For only having 600,000 people, Portland beats out Chicago, Detroit, New York, Atlanta, and all the major east coast cities for property crime rates. In 2024, there were 5526 property crimes per 100,000 persons.
Recent early data in 2025 (and anecdotal evidence from local forums seems to confirm) that it’s gotten even worse:
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The New York Times has a strange love-hate relationship with Portland. They fawn over it’s eclictic parts while (rightly) lambasting many of the now widely known disastrous far-left public policies.
They mention all these things to try with 36 hours, but there’s absolutely no way to do all of this, or even half of it in that timeframe. Still, it’s an interesting list.
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At the end of every summer, Vaux swifts start migrating through the region. For many years, thousands and thousands of them used to roost each night, precisely at sunset, in the Chapman elementary school chimney.
After decades of roosting there and attracting near circus-level crowds that watched them each night, they appear to be seeking quieter locations to roost each night on the east side of Portland. It’s probably for the best – the swift parties near the school were getting out of control.
Little did I know someone actually wrote a song about them.
Some great entries this year – the Trojan Bunny from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, a great corn on the cob entry, an expansion of the Cars animated series including Toe-mater, and a wonderful hunk of cheese driven by some mice, and a nice corn dog.
Here’s a nice walk through the pits
Tillamook is known for it’s cheese factory and dairy industry – but the Tillamook County Fair also has quirky local fun: pig n’ ford races.
Ask the average Portlander, and they will tell you that the rich should be paying for all the free government services they want. They proved this multiple times by passing a Homeless 1.5% income tax on taxable income over $125,000. They did it again by passing a Preschool for tax in which income over $125,000 is taxed at rate of 1.5% and an additional 1.5% (3% total) on income over $250,000. This makes Portland the 2nd highest tax rate city in the country at 14.69%.
“Good!” say many of the local reddit and forum communities. Eat the rich! Well – it turns out the rich don’t just sit around to be eaten – they leave. Despite claims this could NEVER happen, it is happening. Portland has seen 3 straight years of population decline since 2021. And who is leaving? Overwhelmingly it is the higher earners.
This isn’t academic or speculation – it’s been happening for 3 years straight with no signs of stopping.
The average income of households moving out of Multnomah County was nearly $105,000 a year in 2022, according to newly released tax data. That’s up by more than a third from 2020.
Among those moving into the county, the average household income was about $74,000 – up just 8% compared to 2020.
That disparity may help explain why Multnomah County’s population has declined this decade, reversing rapid growth in the early 2010s.
WWeek
While the activist groups are cheering this heavy tax for ‘rich’ people – actual government and economic leaders are sounding serious alarm bells for years now. Portland economists are even calling it an economic ‘doom loop‘. This trend first frightened state economists, and now we’re seeing basic services like ODOT so badly defunded that they are laying off hundreds and may not be able to make even essential safety work on roads and bridges. Additionally, 36 counties are facing major budget cuts.
It’s a sadly common failure of Oregon government leadership. Portland has gone from the 2nd fastest growing city, to one of the 6th fastest shrinking major US cities.
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AI PDX has become a pretty popular group for folks working with AI systems in Portland. Check out their calendar for upcoming events.
Want to leave your mark on Portland?
Buy a brick with your name on it for Pioneer Square ($150), or get a park bench dedicated to you or someone you love ($1500/bench).
An amazing site is ALERTOregon which hosts a lot of statewide cameras and even includes links to ODOT road cameras too.
Recently PGE is now publicly hosting wildfire detection cameras it has in the Pacific Northwest. For good or ill, it is one of the reasons we no longer need those old-school fire towers.
