Yes, it really is that bad, and I say that as someone who lived in Portland for 37 of my 39 years.
Like a few others have said, in the 90s and up to about the mid 2000s Portland was really damn nice. Cost of living was at an acceptable level, violent crime was extremely low, the city always leaned left but it was very much a “live and let live” vibe.
Once all the trust fund babies and California faggots started moving here en masse, that’s when things started to take a nosedive. That one bedroom starter apartment in the Pearl district you could rent for about $800 a month was now renting for close to $2000 a month (the absolute cheapest place you can rent now in Portland is some shitty little studio in skid row Old Town for about $1400 a month)
They also brought all their batshit politics with them so that “agree to disagree live and let live” vibe turned into “if you’re not a hardcore leftist and agree with exactly what we dictate, we would gleefully murder you, your family and your pets if we could get away with it!”
Once measure 110 passed and drugs were essentially decriminalized, we got a massive wave of batshit crazy homeless flooding in, harassing and threatening people, creating blocks of waste filled camps, shooting and smoking dope on public transit and tying up all emergency lines because their worthless asses need to be revived constantly.
Nobody here sees an issue with it. The few that do voice concerns or frustration get treated like the woman in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, absolutely demonized and stones hurled at them, metaphorically and sometimes literally. It’s sad, extremely sad to see what Portland has become and how many here seem to prefer it’s current state.
