Poll: Portlanders Are Scared To Visit “Trashed” Downtown

In Portland, they have succeeded in “reimagining” policing, which is why their downtown has been trashed and overrun with anarchists, homeless people, drug addicts and criminals.

The Oregonian:

“Residents across the metro area say downtown Portland has become dirty, unsafe and uninviting and many anticipate visiting the city’s core less often after the pandemic than they did before.

Those are the worrisome findings of a new poll of 600 people in the Portland metro area commissioned by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Asked for their perceptions of downtown, respondents frequently used words like “destroyed,” “trashed,” “riots” and “sad.” Many cited homelessness as a particular issue, and said there is an urgent need for the city to find housing and support people living on the street. …

The city has become too expensive to live in, she said, and doesn’t have enough basic amenities like toilets, handwashing stations and trashcans so homeless Portlanders can care for themselves. She said the city has moved far too slowly, for far too long, to address critical needs and she’s not optimistic the crisis will resolve itself anytime soon.

Yet the poll also suggests a fundamental deterioration in residents’ perceptions of downtown, and respondents indicated the city has suffered a black eye that may be difficult to erase:

The top reasons people cited for visiting downtown less often in the past year were worries about their personal safety (67%), homelessness (60%) and protests (60%). COVID-19 was the other major factor (49%).

63% of all respondents perceive downtown as less safe than a year earlier.

A cleaner downtown (70%) was the most common thing people said would make the city center more appealing. Other top responses were less crime (67%), restaurants, bars and theaters reopening (61%) and fewer protests (55%).

Only 20% of all poll respondents — and 32% of those living in Portland — say they consider downtown to be safe at night. Perceptions of safety were strongly correlated with the frequency with which people said they expect to visit downtown after the pandemic. …”

Sounds like a model for the rest of the country!

We’re still waiting to see what comes out of Antifa’s vow to “escalate” against Ted Wheeler. It appears that they are wearing out their welcome in Portland though. Most people are tired of the endless chaos.