Portland used to call itself “the city that works,” and I pointed out in a paper 16 years ago that, not only was it not working, it was especially ironic that it borrowed that claim from Chicago, another dysfunctional city. But if Portland wasn’t working in 2007, it is anti-working today, that is, actively working to alienate as many people and businesses as possible.
The latest example is Kevin Howard, who has been a Portland property developer for 40 years. The last property in the city that he owned was worth $800,000 a few years ago, but he was forced to sell it for little more than half that due to repeated invasions by homeless people and the city’s failure to do anything about it.
Despite his repeated efforts to evict them from the property, a former restaurant, homeless squatters kept returning. When he called the police, they said there was nothing they could do. He tried to have a fence installed, but there was a four month waiting list because the same thing is happening to people’s property all over the city.
When the homeless people trashed the place, Howard was fined $540 for creating a nuisance. He paid the fine but the city lost the check and fined him again with an extra hundred dollars tacked on. He paid that, and the city admitted they received the money, but they sent him another bill and put a lien on the property anyway.
Howard finally sold the property and is leaving town. On his way out, he recalled the city that works motto and said, “The city that jerks, I mean, how can you be this dysfunctional?” Easy: all politicians have to do is care more about some New Urban ideal of high-density housing and expensive rail transit than about adequately governing their city to provide the housing, transportation, and lifestyles that people really want.
When government who runs your city, have a political motivation to pander to people who’re dysfunctional, poorly behaved, engage in lewd or self destructive acts, their policies do nothing but foster more dysfunctionality, poor behavior and lewd acts and disavowing self respect and personal dignity.
Now government admits to fining him…
Twice. Once and twice for being an asshole … by their standards.
I say this with heavy heart cities like, San Francisco and Portland will not be saved. Progressive policies that neuter cops and reward bad guys are but response to VOTER BASE. I wrote how low iQ groups cannot sustain a democracy or beneficial form of personal governance. Drug addicts occupy that bracket.
Victims of modern pharmacology, brain sizzling drugs knock iQ down 10 more points…..
Junkie 5 years on opiates is knocked down 10 iQ points
And addicts 7 more years borderline retarded.
They can’t work becuz task management and multitasking require training. That requires short and long-term memory which drugs have fried. They can’t be trained because they’re too dumb multitasking. They can’t be reintroduced to society because they can’t function without perpetual chaperone. They are babies. Adult babies. Violence, fanaticism, poor decision making, inept financial literacy follow these brackets. Geopolitical stability and personal freedoms cannot survive average iQ below 90. Lock up and leave.
Biden, Trudeau, Macron are living proof sociological 3rd stage of civilization, “WEAK MEN CREATE HARD TIMES”