Portland REI closing (Oakland, Detroit: crime, hotel, home)

[MechAndy]

And another one doesn’t want to be in Portland anymore.
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/indu...ntown-portland

[rrampage]

Not surprising. They sell overpriced merchandise that doesn't have superior quality to their cheaper competitors.

[bobisinthehouse]

Portland is going to be Detroit in the next year.

[rrampage]

Nah, I just don't see it. The propaganda on crime these days is astounding.

[rrampage]

So anyway, the real reason they are closing is because they can't sell their overpriced items. They need to learn how to run their businesses better and stop blaming everyone else.

[MechAndy]

It’s really a shame and a disservice to members of these mismanaged communities.
Places like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco are filled with good decent people.
They have a small minority of trouble makers who are enhanced and coddled by terrible city and state leaders.
The bad people have nothing to fear and for some odd reason are in a protected class.
No one should have to tolerate this kind of stuff.

[04kL4nD]

Originally Posted by rrampage

Nah, I just don't see it. The propaganda on crime these days is astounding.

I was just in Portland the other day and quite literally saw a tent on every corner. It wasn't as bad as it was when I was there during peak COVID where I saw tents lined up right next to each other for blocks from the train station to downtown, but it's absolutely awful. It wasn't just the downtown core/old town/China town either-- I saw tents all over in NE and countless people smoking meth/crack/fent basically everywhere, as well as a few people who were shooting up. It was highly unpleasant and I haven't felt that unsafe in a while, and this is coming from someone who left Oakland because of out of control crime and violence. I was visiting a friend who was in town for a work convention and had planned on staying longer to show him more of the city, but after lunch he wanted to go back to his hotel room, so I went back home several hours earlier than I had planned. Yikes.

REI closing is not a good thing and it's not propaganda to acknowledge that homelessness and drug use are totally out of control in Portland. I guess maybe if you live far away up in the hills near the Rose Garden or Forest Park, Portland seems fine, but what do these people do? Never venture outside of their bubbles?

I wish people would stop mentioning Seattle and Portland in the same conversation about homelessness/drugs/crime-- it's not a remotely fair comparison. Ditto for SF and Portland, although SF is certainly worse than Seattle in that regard.

[jertheber]

The truth is there if one wants it, but then again, the truth doesn't always agree with one's bias..No word about this in the MSM, another anti worker bunch of twits. Dig deep for the real reasons so many companies are responding to labor organizing by shutting down stores.

https://www.facebook.com/reigreenvests/

[rrampage]

Originally Posted by jertheber

The truth is there if one wants it, but then again, the truth doesn't always agree with one's bias..No word about this in the MSM, another anti worker bunch of twits. Dig deep for the real reasons so many companies are responding to labor organizing by shutting down stores.

https://www.facebook.com/reigreenvests/

Nah, just another attempt for REI not to take responsibility, the way I see it. Great companies persist with labor organizing.

I'd be surprised if a network like Fox hasn't picked this up in some attempt to propagandize the crime and labor organizing in their own way.

[rrampage]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

I was just in Portland the other day and quite literally saw a tent on every corner. It wasn't as bad as it was when I was there during peak COVID where I saw tents lined up right next to each other for blocks from the train station to downtown, but it's absolutely awful. It wasn't just the downtown core/old town/China town either-- I saw tents all over in NE and countless people smoking meth/crack/fent basically everywhere, as well as a few people who were shooting up. It was highly unpleasant and I haven't felt that unsafe in a while, and this is coming from someone who left Oakland because of out of control crime and violence. I was visiting a friend who was in town for a work convention and had planned on staying longer to show him more of the city, but after lunch he wanted to go back to his hotel room, so I went back home several hours earlier than I had planned. Yikes.

REI closing is not a good thing and it's not propaganda to acknowledge that homelessness and drug use are totally out of control in Portland. I guess maybe if you live far away up in the hills near the Rose Garden or Forest Park, Portland seems fine, but what do these people do? Never venture outside of their bubbles?

I wish people would stop mentioning Seattle and Portland in the same conversation about homelessness/drugs/crime-- it's not a remotely fair comparison. Ditto for SF and Portland, although SF is certainly worse than Seattle in that regard.

Homelessness and tent cities have been a part of life on the West Coast forever. It's become a nasty problem for many cities on the West Coast.

This is the result of being "priced out" of a living situation. It's a sad reality. But who do we blame? Certainly, we shouldn't be blaming the homeless, themselves.