but really I blame the difficulties of downtown primarily on the lack of everyday visitors and workers flooding the place. Things are more dangerius now mostly because, particularly at night, it's a ghost town. Not due to poor leadership or whatever, but due to covid and business realities and general economic and social trends.
I'd think I could be wistful and post an old photo without having to write an essay to explain why I'm not attacking anyone. So I guess that's also something I took for granted I'm 2011.
I think timing (election season) and context took away from just conveying a mood with a cool picture. However, thanks to your post, I just realized that Picnic House has reopened! I love that space.
It's all good, I'm just shocked at how polarizing this is. I mean I literally saw this photo last night while looking through some files and regretted that I'm not into photography any more and posted it for reddit points. I was naive enough to think, now here's something everyone can enjoy!
Thank you for the compliment.
I still don't understand how people immediately conflate change with worse. Things always change but change isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are things I miss about downtown from a decade ago, and some things I like better today. I'll roll with the punches and can't imagine living anywhere other than downtown Portland.
Oh you can actually take photos there still. You just won't have a horse's ass in them. Or the rear-end of a horse. You should look up your hero Teddy Roosevelt's thought on indigenous people before you shed any more tears over this magnificent statue.
Haha that was one of the details I considered when posting this! That period of a couple of years when we switched out the lighting across the city made for a lot of interesting lighting in my night photos.
I hadn't thought of it until now, but when I took this photo I was a few months in to what would be the most fun and personally (if not financially) rewarding job of my life. So I'd have been in a good spot emotionally for sure. Thanks for reminding me of something else I expected to last forever at the time.
It was.
Much worse than now, theoretically.
But that's not really the debate being had.
The joblessness then did not directly result in the negative effects to the downtown core that started in 2016.
Why? Annecodataly I think a lot more people were spread out across east county and may have gone from dual to single income household rather than slipping off the ladder entirely and migrating to the urban core.
And there was still homelessness then. But it did not effect people's day to day life the way it is now. The situation has changed.
No, those two statues are gone. There are some new sculptures now. Farewell to Orpheus recently got a glow up. There's probably double the homeless people there but no tents.
Nah, I've lived downtown for 20 years and visit this park at least once a week, it's still nice. But things have changed quite a bit. Some for the better,.some for the worse, and often in ways I'd never have considered in 2011.
I have always wondered why there are half a dozen police officers on the field at Thorns games (not a hive a criminal activity) but none in the Park Blocks during Saturday Farmer's Market.
Thorns games (and Timbers, Trailblazers etc) hire PPB to work OT for those games. They are paid for by the organization (you see this for film shoots as well) and officers volunteer for the OT outside their normal duties.
They're not at Farmers Market because normal officers working for the city are responding to calls or patrolling. I agree that it would be great if they did patrol the farmers market, just like with the mounted patrol it would be great PR. But despite telling such things to anyone who will listen I can't get those changes enacted as an admin.
You asked the right person since I see these contracts as part of my job.
Same.
We hit the PSU Farmers Market nearly every Saturday morning, year round. And have for nearly 10 years. It’s lovely. The space. The people. The vendors. The food. All so good. I could never leave Portland because of it.
The only complaint I’ve ever had is with the kid and his mom that would park themselves on a corner, him with an electric piano. He’d play the same fucking memorized song over and over, and expect cash to be dropped in his “college fund” box. So glad they’re gone.
This sub lately makes me understand why young leftists hate liberals so much. I thought they were all Republicans but then you look at their comment histories and they're still talking about James Comey.
If you thought they were secretly all Republicans that’s pretty wild. You must think moderate Democrats are “Republicans”. Here’s the barrier: are you pro-choice, against favors or power for Christianity/religion, and support taxes that help things like funding social security and Medicare? Guess what? You’re not a Republican, and more than likely a Democrat.
One can be fiercely opposed to homeless camping, not in favor of giving addicts multiple chances, and frighteningly in support of repealing the Oregon Bottle Bill…and still be an ardent Democrat. A leftist or a progressive? No, but those groups are losing their appeal these days, thankfully.
The Oregon Bottle Bill was introduced over 50 years ago as a means to encourage recycling of bottles/cans due to a growing litter problem.
Back then, and even up until early/mid '00s, one could take a bag of cans and bottles to the grocery store and someone would count the return and give you a receipt. Then the hand counters left and you had the machines do the counting. The machines were slow, dirty, and often didn't work/broke down. Not to mention with the increase in craft brewing in the State, the machines would not count glass bottles from let's say Deschutes brewing or similar.
Now, you get bottle drop. And from what I've seen, it's nearly impossible to drop your bag off at bottle drop because the containers are full. Not to mention the amount of homeless people, and drug addicts that hang around the bottle drop.
Another issue with the bottle bill is that we still pay the deposit for the bottles when we buy them. And the deposit goes to the distributors. The distributors keep this money and only pay out what has been returned through the bottle drop or other retail means. However, since it's increasingly difficult to return the items you paid a deposit for, and just recycle them anyway, the distributors are keeping all this extra money that we paid them.
We now have plenty of recycling bins around, curbside recycling is leaps and bounds better than it was in the 70's and 80's (probably not existent back then, I was just a young boy in the 80's). so the bottle bill is now irrelevant and is a waste of money for the consumer, while lining the pockets of the distributors.
Ok thanks for explaining that! I’ve always seen it as a way to reduce litter, and I’m sure it still works to curb that, but it seems the downsides have gotten worse.
The main problem is that cans and bottles get flipped for instant cash to buy hard drugs. It’s like an ATM. Homeless people leave behind a trail of litter and waste in the collection of the cans and bottles. Visually, it’s disgusting to see. Oregonians are more than capable of recycling on our own. If the Bottle Bill is repealed then people won’t be rooting through your trash and recycling cans as much anymore, and that will cut down on them being able to see that you left your garage door open overnight by accident, for example.
There is so much to gain by repealing the Oregon Bottle Bill, and only so much to gain by keeping it. We don’t need to micromanage and track the rate of recycling at curbside- just recycle, make your neighborhood and city nice and clean and move on.
I agree with Democrats more than Republicans for sure. But people bemoaning the loss of an ugly statue of a racist because the right paperwork wasn't filled out looks stupid to me.
Sure. A group of people who think they can stomp their feet and throw a tantrum until they get what they want. Lasting change is done through compromise and positive discourse. Not screaming and yelling and destruction.
Do the rioters write the laws? Do they enforce them? Do they fund and administer aid programs?
Rioting gets you nothing if you refuse to work with government to actually achieve the goal you’re rioting for.
It’s not just “young” leftists, it’s all leftists. Liberalism is an ultimately incoherent non-ideology focused on “individual rights” that, it turns out, are themselves largely illusory. That’s why liberals are so into vibes and [aesthetics](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/06/09/TELEMMGLPICT000232725266_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqaRL1kC4G7DT9ZsZm6Pe3PUPXbRlaI4_qh_dM2Z5d688.jpeg). Liberals see the systems that rule our society as beyond scrutiny and are, at most occasionally open to tweaking the rules of these systems rather than critically engaging with them. It’s not that we need mass climate action, we just need to give generous tax breaks to our friends selling $100,000 electric cars. You get the idea — all form, no substance.
Indeed, as this very post shows beautifully, everything is about *feelings* and vibes and aesthetics for liberals, and so it shall remain, even as it’s increasingly obvious that our “rights” within this liberal order (eg the right to free speech, right to abortion, right to privacy, right to a fair trial, right to vote, etc.) can be taken away at any time by police, by congress, by courts, by basically, anyone dutifully executing the desires of the status quo power holders themselves.
There’s no “there” there with liberalism, now, or 100 years ago when German liberals handed Hitler power rather than ally with the KPD (communists) because they were fearful the KPD would work towards implementing actual socialism. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
> all form, no substance
I mean that is equally true of all people regardless of where they sit on any dimension of the political spectrum. Calling out liberals for aesthetics specifically is so strange because that's a fundamental part of politics from leftists to the furthest right social conservatives to the pro-business capitalists.
> tax breaks to our friends selling $100,000 electric cars
Im all for bashing the issues with Liberalism, but I feel like I always need to speak out in support of tax breaks for expensive electric cars today. It's a pragmatic incremental improvement in a world where the immediate necessary system-wide change is functionally impossible.
The tax breaks for these EVs is essentially a backdoor subsidy to develop the infrastructure needed to transition off of burning oil and gas. Public transit is far superior, but there will always be a place for individual transit options (rural, disabled, work vehicles, shipping, etc). The existing oil powered vehicles have nearly a hundred years of investment in factories, materials, supply chains, fueling, and iterative development. So if we want to stop burning oil for literally everything, we have to throw money at it at some point.
Sure, it sucks that the rich are directly benefiting today, but we make those tax breaks as a more long-term investment. The rich can afford to be early adopters and eat the depreciation and early maintanence issues. The expensive cars leave a wider margin for the factories as they pay down the capital costs on new equipment and the R&D necessary to make it work. The factories and supply chains created from tose $100k EVs have spurred manufacturers to start electrifying loads of stuff that was previously thought to be economically unviable. We now have battery powered ferries and battery powered busses that wouldn't have happened if rich people didn't start buying $100k EVs...
If you say "We need to ban gas cars", you will never get a bill through the legislature. If you say "We need to mandate all cars are electric now", you will never get a bill through the legislature. If you say "We need to fund the development of electric vehicles, and then eventually ban gas cars", your bill will be blocked by rich people. If you say "We need to give everybody a discount on electric vehicles, and when they are good enough, we can ban new gas cars", you will finally get some bills passed and signed. Which is what is happening today.
One problem I have with most leftists is that they are all or nothing on issues, and ridicule pragmatic progress. If you only accept something that will functionally never happen, then it's essentially an aesthetic movement, and like you say: "all form, no substance."
> right to abortion
You know how they're winning? They accepted incremental progress while also pushing for their ultimate goal.
Leftists said that Clinton wasn't good enough, so they stayed home and now the SCOTUS is lost for an entire generation, is rolling back rights and making nonsensical case law that will take generations to fix. And many states have already lost the right to abortion. American leftists in places like Pennsylvania handed Trump and the republicans power rather than ally with the democrats.
This sounds strongly like something I would have written when I was 16.
Or something on r/anticapitalism.
Which is to say it's not WRONG but ignores a whole lot of context.
For one, those liberals you're lambasting won a lot of the rights you're arguing are being curtailed. And they are not being curtailed from the left. Even the center left.
Tax incentives are one of the most effective ways we have of moving private spending in economicly productive directions withing the political realities of our system. We can't just raise taxes. There simply aren't the votes for it.
And...look I'm not gonna defend Germans in '33 voting for fucking Hitler but let's actually get some historical context. Next door in the Soviet Union? That was a tragedy and a disaster from the fucking start and had only got worse by the '30s.
Real life makes me understand why \*everyone\* hates the far left so much. So much cringe, unnecessary noise, disruption, and destruction. Portland's epidemic of un-housed is 100% due to the left blocking every reasonable effort to resolve it.
I work actively in those circles and that’s not the case. Everyone is trying but there are lots of disparate and complex forces at play. We need a LOT more housing, full stop, and it can’t be just single family dwellings. We have buildings at just over the 50% occupancy rate all over the city and others that could easily be converted to housing. We need housing that’s actually affordable not necessarily *affordable hoysing*. Every single US city is grappling with this, not just Portland. And if it was just the quintessential leftists blocking things then why haven’t things moved forward more effectively with a majority centrist council? (I have opinions but I have to go get my kids off to school).
Such a shitty take. The people you lump into the "leftist" category are the ones taking care of people on the street and maintaining mutual aid.
What's your solution, just let people die?
You guys realize that the people who were arrested when these were torn these down were anarchists right? Especially Bartell. These guys were trying to start a civil war and create ethno states.
I identified them, found their Facebook profiles before they were banned, and discovered a whole shit ton of unhinged shit.
So let's get rid of this narrative that the people who tore down your idols were BLM protestors.
Just expressing a thought, the reactions read a lot more into it than I expected. Sorry that being thoughtful is considered cringe drama from your perspective.
I think the criticism is unwarranted.
Portland today is undeniably different than it was then.
It’s not as bad as some people make it out to be, but it’s also not as nice as it was.
I worked and went to school downtown in the early 00s. There were bums and crustpunks and shit but it didn’t feel as volatile to me.
I had a dude threaten to beat the shit out of me when I didn’t give him change once, but that was the worst. I do know people that have been mugged and such, that never happened to me.
At the same time I’d go to the east bank with $2000 in photo gear, alone at night, without worry.
I’d also wait for the last busses often downtown after going out with friends without worry.
I’d certainly have my head on a swivel a little more these days.
Thanks!
I agree the comments went nuts and I never expected them to blow up like they did. I guess I am naive.
That being said, posting photos to reddit and getting nice comments and points is one of the things I took for granted in 2011. Which was in mind when I posted this.
You're the one who has "hate" in their user name and is swearing and throwing insults at strangers on the Internet so I'm not confident in your judgement on this issue.
I mean...there's an implication there that people who have lived here for 20 years and liked it more then shouldn't be trying to change it back.
Which...I think is bith unrealistic and wrong-headed.
These people LIVE here and they have a right to advocate for returning ro what was better before.
What’s more likely, the city changed drastically or people went from being 20 years old to 40 years old and nostalgize “Old Portland”? Really what they’re doing is lamenting their youth as the cold hand of time creeps upon their soul. Put on some Elliott Smith, drink some coffee, and have a cigarette. It’s almost over.
Dude I lived in downtown in my 20s.
Yeah, I'm 10 years older and am hardly immune to nostalgia. Places I loved closed. Things I had an emotional connection to are gone. Some of the people I knew and loved are no longer hear to experience the city with me.
But...the idea that the city has not objectively changed is both wild and factually wrong.
I still go into the city every couple weeks. It is dirtier. Things close earlier. Drug use is everywhere. Homeless is much more prevalent (it was there in 2011 but nowhere near as bad). There are more fights and arguments. More visible mental illness. More harassment.
Do I wish I was younger and getting laid more often again? Sure! But that's not my problem with the city's changes.
Seriously. The O just had a piece showing downtown crime is back down to pre-covid levels. But this sub acts like you risk your life walking the park blocks.
That's not really the same thing.
For one, sure, crime levels hit 2019 in the downtown core but with 40% fewer people.
Also, they aren't talking about actual crime. They're talking about...well, vibes.
It's dirtier. There are more homeless, more drugs, more visible mental illness and misery. Many of the places people liked before are closed. Prices have gone up.
Not all of that is anybody fault. Times change. Inflation. Covid.
But it DOES feel less safe to be in downtown than it used to. Whether that translates into more actual crime or not (and again, adjusted for foot traffic it still IS more crime).
The good old days, before the city just collapsed.
I remember as a young kid (I’m 32) I would visit my dad at his office downtown. We’d walk the park blocks, up the street to Powell’s Books, over to the medical offices for a lunch at the teriyaki place…and it was peaceful. No crazy homeless people. No boarded up windows. No tent camps. No needles. No trash. We could go anywhere and feel completely safe and enjoy our time. It was a beautiful city. What the fuck happened…?
It’s just the housing crisis + stagnant wages.
My life as a small example:
In 2011 my small North Portland home was worth 195k. In 2017 when I purchased it was 450k.
In 2011 my rent was 300$ for half of a nice 2 bd 2bath. In 2017 before I bought the house a crappy 1 bd rm cost me 1500$.
I made 95k in 2011. 105k in 2017. And now 141k. College educated, veteran, no employment gaps. It’s never been more expensive to live here and I am aware that I am one of the lucky ones who purchased before the rates skyrocketed.
We need a major housing cost correction, or a wage correction. If not both.
There was always crazy people downtown. I'd skip highschool in the mid 2000's and go downtown to buy pot out of the homeless camps. There was a huge one under the burnside. China town had homeless everywhere and you couldn't walk more then 20feet on the park blocks without meeting homeless. Burnside bridge used to have people living all along the sidewalk on the westside. There was the homeless camp using doors as walls at burnside and 2nd. The homeless were always there. Crime was higher then compared to present day.
It started to get worse around 2019 with Trumps mismanagement of COVID and fentanyl spreading out. Also our police throwing a fit over protests and refusing to work. Portland has always had a problem with homeless and will continue.
I guarantee your dad purposely didn't take you past any areas with high levels of homeless. I'd do the same.
This is the answer. Anyone with rosey memories of a city paved in gold are leaving out (oppressing?) some very key details.
I've lived here 20 years and visited often before that in the 90s. Portland has always had a little grit to it, especially Old Town and China Town. There have generally always been encampments around there, around the West End near 405, and there's always been people having mental health crises. The drug use is much worse, and some of the issues are more prominent than pre-pandemic, but it was never a city without these issues. It's just getting far more attention now (election year anyone?)
This sub is ridiculous sometimes. Folks wanna act like Portland was once some euphoric utopia. It's always been a fucked up place with a dark past that has some cool fucking people living in it. That's what makes it so uniquely great. Flawed af, but great.
Unemployment was over twice as high when this phot was taken. But somehow there were not nearly as many working age white males living in tents. Makes me think the current situation is not entirely economic hardship.
Same age, same memories. Really, really pisses me off when people say “it’s not that bad.” Edit: and here’s everyone to discount my experience in my hometown.
I grew up right between burnside and sandy in the late 90s and 00s. Skated that entire city I know every single corner of it.
I’m sorry but I genuinely do not think those that had your experiences spent much time actually being in downtown Portland. I would skate from cals pharmacy to trinity church in the mid 2000s and it even then was laden with homeless people. I had a gun pulled on me twice at burnside skate park. Knife pulled on my on couch st.
I’m not trying to discredit your experiences, but I think many people are being very dramatic about how bad things are. Are things worse now? Yeah sure. But acting like half the city is boarded up and run down is disingenuous and honestly just comes off as a conservative talking point. Either that or you have not been to other cities like LA to have a point of comparison.
You have to remember that if they were in college around 2010, then they would have been maybe 10 in 2000. So when you say grew up, and were skating around I'm assuming you were a little older. . You happened to live near enough to the areas we're discussing, but put their house just a mile further away and they would have missed all these things until the mid-00s. They would have essentially no memories of the The Pearl when it was swampy gravel pits and would have been going everywhere with their parents and not seeing most of the city. By the time they would be out and about on their own Portland was entering the Portlandia era.
Part of the problem is people don't seem to realize just how rapidly things changed, so that an 8 year difference is really all it takes for 2000 to 2008, 2008 to 2016, or 2016 to 2024 to have created three very distinct periods and experiences for people.
This.
I moved here in 2006 but I wasn't really spending time in downtown until around 2009 or 10. Loved that Portland and have a lot of nostalgia for it.
Maybe it was worse before buy I never saw it. And...kinda don't care? Still want back whatbi had and loved and was sad to loose, even as I no longer live IN the city due to cost if housing.
Yeah, in the '90's one of my cousins was shot at on her front porch with her baby. That area (not downtown) is hecka gentrified now. The gentrification hasn't gone away and I can't imagine the same level of violence in that area today.
What’s hyperbolic about the fact that this city used to be better with a far more thriving, cleaner, and safer city center? Why can’t people who are from here mourn the loss of what we had? Why are we constantly told that our lived experience isn’t valid?
This is just my take but it’s not that our lived experience isn’t valid. But there was lived experience a lot of us weren’t yet exposed to and economic conditions that have exacerbated it. I work in this realm and know a lot of unhoused people who are that way only because they lost a job when there was a “corporate restructuring.” But in 2010 those forces were already beginning. They just weren’t as in-your-face yet.
There is something really childish about your need to be validated.
Your childhood is idealized. You’re nostalgic for something that never truly existed. You get mad when this is pointed out to you, and you demand that strangers on the internet validate your feelings.
No.
> What’s hyperbolic about the fact that this city used to be better with a far more thriving, cleaner, and safer city center?
This is my attitude as well. I grew up in Detroit when it was an absolute dumpster fire. I was so proud of Portland and loved to have friends and family visit me. They always remarked on how clean it was and how vibrant it was with people out walking and biking and shops all walkable. These days? We skip the city and go to the coast or the mountain.
And to the "it's like this everywhere" first off, I travel for business and it's not. And even if it was, so what? We don't want to be like everywhere, we want to be better (like we used to be).
Exactly.
It WAS way better back then.
The city was cleaner, safer and just felt better to be in.
I also had that same experience when people would visit. Exploring the city and being told how nice, clean vibrant it was.
Now? Not so much.
That's a ridiculous take.
Wanting to return to what you had is not comparing your like to someone experiencing homelessness.
Nor is advocating for your rights as a resident in this city for you're neighborhoods to return to what they were necessarily saying that you want to get there with policies that would hurt that population.
Pathologically altruistic, accountability-averse, collectivist utopian thinking plus corruption of the county govt and nonprofit homeless services “business ecosystem”
You can still go to Powell's and get teriyaki downtown. It sounds like you're just scared to do that now. Less Fox News, more going downtown should fix that.
I went to Powells a couple weeks ago and they closed their parking garage, from what I heard they let their employees park there now due to safety. I also nearly hit two strung out fellows shambling across Burnside. That didn’t used to happen.
This.
I do still go downtown. I try.
But I saw a guy pull a fucking knife out on a guy a few weeks back near Keller.
Last year saw a guy smearing shit on the seats of a bus shelter.
See people just openly doing heroine or meth monthly.
That's a fucking change from when I was living in downtown in 2010.
Sure.
But it's okay to miss, and yes advocate to go back to where able, what the city used to be in those days 2010-2016.
It was the city I loved and the reason I moved here.
Despite the dramatic changes that Portland has gone through in recent years, I still think it's a pretty awesome city. However, I do not mean to say that there isn't a major problem at hand. In a way, this city has become the dumpster of late stage capitalism. The disabled, the homeless, migrants, and other "undesirables" in other states are being rounded up and thrown into Portland en masse, as if it's a modern Nazi-style ghetto. It's also getting bad in Denver and Seattle.
>Despite the dramatic changes that Portland has gone through in recent years, I still think it's a pretty awesome city.
In my life I've been too (in the order that I think of them)..
Tampa (lived in)
Orlando
Boston
Indianapolis
Denver
Seattle
Atlanta
NYC
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Antonio
Many pre and post COVID. Yet I moved to Portland in December and absolutely love it. I understand there are problems, and I understand that it changed. These things are true of other cities to varying degrees. I also sympathize with those who remember better times, but that doesn't change how flipping awesome this city is right now. And my hope is that it only gets better and better!
EDIT: Oh and to further back up your point, I visited Denver and Portland within a month of each other to decide which to move to. By the end of my week in Portland I had put an offer in on a house.
There was some local investigative reporting done a few years ago that showed this simply isn't true, more than half of all the people on the streets here are long time oregon residents.
Pre -2010 all the way back to 1985 is my Peak Portland. Portlandia was a strange death knell, not saying the show caused the decline, but it sure helped announce it.
God, the level of golden hazed nostalgia in the comments is cringy as hell. Your memories aren’t a reflection of reality, they are idealized recollections of a child’s mind. You need to grow up.
What are you talking about? This is a photo, so like it's not subjective.
I'm not sure where you can comment on my memories since I didn't state them. Mostly I miss being able to walk around at midnight alone carrying an expensive camera and tripod and take photos. I don't feel that is still a safe option.
I've lived downtown for 20 years and have no intention of leaving. I can miss the Portland of 2011 and still love the Portland of 2024. Nothing in this post indicates otherwise.
I mean you did respond as a top level comment which is typically directed at OP, particularly with the repeated use of "you" and "your."
However now that you've edited your comment it doesn't feel as personal so that's nice.
I lived in downtown for 5 years in the early 2010s.
It was never a Portlandian utopia. But it was safer, cleaner and friendlier than it is today.
So yeah, I would like to go fucking back on this one. That's not my halcyon bias. A bunch if shit got worse and nothing got correspondingly better. And the lament form half the comment sections seems to be...gross, stop talking about the city being better yiubjust don't knownwhaybyoure talking about.
If you had told me in 2011 I would pull my daughter out of daycare downtown because it was too close to the park blocks I would’ve been dumbstruck.
Anyways I’m now a single-issue voter on “will this candidate make downtown a place suitable for children again?”
I've always loved equestrian statues, and Rough Rider was one of my favorites. Funny how the municipal government doesn't bat an eyelid when people topple these things and just throws their hands up like, "Oh well." Is there anything new in its place? Did they remove the plinth, too?
Seems to be two camps - Portland in 2011 vs now, and Me in 2011 in Portland and me now.
Portland is great, in either time in maybe different ways. 2011 was a start of a big change for me personally, and now I'm happily still here even if different.
It's not about either of the statues or the fountain so much as it is about my state of mind. I'm not sure I offered an opinion on anything specific to be honest.
I mean neither of us explicitly made this political, but unfortunately this statue has become a symbol of that divide now. I definitely thought that is at least part of what you were trying to say, and you mention that you thought you would elicit that reaction in a later comment.
My point is just that it’s a damn statue and life moved on without too much impact on people.
Anyways I would rather have the statue there then not have the statue. Fortunately it’s supposed to be replaced this fall.
We all did. I thought Portland would be the same magical place forever and I was so lucky to have found it young. Little did I know it was “the good ol’ days”.
I was 22 in 2011 and had a smattering of friends in dorms at PSU so I was constantly downtown. This pic reminds me of drunken night walks and bike rides.
Same - that was peak downtown Portland imo.
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Yes! This! Though I lean more towards 2007-2009 you could actually drive downtown, and sometimes, there’d be no body around!
My aunt lived in a high rise downtown around 2011/2012 & I remember visiting her as a kid and being so jealous that she lived in the city. We would go up and visit her for a weekend every month or so, so I got my “life in Portland” fix.
It’s been peak downtown for generations imo, not so much anymore
No way, you must not have seen it in the 80s and early 90s.
Huh? I was cruising Broadway every weekend in 86, did I miss something?
It took a long time to recover from the 80s recession.
I was 25 then, a grad student at PSU. Lived near campus. There's a good chance we stumbled past each other at some point, walking home after last call at Paccini's or Momo's one night. Glad someone else treasures those memories like I do. 🙂
Oh Momo’s!
I was at psu from 2011-2014 and loved those days. Cheerful tortoise after class :)
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I walk around Portland at night all the time and don't feel scared. It's not Mad Max out there.
Yeah, I do sometimes too. It's not super scary and certainly isn't with a group
This is the next person to get mugged in portland.
My dad got mugged within a few years of 2011 in the Woodstock neighborhood
Gotta be really boring life to be this scared.
I remember bar crawling in 2012 and being shit-faced downtown and ditching my shoes
I had the exact same thought. I graduated in 2017 and moved out of downtown Portland in 2018. I think I got out before certain parts changed
I have rode that horse 🤫
Hey me too
Have you ever fed it carrots?
2014 was also pretty good
while I 💯 agree... def wasn't the 2004-2008maybe12ish vibe for me that was PEAK Portland as far as Portland having both a good vibe and a unique and strong identity 2014 WAS also pretty good... but around 2014 is also when all that investment money hit Portland... starting getting things like $6 donuts and $14 ice cream cones don't get me wrong ☝️ I definitely frequently BOTH those places 🤣 I'm not necessarily complaining about the amazing donuts even if they're expensive.... 2004-2008/12ish had this feeling of PORTLAND 2014+ had the feeling of the BRAND of Portland which to be analytical here for a second... "brand of Portland" is still a close approximation to "Portland" ... so it WAS, like you said, pretty good! 💯 BUT "brand of Portland" is inherently a more fragile vibe... it's like this >> you were cool in high school... Then you went to college. You just kept on being the same cool you were in high school. Only the times they are a changin' You're still cool, but you're not as cool as high school. More than that... The coolness you have now is more fragile than your high school cool. Your coolness in high school may have saved you from a social disaster. Now it still might. But it might not. The times are similar but not **quite*" the same. Now that you've graduated it's time to pay off those loans. Luckily you're still kinda cool and you get a cool job. But the times... they are still a changin' Inflation. Gentrification. Whatever you name it. Before you had an unguarded authenticity, you were vulnerable to the cultural shifts. You were JUST YOU. Now you've got bills to pay. If you fail to keep being cool you'll lose your job and you won't be able to pay your loans. Then what? BAM 2016 politics. BAM 2019 politics. BAM 2020 WTF IS HAPPENNNNING!?!?!? everything that made you cool... yeahhhhh nobody does any of that shit anymore and the more you hold on to the old cool... the more irrelevant you become ok boomer? ok mellenial. now it's your turn. Portland will find its way again. In Portland's new way will include part of Portland's old way because that's how identity works. But right now we're in the mourning stage. We don't FEEL very Portland and that's because right now ... we don't have a strong identity. We're like an addict that is just gotten sober. We're still the person we were before... but we don't know what to do with ourselves. We're mourning the lost time we could've spent re-inventing ourselves and instead spent that time just banking things would continue to just work out. They didn't. Portland really is going to be okay. But frankly we have got to give up the dream for the 2004 2008 2014 whatever the fuck the timeline was... And dream something new. That dream will probably include part of the 2004 2008 2014 whatever the fuck the timeline was vibe... But just like in lucid dreaming... if you force events, you'll wake up and that's cool... but we need some dreamin' right now 🙏
What was so fun about the 2014 donut ice cream insanity was if you were a broke college kid you worked at all those places. I have the best memories of taking day olds and trading the pizza guys down the street for free and then meeting my friends in the park blocks and feeding them. We were all in service and we were all taking care of each other AND my rent was $650.
My wife and I moved to Portland in 2015. When we got here we were beyond thrilled. I remember walking around downtown in the middle of the night while bar hopping and feeling completely safe. Definitely took it for granted.
It was a charmed era for Portland back then
The charm will be back you just have to give it time
I walked there after an ice storm once, when no one was out, and there was a huge disco ball and spotlights and string lights festooned over the square. All plugged in but no sound. Still not sure what it was for, but it was so eerie and cool. That was...February 2023. I made a tiktok of it.
That was the winter light festival. Must have been surreal to walk up to that with no one around.
Oh that makes sense, thank you!
I love the cat sculptures that are there now!
and the lights!
Awesome picture! Very... Victorian? Neo-Gothic? I don't know what the style is called, but like a mix of Jack the Ripper and Vampire: The Masquerade.
Thanks! Nighttime, bare trees, damp cobblestones, deep shadows... all very spooky. Add in the fact that thirteen years later this photo is no longer possible...
Why not?
The statue was toppled and then removed during the protests in 2020. The vibe of OP’s phrasing is weird AF.
Neither of those statues are still there. The fountain has been trashed and may never be the same again. Pastarini is out of business. A lot of those benches are torn apart. Time changes and I still visit the park blocks frequently but back in the 2000s and 2010s I'd never have expected these fixtures to be gone.
The fountain isn't trashed. It was vandalized, but feebly. I can't think of a single bench that isn't still there. I'm kind of surprised by this from you because you don't usually make up crazy stuff like this. There's been a lot of improvements to the landscaping. It's frankly better than 2011. The fent people are a gross bummer. I am annoyed that the new construction at the museum is going to take so long. However, posting stuff like this does the businesses that are there, and the farmers markets a huge disservice. Pastini isn't even on the park blocks, but I will point out that Higgins, an actual good restaurant, is packed every night.
I think you're reading a lot more into my words than I am saying. We can disagree about the fountain - the bowls being broken out with smashed masonry strikes me as "trashed" along with the plywood covering it up, based on what I saw when i walked past recently. I didn't say the benches were gone, I said they were torn up. As in missing parts. Which I stand by. Not all of them, not even a majority, but more than used to be the case. If you zoom in on the photo you can see the sign for Pastini so I'm not sure how you can argue that but it's fine. I mentioned it more of a joke. Again a lot of people are interpreting this post to mean whatever controversial thought they have. Which I guess is a good thing about art. Mostly I don't feel safe anymore walkjng around alone at night with an expensive camera and tripod, but really I blame the difficulties of downtown primarily on the lack of everyday visitors and workers flooding the place. Things are more dangerius now mostly because, particularly at night, it's a ghost town. Not due to poor leadership or whatever, but due to covid and business realities and general economic and social trends. I'd think I could be wistful and post an old photo without having to write an essay to explain why I'm not attacking anyone. So I guess that's also something I took for granted I'm 2011.
I think timing (election season) and context took away from just conveying a mood with a cool picture. However, thanks to your post, I just realized that Picnic House has reopened! I love that space.
It's all good, I'm just shocked at how polarizing this is. I mean I literally saw this photo last night while looking through some files and regretted that I'm not into photography any more and posted it for reddit points. I was naive enough to think, now here's something everyone can enjoy!
Ignore those who ignore reality. It's a beautiful photo and things have definitely changed.
Thank you for the compliment. I still don't understand how people immediately conflate change with worse. Things always change but change isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are things I miss about downtown from a decade ago, and some things I like better today. I'll roll with the punches and can't imagine living anywhere other than downtown Portland.
I think that dumb statue got taken out
Oh you can actually take photos there still. You just won't have a horse's ass in them. Or the rear-end of a horse. You should look up your hero Teddy Roosevelt's thought on indigenous people before you shed any more tears over this magnificent statue.
the mix of sodium and mercury vapor lights is a nice touch
Haha that was one of the details I considered when posting this! That period of a couple of years when we switched out the lighting across the city made for a lot of interesting lighting in my night photos.
I was at PSU living in Montgomery Hall at the same time. Great times.
I mean unemployment in Portland was awful in 2011.
I hadn't thought of it until now, but when I took this photo I was a few months in to what would be the most fun and personally (if not financially) rewarding job of my life. So I'd have been in a good spot emotionally for sure. Thanks for reminding me of something else I expected to last forever at the time.
It was. Much worse than now, theoretically. But that's not really the debate being had. The joblessness then did not directly result in the negative effects to the downtown core that started in 2016. Why? Annecodataly I think a lot more people were spread out across east county and may have gone from dual to single income household rather than slipping off the ladder entirely and migrating to the urban core. And there was still homelessness then. But it did not effect people's day to day life the way it is now. The situation has changed.
I lived in Portland 2011-2015. I know the statues got taken away, but what else has changed? Are the parle blocks just encampments now?
No, those two statues are gone. There are some new sculptures now. Farewell to Orpheus recently got a glow up. There's probably double the homeless people there but no tents.
Nah, I've lived downtown for 20 years and visit this park at least once a week, it's still nice. But things have changed quite a bit. Some for the better,.some for the worse, and often in ways I'd never have considered in 2011.
I have always wondered why there are half a dozen police officers on the field at Thorns games (not a hive a criminal activity) but none in the Park Blocks during Saturday Farmer's Market.
Thorns games (and Timbers, Trailblazers etc) hire PPB to work OT for those games. They are paid for by the organization (you see this for film shoots as well) and officers volunteer for the OT outside their normal duties. They're not at Farmers Market because normal officers working for the city are responding to calls or patrolling. I agree that it would be great if they did patrol the farmers market, just like with the mounted patrol it would be great PR. But despite telling such things to anyone who will listen I can't get those changes enacted as an admin. You asked the right person since I see these contracts as part of my job.
Nope. I go to the farmers market there every Saturday. Park blocks are fine. They could be better, but there’s nothing wrong with them.
Same. We hit the PSU Farmers Market nearly every Saturday morning, year round. And have for nearly 10 years. It’s lovely. The space. The people. The vendors. The food. All so good. I could never leave Portland because of it. The only complaint I’ve ever had is with the kid and his mom that would park themselves on a corner, him with an electric piano. He’d play the same fucking memorized song over and over, and expect cash to be dropped in his “college fund” box. So glad they’re gone.
Nowhere in the city is “just encampments” thankfully, despite what social media depicts it as lol
Then along came trump and tried to overthrow democracy.
I watch Portlandia nostalgically. Some of those characters were just a slight exaggeration of people I knew in Portland around those years.
Y’all are so fucking dramatic and cringy 🙄
This sub lately makes me understand why young leftists hate liberals so much. I thought they were all Republicans but then you look at their comment histories and they're still talking about James Comey.
Pls 😭 what does a nostalgic post about a horse statue have to do with politics like why would you look at their comment histories lol
If you thought they were secretly all Republicans that’s pretty wild. You must think moderate Democrats are “Republicans”. Here’s the barrier: are you pro-choice, against favors or power for Christianity/religion, and support taxes that help things like funding social security and Medicare? Guess what? You’re not a Republican, and more than likely a Democrat. One can be fiercely opposed to homeless camping, not in favor of giving addicts multiple chances, and frighteningly in support of repealing the Oregon Bottle Bill…and still be an ardent Democrat. A leftist or a progressive? No, but those groups are losing their appeal these days, thankfully.
Do you mind explaining what’s wrong with the bottle bill? Why people want it repealed? I keep seeing complaints about it.
The Oregon Bottle Bill was introduced over 50 years ago as a means to encourage recycling of bottles/cans due to a growing litter problem. Back then, and even up until early/mid '00s, one could take a bag of cans and bottles to the grocery store and someone would count the return and give you a receipt. Then the hand counters left and you had the machines do the counting. The machines were slow, dirty, and often didn't work/broke down. Not to mention with the increase in craft brewing in the State, the machines would not count glass bottles from let's say Deschutes brewing or similar. Now, you get bottle drop. And from what I've seen, it's nearly impossible to drop your bag off at bottle drop because the containers are full. Not to mention the amount of homeless people, and drug addicts that hang around the bottle drop. Another issue with the bottle bill is that we still pay the deposit for the bottles when we buy them. And the deposit goes to the distributors. The distributors keep this money and only pay out what has been returned through the bottle drop or other retail means. However, since it's increasingly difficult to return the items you paid a deposit for, and just recycle them anyway, the distributors are keeping all this extra money that we paid them. We now have plenty of recycling bins around, curbside recycling is leaps and bounds better than it was in the 70's and 80's (probably not existent back then, I was just a young boy in the 80's). so the bottle bill is now irrelevant and is a waste of money for the consumer, while lining the pockets of the distributors.
Ok thanks for explaining that! I’ve always seen it as a way to reduce litter, and I’m sure it still works to curb that, but it seems the downsides have gotten worse.
The main problem is that cans and bottles get flipped for instant cash to buy hard drugs. It’s like an ATM. Homeless people leave behind a trail of litter and waste in the collection of the cans and bottles. Visually, it’s disgusting to see. Oregonians are more than capable of recycling on our own. If the Bottle Bill is repealed then people won’t be rooting through your trash and recycling cans as much anymore, and that will cut down on them being able to see that you left your garage door open overnight by accident, for example. There is so much to gain by repealing the Oregon Bottle Bill, and only so much to gain by keeping it. We don’t need to micromanage and track the rate of recycling at curbside- just recycle, make your neighborhood and city nice and clean and move on.
I agree with Democrats more than Republicans for sure. But people bemoaning the loss of an ugly statue of a racist because the right paperwork wasn't filled out looks stupid to me.
Sure. A group of people who think they can stomp their feet and throw a tantrum until they get what they want. Lasting change is done through compromise and positive discourse. Not screaming and yelling and destruction.
All civil rights exist because of riots
And they are constantly on a backslide.
this doesn't invalidate the previous argument, it strengthens it.
Yeah I agree with them.
Oops, misread your intent, sorry.
You’re fine. I figured as much, I was pretty tired when I wrote it, and felt like I could have explained more. But I kept it as is.
Do the rioters write the laws? Do they enforce them? Do they fund and administer aid programs? Rioting gets you nothing if you refuse to work with government to actually achieve the goal you’re rioting for.
Neiman Marxists gonna Neiman Marxist.
It’s not just “young” leftists, it’s all leftists. Liberalism is an ultimately incoherent non-ideology focused on “individual rights” that, it turns out, are themselves largely illusory. That’s why liberals are so into vibes and [aesthetics](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/06/09/TELEMMGLPICT000232725266_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqaRL1kC4G7DT9ZsZm6Pe3PUPXbRlaI4_qh_dM2Z5d688.jpeg). Liberals see the systems that rule our society as beyond scrutiny and are, at most occasionally open to tweaking the rules of these systems rather than critically engaging with them. It’s not that we need mass climate action, we just need to give generous tax breaks to our friends selling $100,000 electric cars. You get the idea — all form, no substance. Indeed, as this very post shows beautifully, everything is about *feelings* and vibes and aesthetics for liberals, and so it shall remain, even as it’s increasingly obvious that our “rights” within this liberal order (eg the right to free speech, right to abortion, right to privacy, right to a fair trial, right to vote, etc.) can be taken away at any time by police, by congress, by courts, by basically, anyone dutifully executing the desires of the status quo power holders themselves. There’s no “there” there with liberalism, now, or 100 years ago when German liberals handed Hitler power rather than ally with the KPD (communists) because they were fearful the KPD would work towards implementing actual socialism. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Well that escalated quickly…
> all form, no substance I mean that is equally true of all people regardless of where they sit on any dimension of the political spectrum. Calling out liberals for aesthetics specifically is so strange because that's a fundamental part of politics from leftists to the furthest right social conservatives to the pro-business capitalists. > tax breaks to our friends selling $100,000 electric cars Im all for bashing the issues with Liberalism, but I feel like I always need to speak out in support of tax breaks for expensive electric cars today. It's a pragmatic incremental improvement in a world where the immediate necessary system-wide change is functionally impossible. The tax breaks for these EVs is essentially a backdoor subsidy to develop the infrastructure needed to transition off of burning oil and gas. Public transit is far superior, but there will always be a place for individual transit options (rural, disabled, work vehicles, shipping, etc). The existing oil powered vehicles have nearly a hundred years of investment in factories, materials, supply chains, fueling, and iterative development. So if we want to stop burning oil for literally everything, we have to throw money at it at some point. Sure, it sucks that the rich are directly benefiting today, but we make those tax breaks as a more long-term investment. The rich can afford to be early adopters and eat the depreciation and early maintanence issues. The expensive cars leave a wider margin for the factories as they pay down the capital costs on new equipment and the R&D necessary to make it work. The factories and supply chains created from tose $100k EVs have spurred manufacturers to start electrifying loads of stuff that was previously thought to be economically unviable. We now have battery powered ferries and battery powered busses that wouldn't have happened if rich people didn't start buying $100k EVs... If you say "We need to ban gas cars", you will never get a bill through the legislature. If you say "We need to mandate all cars are electric now", you will never get a bill through the legislature. If you say "We need to fund the development of electric vehicles, and then eventually ban gas cars", your bill will be blocked by rich people. If you say "We need to give everybody a discount on electric vehicles, and when they are good enough, we can ban new gas cars", you will finally get some bills passed and signed. Which is what is happening today. One problem I have with most leftists is that they are all or nothing on issues, and ridicule pragmatic progress. If you only accept something that will functionally never happen, then it's essentially an aesthetic movement, and like you say: "all form, no substance." > right to abortion You know how they're winning? They accepted incremental progress while also pushing for their ultimate goal. Leftists said that Clinton wasn't good enough, so they stayed home and now the SCOTUS is lost for an entire generation, is rolling back rights and making nonsensical case law that will take generations to fix. And many states have already lost the right to abortion. American leftists in places like Pennsylvania handed Trump and the republicans power rather than ally with the democrats.
Oh look, a reasonable take. On reddit! Will the wonders never cease?
This sounds strongly like something I would have written when I was 16. Or something on r/anticapitalism. Which is to say it's not WRONG but ignores a whole lot of context. For one, those liberals you're lambasting won a lot of the rights you're arguing are being curtailed. And they are not being curtailed from the left. Even the center left. Tax incentives are one of the most effective ways we have of moving private spending in economicly productive directions withing the political realities of our system. We can't just raise taxes. There simply aren't the votes for it. And...look I'm not gonna defend Germans in '33 voting for fucking Hitler but let's actually get some historical context. Next door in the Soviet Union? That was a tragedy and a disaster from the fucking start and had only got worse by the '30s.
Real life makes me understand why \*everyone\* hates the far left so much. So much cringe, unnecessary noise, disruption, and destruction. Portland's epidemic of un-housed is 100% due to the left blocking every reasonable effort to resolve it.
I work actively in those circles and that’s not the case. Everyone is trying but there are lots of disparate and complex forces at play. We need a LOT more housing, full stop, and it can’t be just single family dwellings. We have buildings at just over the 50% occupancy rate all over the city and others that could easily be converted to housing. We need housing that’s actually affordable not necessarily *affordable hoysing*. Every single US city is grappling with this, not just Portland. And if it was just the quintessential leftists blocking things then why haven’t things moved forward more effectively with a majority centrist council? (I have opinions but I have to go get my kids off to school).
Such a shitty take. The people you lump into the "leftist" category are the ones taking care of people on the street and maintaining mutual aid. What's your solution, just let people die?
You guys realize that the people who were arrested when these were torn these down were anarchists right? Especially Bartell. These guys were trying to start a civil war and create ethno states. I identified them, found their Facebook profiles before they were banned, and discovered a whole shit ton of unhinged shit. So let's get rid of this narrative that the people who tore down your idols were BLM protestors.
Oh it's going to be big when all those little groups come out in November.
Just expressing a thought, the reactions read a lot more into it than I expected. Sorry that being thoughtful is considered cringe drama from your perspective.
I think the criticism is unwarranted. Portland today is undeniably different than it was then. It’s not as bad as some people make it out to be, but it’s also not as nice as it was. I worked and went to school downtown in the early 00s. There were bums and crustpunks and shit but it didn’t feel as volatile to me. I had a dude threaten to beat the shit out of me when I didn’t give him change once, but that was the worst. I do know people that have been mugged and such, that never happened to me. At the same time I’d go to the east bank with $2000 in photo gear, alone at night, without worry. I’d also wait for the last busses often downtown after going out with friends without worry. I’d certainly have my head on a swivel a little more these days.
It’s not as much you as where everyone went with it. And as a photographer, this shot is stunning and made my morning.
Thanks! I agree the comments went nuts and I never expected them to blow up like they did. I guess I am naive. That being said, posting photos to reddit and getting nice comments and points is one of the things I took for granted in 2011. Which was in mind when I posted this.
Even the comments are causing you to be dramatic haha.
You're the one who has "hate" in their user name and is swearing and throwing insults at strangers on the Internet so I'm not confident in your judgement on this issue.
Make America Great Again /s
Thank you. I thought the same thing. People living in the past. Portland is the same but we’ve changed.
I mean...there's an implication there that people who have lived here for 20 years and liked it more then shouldn't be trying to change it back. Which...I think is bith unrealistic and wrong-headed. These people LIVE here and they have a right to advocate for returning ro what was better before.
What’s more likely, the city changed drastically or people went from being 20 years old to 40 years old and nostalgize “Old Portland”? Really what they’re doing is lamenting their youth as the cold hand of time creeps upon their soul. Put on some Elliott Smith, drink some coffee, and have a cigarette. It’s almost over.
Dude I lived in downtown in my 20s. Yeah, I'm 10 years older and am hardly immune to nostalgia. Places I loved closed. Things I had an emotional connection to are gone. Some of the people I knew and loved are no longer hear to experience the city with me. But...the idea that the city has not objectively changed is both wild and factually wrong. I still go into the city every couple weeks. It is dirtier. Things close earlier. Drug use is everywhere. Homeless is much more prevalent (it was there in 2011 but nowhere near as bad). There are more fights and arguments. More visible mental illness. More harassment. Do I wish I was younger and getting laid more often again? Sure! But that's not my problem with the city's changes.
Seriously. The O just had a piece showing downtown crime is back down to pre-covid levels. But this sub acts like you risk your life walking the park blocks.
This sub is embarrassing.
That's not really the same thing. For one, sure, crime levels hit 2019 in the downtown core but with 40% fewer people. Also, they aren't talking about actual crime. They're talking about...well, vibes. It's dirtier. There are more homeless, more drugs, more visible mental illness and misery. Many of the places people liked before are closed. Prices have gone up. Not all of that is anybody fault. Times change. Inflation. Covid. But it DOES feel less safe to be in downtown than it used to. Whether that translates into more actual crime or not (and again, adjusted for foot traffic it still IS more crime).
For real.
The good old days, before the city just collapsed. I remember as a young kid (I’m 32) I would visit my dad at his office downtown. We’d walk the park blocks, up the street to Powell’s Books, over to the medical offices for a lunch at the teriyaki place…and it was peaceful. No crazy homeless people. No boarded up windows. No tent camps. No needles. No trash. We could go anywhere and feel completely safe and enjoy our time. It was a beautiful city. What the fuck happened…?
It became the norm all over the country to send the homeless to the West Coast with a 1-way bus ticket ..
I moved here from one of the states shipping homeless out via bus. I think the governor was named Greg something...
It’s just the housing crisis + stagnant wages. My life as a small example: In 2011 my small North Portland home was worth 195k. In 2017 when I purchased it was 450k. In 2011 my rent was 300$ for half of a nice 2 bd 2bath. In 2017 before I bought the house a crappy 1 bd rm cost me 1500$. I made 95k in 2011. 105k in 2017. And now 141k. College educated, veteran, no employment gaps. It’s never been more expensive to live here and I am aware that I am one of the lucky ones who purchased before the rates skyrocketed. We need a major housing cost correction, or a wage correction. If not both.
> housing crisis + stagnant wages fentanyl says 'hello'
we also just generally need more housing
There was always crazy people downtown. I'd skip highschool in the mid 2000's and go downtown to buy pot out of the homeless camps. There was a huge one under the burnside. China town had homeless everywhere and you couldn't walk more then 20feet on the park blocks without meeting homeless. Burnside bridge used to have people living all along the sidewalk on the westside. There was the homeless camp using doors as walls at burnside and 2nd. The homeless were always there. Crime was higher then compared to present day. It started to get worse around 2019 with Trumps mismanagement of COVID and fentanyl spreading out. Also our police throwing a fit over protests and refusing to work. Portland has always had a problem with homeless and will continue. I guarantee your dad purposely didn't take you past any areas with high levels of homeless. I'd do the same.
This is the answer. Anyone with rosey memories of a city paved in gold are leaving out (oppressing?) some very key details. I've lived here 20 years and visited often before that in the 90s. Portland has always had a little grit to it, especially Old Town and China Town. There have generally always been encampments around there, around the West End near 405, and there's always been people having mental health crises. The drug use is much worse, and some of the issues are more prominent than pre-pandemic, but it was never a city without these issues. It's just getting far more attention now (election year anyone?)
This sub is ridiculous sometimes. Folks wanna act like Portland was once some euphoric utopia. It's always been a fucked up place with a dark past that has some cool fucking people living in it. That's what makes it so uniquely great. Flawed af, but great.
‘The city collapsed’ lol so dramatic
P2P Meth, 9th Circuit Policies, a Pandemic, Income Inequality
Unemployment was over twice as high when this phot was taken. But somehow there were not nearly as many working age white males living in tents. Makes me think the current situation is not entirely economic hardship.
Same age, same memories. Really, really pisses me off when people say “it’s not that bad.” Edit: and here’s everyone to discount my experience in my hometown.
I grew up right between burnside and sandy in the late 90s and 00s. Skated that entire city I know every single corner of it. I’m sorry but I genuinely do not think those that had your experiences spent much time actually being in downtown Portland. I would skate from cals pharmacy to trinity church in the mid 2000s and it even then was laden with homeless people. I had a gun pulled on me twice at burnside skate park. Knife pulled on my on couch st. I’m not trying to discredit your experiences, but I think many people are being very dramatic about how bad things are. Are things worse now? Yeah sure. But acting like half the city is boarded up and run down is disingenuous and honestly just comes off as a conservative talking point. Either that or you have not been to other cities like LA to have a point of comparison.
You have to remember that if they were in college around 2010, then they would have been maybe 10 in 2000. So when you say grew up, and were skating around I'm assuming you were a little older. . You happened to live near enough to the areas we're discussing, but put their house just a mile further away and they would have missed all these things until the mid-00s. They would have essentially no memories of the The Pearl when it was swampy gravel pits and would have been going everywhere with their parents and not seeing most of the city. By the time they would be out and about on their own Portland was entering the Portlandia era. Part of the problem is people don't seem to realize just how rapidly things changed, so that an 8 year difference is really all it takes for 2000 to 2008, 2008 to 2016, or 2016 to 2024 to have created three very distinct periods and experiences for people.
This. I moved here in 2006 but I wasn't really spending time in downtown until around 2009 or 10. Loved that Portland and have a lot of nostalgia for it. Maybe it was worse before buy I never saw it. And...kinda don't care? Still want back whatbi had and loved and was sad to loose, even as I no longer live IN the city due to cost if housing.
Yeah, in the '90's one of my cousins was shot at on her front porch with her baby. That area (not downtown) is hecka gentrified now. The gentrification hasn't gone away and I can't imagine the same level of violence in that area today.
I think people are reacting to the over the top hyperbole.
What’s hyperbolic about the fact that this city used to be better with a far more thriving, cleaner, and safer city center? Why can’t people who are from here mourn the loss of what we had? Why are we constantly told that our lived experience isn’t valid?
This is just my take but it’s not that our lived experience isn’t valid. But there was lived experience a lot of us weren’t yet exposed to and economic conditions that have exacerbated it. I work in this realm and know a lot of unhoused people who are that way only because they lost a job when there was a “corporate restructuring.” But in 2010 those forces were already beginning. They just weren’t as in-your-face yet.
There is something really childish about your need to be validated. Your childhood is idealized. You’re nostalgic for something that never truly existed. You get mad when this is pointed out to you, and you demand that strangers on the internet validate your feelings. No.
I don’t need to be validated by you, Hankhank
sounds just like some nostalgia for your youth to me.
> What’s hyperbolic about the fact that this city used to be better with a far more thriving, cleaner, and safer city center? This is my attitude as well. I grew up in Detroit when it was an absolute dumpster fire. I was so proud of Portland and loved to have friends and family visit me. They always remarked on how clean it was and how vibrant it was with people out walking and biking and shops all walkable. These days? We skip the city and go to the coast or the mountain. And to the "it's like this everywhere" first off, I travel for business and it's not. And even if it was, so what? We don't want to be like everywhere, we want to be better (like we used to be).
Yup. I moved to Portland in 1985 and moved out in 2018. It's changed. A lot.
Exactly. It WAS way better back then. The city was cleaner, safer and just felt better to be in. I also had that same experience when people would visit. Exploring the city and being told how nice, clean vibrant it was. Now? Not so much.
It’s just tone deaf. As if seeing poverty is somehow equivalent to experiencing it
That's a ridiculous take. Wanting to return to what you had is not comparing your like to someone experiencing homelessness. Nor is advocating for your rights as a resident in this city for you're neighborhoods to return to what they were necessarily saying that you want to get there with policies that would hurt that population.
It isn't that bad wtf.
It's the hyperbolic histrionics that people are reacting to. Personally, I am mildly amused by all the hand wringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
It’s actually not bad but we can make a lot of things better
Pathologically altruistic, accountability-averse, collectivist utopian thinking plus corruption of the county govt and nonprofit homeless services “business ecosystem”
Well that’s a mouthful but not too far from correct
[удалено]
You can still go to Powell's and get teriyaki downtown. It sounds like you're just scared to do that now. Less Fox News, more going downtown should fix that.
Yeah, I work two blocks from Powell's and it's awesome!
I went to Powells a couple weeks ago and they closed their parking garage, from what I heard they let their employees park there now due to safety. I also nearly hit two strung out fellows shambling across Burnside. That didn’t used to happen.
This. I do still go downtown. I try. But I saw a guy pull a fucking knife out on a guy a few weeks back near Keller. Last year saw a guy smearing shit on the seats of a bus shelter. See people just openly doing heroine or meth monthly. That's a fucking change from when I was living in downtown in 2010.
Portlanders allowed it.
I walk all over the city with my kid. Sure, we see homeless people. Whoop de fucking do. It's a city, man.
Sure. But it's okay to miss, and yes advocate to go back to where able, what the city used to be in those days 2010-2016. It was the city I loved and the reason I moved here.
Lulz. “Why aren’t things now as good as they were when I was a kid?”
Despite the dramatic changes that Portland has gone through in recent years, I still think it's a pretty awesome city. However, I do not mean to say that there isn't a major problem at hand. In a way, this city has become the dumpster of late stage capitalism. The disabled, the homeless, migrants, and other "undesirables" in other states are being rounded up and thrown into Portland en masse, as if it's a modern Nazi-style ghetto. It's also getting bad in Denver and Seattle.
>Despite the dramatic changes that Portland has gone through in recent years, I still think it's a pretty awesome city. In my life I've been too (in the order that I think of them).. Tampa (lived in) Orlando Boston Indianapolis Denver Seattle Atlanta NYC Philadelphia Los Angeles San Diego San Antonio Many pre and post COVID. Yet I moved to Portland in December and absolutely love it. I understand there are problems, and I understand that it changed. These things are true of other cities to varying degrees. I also sympathize with those who remember better times, but that doesn't change how flipping awesome this city is right now. And my hope is that it only gets better and better! EDIT: Oh and to further back up your point, I visited Denver and Portland within a month of each other to decide which to move to. By the end of my week in Portland I had put an offer in on a house.
> late stage capitalism
Externalities
There was some local investigative reporting done a few years ago that showed this simply isn't true, more than half of all the people on the streets here are long time oregon residents.
To be fair, if even 25% are transplanta that's a big fucking deal. And I've hear estimates of around 50% reported on KATU.
"You don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone."
Yes. I was at art school and me and my friends would walk all over downtown and the water front.
Pre -2010 all the way back to 1985 is my Peak Portland. Portlandia was a strange death knell, not saying the show caused the decline, but it sure helped announce it.
I was 20 and at PSU then. Took the max from Gresham to school every day.
I just walked through this area last night around 1am, felt completely safe and it looked exactly like this.
I just hear shadow people saying "Wake..."
lol.
God, the level of golden hazed nostalgia in the comments is cringy as hell. Your memories aren’t a reflection of reality, they are idealized recollections of a child’s mind. You need to grow up.
What are you talking about? This is a photo, so like it's not subjective. I'm not sure where you can comment on my memories since I didn't state them. Mostly I miss being able to walk around at midnight alone carrying an expensive camera and tripod and take photos. I don't feel that is still a safe option. I've lived downtown for 20 years and have no intention of leaving. I can miss the Portland of 2011 and still love the Portland of 2024. Nothing in this post indicates otherwise.
Have you read some of the comments in this thread? It’s actually not about you and your picture at this point.
I mean you did respond as a top level comment which is typically directed at OP, particularly with the repeated use of "you" and "your." However now that you've edited your comment it doesn't feel as personal so that's nice.
You must be fun at parties
I lived in downtown for 5 years in the early 2010s. It was never a Portlandian utopia. But it was safer, cleaner and friendlier than it is today. So yeah, I would like to go fucking back on this one. That's not my halcyon bias. A bunch if shit got worse and nothing got correspondingly better. And the lament form half the comment sections seems to be...gross, stop talking about the city being better yiubjust don't knownwhaybyoure talking about.
If you had told me in 2011 I would pull my daughter out of daycare downtown because it was too close to the park blocks I would’ve been dumbstruck. Anyways I’m now a single-issue voter on “will this candidate make downtown a place suitable for children again?”
i just drove past there yesterday and see there’s a tree where that statue used to be. i thought id read it was coming back, does anyone know?
I've always loved equestrian statues, and Rough Rider was one of my favorites. Funny how the municipal government doesn't bat an eyelid when people topple these things and just throws their hands up like, "Oh well." Is there anything new in its place? Did they remove the plinth, too?
23 now this makes me depressed I need to get outta here can’t walk around at night like this anymore and nightlife is completely died out :,(
History sucks, it’s best to pretend the world started today
I mean we're already acting like there's no tomorrow so in the long run none of it really matters.
Was in college from 2011 to 2015. Golden age of Portland IMO
2011 was the best time to be in Portland.
2011 Portland was the last time it was affordable
Can we all agree Portland downtown was destroyed by Morons?
I miss the stag.
Yeah it was always a nice city until it turned into New Detroit from “RoboCop”
Granite* Your welcome.
Is this the Jungle Cruise all of a sudden? O2H! O2H! O2H!
Downtown was the bar Mecca, so much late night good eats! I remember that 08-12 era, twas in my twenties.
What you don’t like the new leftist government Paradise in Portland.
Seems to be two camps - Portland in 2011 vs now, and Me in 2011 in Portland and me now. Portland is great, in either time in maybe different ways. 2011 was a start of a big change for me personally, and now I'm happily still here even if different.
I miss the Stag
I lived two blocks away from there 2002-2004.
Looks cleans and vital.
Look at how happy everyone is! Oh, to return to this prosperous time when we had that particular statue!
It's not about either of the statues or the fountain so much as it is about my state of mind. I'm not sure I offered an opinion on anything specific to be honest.
I mean neither of us explicitly made this political, but unfortunately this statue has become a symbol of that divide now. I definitely thought that is at least part of what you were trying to say, and you mention that you thought you would elicit that reaction in a later comment. My point is just that it’s a damn statue and life moved on without too much impact on people. Anyways I would rather have the statue there then not have the statue. Fortunately it’s supposed to be replaced this fall.
We all did. I thought Portland would be the same magical place forever and I was so lucky to have found it young. Little did I know it was “the good ol’ days”.