Maybe I'm a bit of a small-town boy, but I find it hard to understand that a lot of people choose to live in these conditions and don't move away to somewhere quieter/safer.
I've spent time in dangerous urban areas as well as safer urban areas and rural areas. Dangerous urban areas have a combination of two things that are of major benefit to people looking to better their life situation:
1.) Being an urban area, they have the population density to support a greater number of jobs and potential career paths. Living in a small area means you have much fewer choices and your options for starting over if you fuck up are much more limited. (Or if you just don't fit in: That 'safer' middle of nowhere area might not be safer depending on who you are.)
2.) Dangerous urban areas are usually more cost accessible and the lack of policing makes it easier to be an edge case and live on the margins. As an example, the car I drove when I lived in Flint, MI was absolutely not, strictly speaking, street legal. (It was too loud + it died at stops). The cops in Flint had other shit to worry about, so I didn't get a ticket as I saved up money to fix it. That would not fly in Cambridge, MA or most of the rest of the Boston area. Likewise, in Flint who gives a fuck if my tags are expired or I don't have my mandated car insurance? Nobody does. You need some lucky breaks to get established somewhere new, and breaks of any kind are more likely when there are cracks in the system.
Glad you asked! I grew up in a small town in Texas that is now a big town. Portland has some urban growth boundaries that contain its growth, so I was attracted to the idea that a big city is literally up against farm land and wild life. It makes it feel like a little, big town. Portland is also densely packed with trees in my part of town. There's lots of greenery and wildlife for a city this size. It's also set next to rivers with a lot of programs for water and wildlife sustainability. The people are really nice, even the neighbors I mentioned. It's a very working-class community for the most part and that makes me feel like I'm back in Texas. It's an amazing place to live and also, maybe most importantly, one of the areas predicted to deal with climate change better.
Lastly, can't really stress how nice #2 is. The cops don't bug you for simple stuff and it makes life a lot less stressful on the daily. Being in a big city is like camouflage.
In a very real sense, most people do not even recognize there is an actual option to move. Yes, there are all sorts of costs associated with the moving and there is stress to be incurred as a result, but I think most people do not even entertain the idea of living anywhere else compared to where they are for numerous reasons including familial ties.
And then there is the 'why should I leave' aspect of it? Maybe if I stick it out, it will get better ( especially if I own that piece of land ).
In short, I would like to be able to say that it is economically prohibitive to do so, but, I dunno, I moved from the old country to US. And separately the moment I heard a first shot in my neighborhood in Chicago ( and police came to my door asking if I saw anything ), I was out of there in a couple of months in the suburbs.
I think people feel safer being where they have always been ( as unsafe it may be to an audience from a statistical point of view ). It is the environment they know. For all they know, anywhere else may be even worse.
As they say: better the devil you know.
This is a big one. I don't live in the Portland area, but anytime I've considered moving any large distance away from where I am I've always rejected it because my family/friends are all in this area. As much as I might like it a lot somewhere else, I'm not willing to uproot my social ties for it.
As I see it the alternative is to stay and advocate to make things better, and while that's grueling I think it's worth it.
I’ve uprooted for greener pastures twice in my life, and it has paid off both times. If I didn’t, I’d be impoverished and possibly hooked on (the scary) drugs.
If fluffy social aspects outweigh your immediate economic concerns, it stands that you are privileged enough to make the choice to stay still.
On the other hand, uprooting requires a certain resilience and fortitude that not everyone has. People who can torch their old life to chase something better are privileged in a way too, are they not?
All that to say I think you have the privilege statement backwards.
Writing that I do realize that its actually second. First reason for most people is probably just inertia.
I think a lot of it is actually more “the pendulum” of attitudes towards things like homelessness and other “nuisances”. When we’re overly strict, the pendulum starts swinging back towards acceptance and laisezz faire because inevitably injustices occur and people decide to become more compassionate. When we’re overly permissive (like many west coast cities right now, though I think the opioid crisis has a big role too) the pendulum starts swinging towards cracking down.
New York has basically gone through this entire process already
This sounds like knee jerk nativism. How many people would it take to move and overwhelm an entire city’s culture? Let’s assume a plurality of 30% could do it. I think a wave of people of that size is going to cause problems whatever their political beliefs are.
but it doesn't take so many newcomers to significantly change political outcomes. even in red states, republican mayors are pretty rare. in practice, this means that the mayoral race is almost always determined by an n-way democratic primary. it's hard to overstate how chaotic this can be. for example, the current mayor of baltimore won the 2020 primary (effectively the general election) with <30% of the vote, with the runner up trailing by only 2%. this was an election where ~25% of the population cast a vote. it would have taken <4000 votes to completely change that outcome.
I myself moved from a big metro area to a smaller and quieter (but unfortunately not safer) city in a different region of the country, because I didn't care for those big city amenities all that much. But I can easily see how someone could live with the faults.
A failed city that people are fleeing, with impossibly high taxes, no remaining police, rife with crime, and with corrupt bureaucrats suckling on the government teat at every turn.
I can't square the circle. I know so many people in Chicago and it doesn't seem like they're even describing the same city.
So when I see these hit pieces against the governments on the west coast, and hear anecdotes from west coast Republicans fleeing to the south to escape their purported failures, I take them with a massive gain of salt.
I have no doubt that Portland has its issues, but I can't take these pieces very seriously. As with the mythical failed version of Chicago I keep hearing about, I suspect there is a group of people pushing an extreme version of a narrative that is only loosely based in reality.
As you can see, Portland proper is nearly entirely Democrat. I'm a registered Democrat as well (I'm OP). Prior to this I lived in San Jose. Portland is a lovely city, but talking about what's going on here doesn't make folks Republican.
This is why paradoxically cities with high poverty and bad economies also have little homelessness.