In December, bestselling author and humorist David Sedaris wrote a New Yorker magazine essay about a recent trip to Portland, Oregon.

While on a walk to a donut shop, he “lost count of the strung-out addicts I passed on my way” before eventually encountering four homeless people huddled around an empty baby carriage and smoking drugs right on the sidewalk. Moments later, a dog belonging to one of the addicts rushed out and bit him. 

Following the incident, Sedaris, a former methamphetamine addict himself, was struck by the fact that most people in Portland didn’t seem concerned about the state of the city—even the medical worker who treated him appeared more concerned with the dog’s well-being than what had happened to him: 

I mean, how hard should it be to get a little sympathy when an unleashed dog bites you? What if I were a baby? I wondered. Would people side with me then? What if I were ninety or blind or Nelson Mandela? Why is everyone so afraid of saying that drug addicts shouldn’t let their dogs bite people? Actually, I know why. We’re afraid we’ll be mistaken for Republicans, when, really, isn’t this something we should all be able to agree on? How did allowing dogs to bite people become a Democratic point of principle? Or is it just certain people’s dogs? If a German shepherd jumped, growling, out of one of those Tesla trucks that look like an origami project and its owner, wearing a MAGA hat, yelled, “Trumper, no!!!,” then would the people in my audience be aghast?

That one of America’s most progressive cities has become a laughingstock in one of the country’s more progressive magazines is a sign of Portland’s ongoing troubles.

Like other big cities with major challenges, such as Chicago and San Francisco, Portland boasts many lovely areas and vibrant neighborhoods. But it is also defined by a range of pervasive problems—including crime, homelessness, drug addiction—that are less the consequences of modern society than self-inflicted wounds created by ineffective policies. If Portland stands out from other beleaguered cities, it is because its decline has been so swift.

If you’re familiar with the recent history of Portland—I am a third-generation Oregonian who has lived in the city—it was once the epicenter of urban cool. In 2009, there was so much tourism that The Oregonian newspaper ran a column headlined, “Sorry, NYT, We’re Just Not That Into You,” grousing that all the glowing national press about the city was making it harder for locals to get into their favorite restaurants. By the time the popular comedy show “Portlandia” premiered in 2011, the city was a genuine cultural phenomenon.

Last fall, after the city acquired a reputation for crime, homelessness, and dysfunction, Oregon politicians rushed to media outlets to assure the nation that the city was not literally on fire. They were responding to comments from President Donald Trump, who said, “The place is burning down, just burning down,” following violent protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. CNN ran a “fact check” on Trump’s multiple statements about the city burning. 

Oregon politicians were probably right that the president’s hyperbole was not helping defuse a tense situation. And unlike other cities famous for urban blight, Portland is still a beautiful place to live. Located at the base of 11,000-foot-tall Mt. Hood, and built around two major rivers, it has one of the most spectacular natural settings of any city in America. Last fall, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, traveled around the city and posted videos highlighting the picturesque neighborhoods to show that Portland can be a wonderful place to live, in contrast to Trump’s claim that the city is “war-ravaged.”  

But in a figurative sense—and at least one literal sense—Trump is right. Portland is constantly on fire. In the year following July 2024, Portland had 6,268 fire-related incidents—and 40% of the fires in the city are a direct result of Portland’s out-of-control vagrancy.  

Even city leaders feel the heat. In 2024, Portland City Councilor Rene Gonzalez’s car burned in a fire that authorities believe was intentionally set while it was parked in front of his family’s home. No one was arrested, but a website associated with Portland’s notorious Antifa network claimed responsibility. Then last October, a fire consumed a carport belonging to Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos, burning her car and damaging the side of her house. Authorities eventually determined the fire was started by a vagrant trying to stay warm. 

The city also has much more sophisticated criminal problems. As Minneapolis uncovers evidence that it has lost billions of dollars in fraudulent schemes by the city’s Somali community, Jeff Eager, the former mayor of Bend, Oregon, has published a series of alarming reports revealing that Portland may have a similar large-scale problem with its welfare programs—some of it connected to more menacing kinds of organized crime. 

Early last year, for example, Eager reported on his Substack, Oregon Roundup, about a man named Kevin Daniel Sanabria-Ojeda, whom authorities say........

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