Is all of Portland really this depressingly bad? (Green, Adrian: crime, neighborhoods)

[jojo4]

Here are two nice areas to check out.
The area around the rose garden and the zoo - nice expensive homes, usually no homeless because it's hilly.
Also Lake Oswego - nice burb and short drive to town.

As for looking around downtown, you probably want to try the south park and Portland Art Museum area, Riverplace near the marina, Perl district near brewery block, and 23rd between Everette to Northrup. You'll probably still see homeless people though, they must have a knack picking out tourists.

[roneb]

To the OP: Sorry your experience has been so bad to this point. Please look into some of the areas the other posters have mentioned. As someone who is known for being somewhat harsh on Portland, I still find it amazing that you've managed to see all the worst the city has to offer and missed all the good spots! Every city has areas that need avoiding. I remember driving into DC after flying into Baltimore - there's no way you'd convince me to live in the NE part of DC! Fact is the bad areas of Portland are pretty easy to avoid and there are a lot of truly beautiful places to visit.

[fjtee]

Thanks. Your post made me laugh, as Portland is one of the most benign cities I've ever encountered. I've lived in Baltimore, DC, and Chicago - I know scary places. Next time you visit a city, do some research first.

[newpdx]

We stumbled into Old Town/Saturday market when we first moved here, and I was depressed by the whole scene, too.

I'd definitely recommend giving Portland more of a chance, it's a beautiful city with lots of nice places to see. For urban hipness/cool bars, check out the Pearl district. For yuppie shopping and restaurants on pretty tree-lined streets, check out NW 23rd (NW Thurman is nice and lower-key, and if you continue up Thurman from 23rd towards the hills, you dead-end into Forest Park, a 4,200 acre park of huge trees and quiet trails with gorgeous houses all around, just a few minutes from downtown). For a smaller-town family feel, go to Eastmoreland and look at beautiful houses, then go grab lunch and wander around Sellwood right next to Eastmoreland (SE Bybee and SE 13th) and watch tons of families wander their way to the old-timey Oaks Amusement Park or the Sellwood Pool. Or go to Lake Oswego for upscale suburbs, or the SW hills (drive up Burnside towards the hills, turn left on Vista, cross the bridge, then just keep heading uphill through some of Portland's most amazing turn-of-the-century mansions and past that to winding streets and hills packed with beautiful homes. Drive around Irvington to see a beautiful NE neighborhood with big houses (bounded by NE Fremont to the north, NE Broadway to the south, and between, say, 15th and 29th to the east and west). The Rose Garden is full of blooms this time of year, and surrounded by amazing houses, and the Japanese Garden is right across the street and also beautiful. I could go on and on...

And avoid the Saturday market -- the place to go on Saturday morning is the farmer's market at PSU, with tons of organic produce, beautiful flowers, live music, and bunches of happy kids wandering around with berry juice stains on their faces. Quite a different scene from the gritty under-the-bridge feel of the Saturday market you attended....

[mdvaden]

Interesting.

You don't know Portland very well. In other words, you don't know it well enough to filter the bad out of your travel.

I'm aware of what you said and more. For example, if I want to slightly spoil my day, I can take 84 and use 82nd avenue all the way south to 205 if I feel like passing seedy places and a time-worn section of town.

But I live in the suburbs, know most of the clean areas of Portland, and can dabble in the best or the borderline-sane hangouts.

Oregon's best, is not Portland, it's Oregon.

But Portland has a lot of good areas and a lot of good things to do - you just need to know where the good is, and how to bypass a lot of it's "unsightly features".

Besides - why are you in vacation in Portland - LOL.

Get out of the city. We live around here, and I don't drive deeper toward downtown to chill-out. I drove east of Camas on the WA side a few days ago and hiked up Beacon Rock on the edge of the Columbia. It's only a 1/2 hour walk up. Cross back over the Bridge of the Gods to Oregon, and there's a ton of waterfalls on the way back. The ocean cities are just an hour from Beaverton / Hillsboro. There are wineries all over the place. Find a glass blowing place that does demonstations. Paintball is near here. Malibu Grand Prix near Beaverton. The Oregon coast aquarium is fairly decent, although that's a longer drive.

Don't rule-out south WA while you are here. Ever been to Ape Caves? Near Mt. St. Helens. Bring some lanterns and flashlights.

[Adrian71]

Well, the Pearl District wasn't bad. The Japanese Gardens were GORGEOUS. We've seen a few neighborhoods that remind us of some of the hip neighborhoods back home, like Del Ray in Alexandria, or some of the areas around where Northwest and Northeast meet in D.C.

Unfortunately, Portland reminds us a little TOO MUCH of D.C. I wouldn't have expected so much squalor and so many bums in a smaller town. Maybe we were misled by people pumping their city so hard ... I think we were expecting some kind of Green utopia, where things were nice and clean, and people were friendly. Instead, we got something that, for the most part, looks and feels like downtown Detroit. This is a pretty desperate, dirty city, with scads of bums and mentally ill people who really make their city uninviting for those visiting. We made the mistake yesterday of wishing a man good morning, only to have him start screaming and ripping off his shirt. Lovely.

I just picked up a paper this morning and read about a 15-year-old girl who led a pack of teens to beat a woman on the train in Portland ... and this was after a 71-year-old man got bludgeoned by a baseball bat. I can get all of that back in D.C.

The GOOD news is, we checked out east Vancouver and Camas, and they were beautiful. If we do move out here, those will be the areas we move to. Right now, we live in Alexandria and head to D.C. on special occasions only. I imagine it would be much the same for us out here ... spending most of our time on the Washington side of the river, and coming to Portland maybe to shop, to avoid sales taxes. But that would be about it.

Thanks again to everyone for their input. Off this morning to check out Powell's ...

[mdvaden]

A "green utopia" in a big city?

LOL.

[oldtintype]

Originally Posted by YoAdrian

.

Unfortunately, Portland reminds us a little TOO MUCH of D.C. I wouldn't have expected so much squalor and so many bums in a smaller town. Maybe we were misled by people pumping their city so hard ... I think we were expecting some kind of Green utopia, where things were nice and clean, and people were friendly. Instead, we got something that, for the most part, looks and feels like downtown Detroit. This is a pretty desperate, dirty city, with scads of bums and mentally ill people who really make their city uninviting for those visiting. We made the mistake yesterday of wishing a man good morning, only to have him start screaming and ripping off his shirt. Lovely.

I think you've simply visited the wrong areas and obviously have a really negative attitude based on those observations. Most of Portland IS clean and friendly, not "desperate and dirty." But obviously you've made up your mind based on visiting areas of Portland that I can't fathom why you went to see anyway. I mean who goes to the trailer parks in the boondocks? It's a shame you didn't start out with a proper tour instead of visiting the worst the city has to offer and then declaring that to be the entire city, because it's not. I laugh thinking of Sellwood, Laurelhurst and some of the other 50 areas you obviously didn't visit.

I've been to DC and Portland is nothing like that. I also find it interesting that you visited the small section of Portland comprised of African Americans and have declared the city to be full of tar shacks like Mississippi. Uhh...kind of off base on about 700 levels.

I again, can't believe you managed to miss the other 90%+ of Portland that is not full of "mentally ill bums and desperate people." But each to his own.
As for the man ripping off his shirt, again, how do you manage to meet those people? I just got back from walking my dog and said Hi to about 10 people and got a pleasant good morning in return. I think your observations are so off base it's actually sad. It's too bad you didn't plan your trip better.

[scone]

Yes, the Max crimes did happen, and it shocked everyone. And I can readily believe the guy with the shirt. I've had some weird incidents like that, right out of the blue. I think there are a lot of Portlanders who just can't deal with the reality-- there are some social problems here that desperately need to be addressed. That doesn't make Portland a bad city, but the problems are only going to get worse if people don't wake up and start dealing with it. But as you see, denial is easier than facing such tough issues. And very few people are willing to raise taxes to provide more social services to help the homeless and mentally ill. Pretending it doesn't exist is so much easier and cheaper.

[blackrabbit]

Originally Posted by scone

Yes, the Max crimes did happen, and it shocked everyone. And I can readily believe the guy with the shirt. I've had some weird incidents like that, right out of the blue. I think there are a lot of Portlanders who just can't deal with the reality-- there are some social problems here that desperately need to be addressed. That doesn't make Portland a bad city, but the problems are only going to get worse if people don't wake up and start dealing with it. But as you see, denial is easier than facing such tough issues. And very few people are willing to raise taxes to provide more social services to help the homeless and mentally ill. Pretending it doesn't exist is so much easier and cheaper.

But won't raising taxes to improve social services just encourage more homeless etc to come here etc...........