Listening to Portland's death rattle


If you follow this blog, you have watched me struggle mightily to try to describe the collapse of the City of Portland. Observing it on a daily basis, it's hard to sum things up. Here's a piece that does what I haven't been able to do.

The truth is, I rarely see any evidence of even basic law enforcement here in Portland. The police are extremely slow to respond to emergency calls. The citizens and businesses have, over the last year, been left to fend for themselves against criminals thinly cloaked in progressive slogans. And given the way the Mayor and City Council have undercut the police and allowed them to be demonised by the anarchists, it is easy to understand their reluctance — they are doing a difficult job, under a microscope, where only their mistakes count.

And this is the great tragedy of Portland. As people flee New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles, Portland has everything it needs to pick up the slack and be the next booming metropolis — everything, that is, except the political will to resist following those once great cities into a self-inflicted, depressive spiral.

Read the whole thing. It's definitive.

Comments

  1. What I can't understand is this. Why haven't our elected officials realized that they've done such a poor job and fallen on their swords?

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    Replies
    1. Our elected officials suffer from the Dunning-Krueger syndrome where they do not understand how incompetent (or stupid) they are, therefore imagine they are doing a good job. Only the electorate can remove them upon re-election time and elect someone better. The real issue is the overall lack of interest in civic duty by the best people equipped to solve the city's problems.

      Smart people want no part of the aggravation (and potential harassment) so we are only offered a Hobson's Choice on the ballot.

      Delete
  2. Great, insightful article. ...aaaand just hours after this is posted they are breaking the windows of the Boys and Girls club on MLK.

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  3. Should have held on to that new Jail. Isn't that the way the story goes you give something away just before you really need it.

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  4. It's also a nice touch that the ladies don't forget to do their make up before they put on their hood to go burn down the hood.

    ReplyDelete

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