Portland, Oregon is run by people who are elected and selected. They are like children who buy their first car but never change the oil. Leftists are leading the city, who believed they could rev the engine and ignore maintenance while the city would run on its own. They’ve instead driven the City of Roses to a Doom Loop.
Portland’s leaders transformed the sleepy city into a progressive hub of the creative class not long ago. They spent billions on 19th 19th-century light rail Choo Choo train to transport bus riders to the utopia they had planned. Ronald Reagan said that the more plans failed, the planned more. Portland leaders didn’t stop to think if people wanted what they were offering because of the ruthless planners, the corrupt regulatory capture system, and their certainty that they knew better than anyone else how to run the city. They sang kumbaya gleefully and handed the match to activists who lit the Molotov Cocktail that ignited the self-immolation of the city.
These leaders have now regulated, secured, and scared off third downtown office buildings. San Francisco was called the “doom loop” when it reached this milestone.
According to The Real Deal, these documents are referred to by real estate professionals as “death lists” and list properties that cannot be sustained economically. These are distressed assets in danger of defaulting and being handed over to banks.
Willamette Week is the lefty city weekly that did the research to see how bad the problem was. It concluded that Portland, because of the Antifa/BLM riots, is worse than other Democrat-run cities in the doom loop.
It’s a controversial question, but whether Portland has more blight than anywhere else is a hot topic. Some downtown storefronts are still covered by plywood that was put up during the 2020 demonstrations. The homeless camps that grew during the pandemic have only recently been removed. You’re as likely to find someone in downtown drinking a Frappuccino or smoking fentanyl on some blocks.
Only the leftist echo chamber is able to answer this question. Portland, the rest of America saw what you were doing.
Tina Kotek (ordinary governor) has assembled a panel made up of lefty businessmen, NGOs, and quasi-governmental organizations to solve the problem that they have been cheerleading for years.
“I don’t believe in just setting things up for performative sake,” Kotek told me Aug. 9. “We have to make sure we have something that can produce a product that will be helpful.”
Will be very interested to see what product a 47-member task force that meets only 3 times produces. https://t.co/51Quxzyhvm
— Shane Dixon Kavanaugh (@shanedkavanaugh) August 22, 2023
Bob Ames, former president of First Interstate Bank of Oregon who is now free to speak publicly without being canceled by the newspaper, said that Portland reaps what it sows. The publication quoted him as saying, “The downtown Portland problem is that you do not want to be there.” He also said, “We have driven out a great deal of capital and tenants.” You won’t be able to bring another major employer into this city for at least a decade.
Portland lefties want to blame the doom cycle on a COVID after-effect, but no one is buying it. This goat rodeo only gets worse. According to The Real Deal, “loans obtained during the previous real estate boom marked by low-interest rates are now maturing and their value is diminishing while interest rates have risen, creating an unfavorable climate for refinancing.”
