hear out of it.
I've lived out here for about 6.5 years and have some opinions. The city does apparently have a long history of civil unrest. While the vast majority of the protest and protesters are peaceful the is a small violent contingent bent on destruction. There are some self professed anarchist type groups that have layed claim to some of it. They have caused millions of dollars of destruction and performed some really violent acts like breaking into buildings and starting fires with people inside. In more then one case trying to block the exit of the building.
In my opinion there has been too much acceptance of that behavior here. It tarnishes the effort of legitimate groups because the violence ends up being associated with them.
These acts of violence seem to occur for just about any thing happening in the country. The trashed the city when tRump won. Conversely they trashed the city when Biden won, etc.
Portland is a very unique and beautiful city but having travelled through some of the trouble areas in the April May time frame it's becoming a shit hole.
Three years ago I had family visit and we spent a couple of days in the city. Even then there was a notable homeless population and we ran in to an older homeless guy who saw some New England gear we had on and struck up a conversation with us.. He had lived in the area we are from on MA for decades before his life spiraled out of control and he ended up in Portland. He was an interesting guy with an interesting story and we spent some time with him and gave him some cash as we parted ways.
However I have to say that I would be very selective on where and when I would take guests in the city today.
Like every major city Portland appears to be losing some of its character. It is being gentrified. The cost of rentals and house prices are becoming increasingly unaffordable etc. The number of shootings has also risen sharply.
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