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I haven't been to Portland since a couple years before COVID. I imagine it's really disgusting downtown. Smelled like piss and I had to walk through junkie camps last time I was there

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You're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. I was in Portland for a week each in 2017 and 2018. Sure there were a lot of homeless on the streets, marijuana smoke was in the air, but the downtown area was still very nice.

I went back in March 2022 and it was completely different.

I hadn't seen shit on the sidewalk my first two trips -- it was on every other block this time.

Dozens of stores still boarded up, most of which I imagine had closed during the 2020 protests. Graffiti everywhere.

I won't be making a trip back.

You don't board up stores for "protests"

Both Seattle and Portland are basically homeless junkie camps.

I lived in Seattle for 12 years and left in 2010. I went back a few years later to visit and it looked like the homeless population had doubled in the time since. It's honestly gross how bad it is. The city has so many problems and no idea whatsoever how to solve them.

Anecdotally speaking, there are parts of LA that are trending just as bad.

Taking it all together this seems to be a pervasive issue in larger west-coast cities?

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