The Dream of the 90’s Died in Portland

Editor’s note: This piece was written in 2023. Oregon recriminalized drug possession in 2024, so the details about Measure 110 below are out of date.

The Dream

Ahh, Portland. The place where you can work a little, live a lot, and enjoy life. If you can put up with the depressing winters, of course.

Many people blame the demise of Portland on the IFC hit show Portlandia which is a satire meant to portray all the best and worst parts of the town. Before this show, Portland lived mostly in the shadows. It was a medium-sized city that attracted artists and hipsters. It was affordable, so the opportunity to live a good life with a little money attracted many people.

Please watch this video, if you haven’t.

The dream of the 90’s: sleep until 11am, get tattoos, be weird, ride a bike or a skateboard, and trade your records. Basically, be a kid forever. Why not?

I’m a 90’s kid. This is part of the reason that I moved to Portland after I got married in 2018. I had visited several times and had considered attending law school at Lewis and Clark before opting to be a vagabond English teacher instead.

As newlyweds, we wanted to explore a new city and experience something different together. She’d never been, and I’ve always wanted to move here and explore the city for a few years. I talked her into the idea, and I hold most of the responsibility and shame for how things have gone. Sorry, babe.

I didn’t realize how bad it was getting and that it was only going to get worse.

One of my best friends had moved to the area recently to work at Nike, and I felt a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out).

The great weed, the great food, and all of the goodness that was still left to be had here.

Look: I have no tattoos, I hate riding a bike, and I’m pretty ambitious.

However, I love spending the weekend digging around in record stores, drinking strong coffee, being a weirdo, and enjoying life. There’s something magical about Portland, OR that makes you feel like you can be yourself.

Okay, maybe I’m part of the problem. I’m willing to be part of the solution, though, and I have a plan that I’ll break down in a moment. First, let’s take a quick step back.

What happened to Portland?

In a town where people don’t care, people unsurprisingly don’t seem to care so much when it’s overrun by junkies and homeless people. Well, at least, they don’t let on.

Here are my hypotheses on the major factors that have killed Portland.

Affordability

In the early 2000’s you could afford to live the dream. Renting a place was cheap. You could even buy a home if you wanted. For instance, the last place I rented, was purchased by my landlord for $250,000 in 2015. He just sold it for $498,000 not even ten years later.

Want to rent now? It’s 35% more expensive than it was in 2019.

There’s also the price of goods. Portland saw the biggest jump in the consumer price index from 2016 to 2017 at 4.42% and no signs of it slowing down.

Jobs

Today, our job market isn’t technically bad, but most of the jobs are in health care and social assistance. If you aren’t qualified or willing to work in elder care then you’re left with hospitality and service jobs.

Essentially, we’re no San Francisco, and you’re not going to get paid the same as if you live in a major technology hub. With rising housing costs, how is it sustainable? People are leaving Portland in droves due to the rising cost of living, safety concerns, and salaries that can’t compete.

Edit: one of my followers (Trampas) pointed out that I left out the Silicon Forest. Nike and Intel are located in the suburbs of Portland and attract many high paid tech workers. Some of them live in Portland and driving up housing costs. Good point and important to note. However, for this article, I did want to focus on the Portland job market being that the Dream of the 90’s was never alive in Hillsboro or Beaverton.

Cleanliness

Portland has always been a fairly clean town. There are gorgeous parks everywhere, hiking trails, and many cute neighborhoods filled with fruit trees, berries, and rose bushes. The rain washes away most of the grime.

Look at it now, though. This is a common scene.

credit: NY Post, North Portland encampment

Things have rapidly changed and declined with the decriminalization of drugs and daytime camping (AKA homelessness) that’s taken over the city.

Reputation

At some point, Portland gained a reputation as a place of lawlessness. Rumors spread that it was the place where you could live on the street and do drugs. People were bussed into Portland from other towns and many set up camp ready to create a fentanyl-infused nightmare for the locals and residents.

What can be done?

It’s not something that’s easy to fix. It will require people giving a shit.

I’m not from here, so take my ideas with a grain of salt. However, I have lived on the west coast my whole life and nearly every west coast city is suffering from similar ailments.

People are fleeing and we’ve lost $1 billion because of it.

Here’s a potential 11 point plan to get Portland back without losing the culture that keeps it weird.

1️⃣Criminalize open air drug use

The passing of measure 110 decriminalized drug possession for personal use in Portland. While, I agree in theory that drugs should be decriminalized we are clearly seeing the negative consequences play out in action.

One simple way to fix this is by criminalizing open air drug use and actually enforcing it.

It’s not acceptable that tax paying citizens, tourists, and children have to see people taking drugs in public.

2️⃣Put people to work

There is a lot of work to be done in this town. Graffiti to be covered, trash to be cleaned up, broken windows to be fixed.

There are also a lot of people not working and it’s causing resentment. Many homeless people would love to improve their situation, but they feel helpless. Yes, many need drug treatment and we should address that, but humans also need purpose.

We can easily create jobs doing things around town for the people who want them. Pay them cash or on debit cards. Allow anyone willing to apply and have a shot. Unhoused citizens will soon take ownership over the streets. If you paint a wall then suddenly that’s your wall.

3️⃣Bring back small businesses

I have a book called ‘The Portland Book of Dates’ and it was written in 2019 but published in 2020. In the introduction, the writers lament,

“will any of these places be around when the book is published?”

My wife and I tried to complete the dates in the book and we were saddened to find most of the places had indeed closed down during COVID. Small businesses were unable to make it through lockdowns and strict restrictions. Beloved restaurants, gyms, cafes, and more. All demolished.

We need to bring them back.

How? Cut taxes down to nothing. Remove the fees for opening a business. Make a promise that they will not be forced to comply with any regulations that would shut them down outside of grievous health violations.

4️⃣Establish a local currency

Portland could issue a currency that can only be used in Portland. This idea may be a bit quirky, but it could work.

Bristol England has done something similar with the Bristol Pound.

You could have a printed currency and also a digital currency. It could be backed by USD, bitcoin, or gold. Businesses could sign up to accept the Portland currency. These dollars could only be spent here within city limits. This would encourage money to circulate in Portland rather than going to Amazon. It’s an idea that could unite everyone on all sides of the political spectrum.

5️⃣Pick up trash every week

This idea was meant to encourage recycling. While it does encourage me to think of how to recycle more, it’s not practical and it makes our city dirtier. Especially when you have people day camping and living on the street. The filth piles up. As soon as summer hits, the city is filled with flies and leaving trash hanging out an extra week does not help. Go back to weekly pick-up. It only makes sense.

6️⃣Allow daytime camping outside the city on established campgrounds

We can’t solve the homeless crisis overnight, but we can make things better with practical solutions.

Kevin Dahlgren is a homelessness advocate, activist, and journalist that has been working on this issue in Portland for two decades. One of his ideas is to establish legal encampments just outside the city. There is a lot of open land in Portland where people can camp. If we create spaces where it’s allowed then we can keep our cities clean without throwing everyone in our already full jail system. It’s a practical middle ground solution that could help immediately.

7️⃣Relax gun laws

I had a hell of a time getting my concealed carry permit. As someone new to firearms, I went through substantial training and a background check before I could purchase a handgun. It took six months to go through the process. I’m not kidding. I dealt with an unruly neighbor recently and I felt unsafe. I found out that he was the only person on the block with a gun and that made me run to get one for myself. Luckily I had my concealed carry permit already and my background check went through. It should be like this. Portland is becoming one of the least safe cities in the country and everyone has the right to self-defense. Loosen the restrictions, teach people how to defend themselves, and take back our city.

8️⃣Repurpose Empty Lots

There are a lot of empty lots in this town. They quickly become cesspools for drug use, illegal camping, and filth. There are many ways we could use these lots such as creating community gardens, allowing legal camping for homeless people who work for the city, and more. Empty lots are dangerous and eyesores and we should do something with them.

9️⃣Cheap rent for artists

One way to encourage a city to go in the right direction is to attract more artists and give them ways to survive and create beautiful things. You’ll already find many beautiful murals around the town. We could create a ‘mural project’ and repurpose warehouses and shipping containers into housing for artists. Come make art in Portland and clean up our city and we’ll make sure you can keep a roof over your head.

🔟Cannabis Lounges

When medical marijuana first passed in California, there were many cannabis cafes and lounges where you would relax and partake in a safe environment away from police, kids, and anyone else you’d like to avoid. We need this in Portland. It’s ridiculous that you can buy weed legally, possess it legally, but most rentals prohibit the use of cannabis in your home. Your only other option would be to smoke in public which is frankly not a good look. If we’re going to outlaw open air drug use, which I think is needed, then we need a place where people can legally partake in cannabis.

1️⃣1️⃣Take it ‘up to 11’ and make things fun again.

I’m not sure what #11 should be. I’m open to suggestions, but we need to make this town fun again. We should have open forums where residents can share their ideas for ways to improve the town. Get things off social media. We need to start talking to each other again. Portlanders have a habit of being passive aggressive and not wanting to cause a scene. It’s a bad habit. Let’s have public town squares and share how we really feel. It’s critical for getting through this crisis.

Conclusion

I wish dreams could be maintained by sleeping until 11am and having no jobs. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to put some work into the dream to get it going.

The question remains: are we willing to put in the work when it counts or will we stay asleep? I suppose time will tell, but for now, I’m sticking around to see what can be done to save our beautiful City of Roses.