High crime in Portland?

[simulcra]

Just did a quick skim through of statistics and it seems that Portland is quite a bit up there in terms of violent crime.

any further elaborations?

because i know for a fact that some of the statistics are skewed by some of the urban geography; chicago (cook county) has a bit of crime, but due to the fact that 75% of its populace lives outside of "chicago" and in chicagoland suburbs and are white and affluent, the average crime rate is dropped down quite a bit.

 

[BKM]

Could Portland be suffering from the same "end of the line" syndrome as California-in other words, it attracts people who kind of "wash up" after drifting across the continent?

 

[japrovo]

Portland historically was a wide open town...frontier settlement, logging, sailors, etc. so "vice" in particular has always been an issue. I've heard crime generally was really bad during the recession of the 80s that led to some mandatory sentencing laws being passed. And maybe there is an echo with the current recession...at least with respect to property crimes for example when due to the budget crisis non-violent offenders were getting booked and released and then the courts were closed to trying such crimes for a couple of months. But as to violent crime---I lived in Richmond in the 80s when crack came through and the murder rate was often tops in the nation. I don't see that kind of absolute shift here. The question of urban geography is kind of interesting. But Portland was late to suburbanize and really didn't hit the wall on annexation until quite recently so, along with of course the UGB driving investment inward, a lot of high income development has always been within the city limits.

 

[Dan]

The pride of Portland ...

One thing I did notice while I was in Portland is that the city, despite its upscale pretensions, has what seems like a disproportionately large amount of homeless and PWT; far more than Denver. Seems like much of the area east of the river is home to quite a few mulleted Appalachian and Confederate types (Gresham jokes are almost a staple, far more than Parma jokes in Cleveland or Cheektowaga jokes in Buffalo), and I saw quite a few Salvation Army shelters and soup kitchens downtown.

El Paso, Texas, a very isolated frontier city, has a very low crime rate, despite its location on the Mexican border. However, the rate of auto theft is almost European; it's off the charts.

 

[Seabishop]

One thing I did notice while I was in Portland is that the city, despite its upscale pretensions, has what seems like a disproportionately large amount of homeless and PWT; far more than Denver. Seems like much of the area east of the river is home to quite a few mulleted Appalachian and Confederate types (Gresham jokes are almost a staple, far more than Parma jokes in Cleveland or Cheektowaga jokes in Buffalo), and I saw quite a few Salvation Army shelters and soup kitchens downtown.

As a visitor, the homelessness was different with a greater proportion of young "drop outs." I'd have relatively clean cut young men ask me for money. They seemed like they were college students who decided to "drop out" and live their life in the Courthouse Square. I guess no one would sleep outside during a northeastern winter unless they really had to.

I also got solicited to buy pot constantly in Portland. But overall, downtown seemed safer than any comprable city.

 

[BKM]

One thing I did notice while I was in Portland is that the city, despite its upscale pretensions, has what seems like a disproportionately large amount of homeless and PWT; far more than Denver.

Yep. When I drove into Portland after a little trip through the west a few years back, it was noticeable. I knew I was back on the West Coast.

O/T: The weird thing is that Seattle appeared to have fewer homeless in the heart of the downtown-Pike Place Market, the "department store zone" and the like. I didn't get panhandled once. UNTIL you got to Pioneer Square-the population seems much more concentrated than San Francisco, where the homeless are in almost all of the major commercial districts.

 

[japrovo]

When will Tanya ever catch a break? She's apparently making quite a splash in boxing---but I veer off topic. Speaking of which I'm a little bummed out by the direction of this thread. I get the income level-crime link we started off with and I could be misinterpreting but I'm not quite comfortable conflating rising crime, mullet heads, and the homeless. And as to "upscale pretensions," does that mean that a nice park system or light rails aren’t amenities for mullet heads or the homeless for that matter? The first light rail line went from Downtown Portland to Gresham because that's where it needed to go. Planning around here has always been about solving problems rather than creating a yupper-class sanctuary---although I'm willing to admit that is how the city is trending in many respects. As to the presence of the homeless downtown---that has been a subject of some contention. There was a major investment in a service infrastructure---largely downtown---in the 80s and some backlash (e.g. adoption of a sit-lie ordinance) in the 90s.