So Portland has definitely garnered a reputation, one of complete chaos and lack of safety. When I told my mom I was moving here, she acted like I was moving to Syria, people act like Portland is up there with Gary and Compton for the most unsafe cities.

I walk around downtown at night a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I see all the homelessness and open are drug use. I’ve walked past people smoking crack/meth and walked around many tents. This city has issues and the problems here are just way more visible than other places. I just find the notion that’s it’s too unsafe to go out at night ridiculous.

I’ve walked back from Chinatown to SW Portland at night a few times and I didn’t really felt sketched out at all. Ik being biologically male helps but I’ve gotten almost no harassment or insane comments and have only dealt with a couple panhandlers. Walking at night none of the sleeping homeless people had anything to say to me, I just had multiple ppl walking back from bars compliment my glasses. I was expecting hell on earth but you just have to be a bit cautious and have some street smarts.

I’ll admit seeing homelessness and drug use doesn’t bother me bc ik these things already exist, I just feel bad for the people caught up in a miserable addiction and sleeping on the streets. This city isn’t some bastion of cleanliness and safety, I just think ppl are being a bit dramatic. I hope the media keeps portraying this city as apocalyptic so it can stay affordable for west coast standards.

I just wanna know if people have had similar experiences to me or experiences to disagree with my assessment, which now that I’m posting to the other sub that’s almost exclusively complaining about the issues that don’t bother me it will be mostly naysayers. Alas those are my thoughts

Edit:spaced out into paragraphs bc y’all were whining