America’s most dysfunctional city has finally come to its senses

I get off the bus at SW 6th Avenue, a handsome tree-lined street at the heart of downtown Portland. The site of the notorious former open-air fentanyl market outside an abandoned shopping mall, where until last year the strong and very cheap synthetic opioid was being freely traded, is now boarded up. The streets are quiet. On the next block I admire the handsome, historic facades of the US National Bank and Wells Fargo buildings and the securely-fenced new Midtown Beer Garden throngs with smart professionals seeking lunch from a score of food carts.

It’s 18 months since I’ve set foot in downtown Portland. Like many residents and tourists, it’s been easier to simply avoid than risk the chaos of what many in the last few years have called an “open-air asylum experiment”. Confrontations with mentally ill people on the street or public transport were commonplace. Fears of accidental drug contamination or of having your car broken into were very real. At the very least, you would witness the depressing, demoralising sight of drug use and dealing, campsites resembling small shanty towns, and leave with the aggravating sense of one rule for tax-paying law-abiders and another for the thousands of addicts.

This experiment has been encouraged by disastrously liberal policies including the defunding of the police, the decriminalisation of the possession of hard drugs for personal use, and the quashing of city codes preventing street camping (along with the actual handing out of tents by local government bodies and charities).

For anyone that has worked hard to avoid these outcomes in their own life, these sights were particularly triggering, and the chaos, exacerbated by Covid lockdowns, has already resulted in the fatal overdose of almost 1,000 people from fentanyl alone, mostly in the downtown area, the collapse of hundreds of businesses, and the desertion of the city by residents and retailers.

But the city is finally on the mend. Although quiet, the main core of downtown Portland feels functional again. Anupama Rao, 32, from India, visited two years ago and again this summer. “Then, when I was driving in downtown Portland I saw a lot of homeless people and tents. One person was literally defecating on the side of the street and others were openly injecting drugs. It was disgusting. Now, it’s much cleaner, I don’t see any homeless activity and it feels safe. I now feel like coming downtown is worth it because I can actually hang out.”

On Broadway, at the landmark Benson hotel, a staff member tells me proudly that occupancy has been as high as 85 per cent over the summer. “It’s way better than two years ago,” he tells me. Normality has reclaimed the streets thanks to dramatic policy changes that include a ban on street camping in certain areas and the redirection of homeless persons into drug treatment, housing or temporary shelter (or often, in practice, to less conspicuous areas), the recriminalisation of hard drugs, stiffer codes of conduct on public transport along with more guards on trains and platforms, and generally enhanced policing. Entire rows of illegal and unlicensed vehicles have been towed and private security firms have also been deployed to patrol the downtown area.

Anger from disability rights campaigners dismayed by blocked sidewalk access and a strong sentiment shift on the part of voters has brought more effective and sensible figures such as Rene Gonzalez, a former lawyer and candidate in the upcoming mayoral election, onto the scene. A new incoming district attorney for Multnomah County, Nathan Vasquez, promises to bring more accountability, less dysfunction and continued focus on health and safety.

Tourists are also benefiting from a number of standout openings. They include a spectacular new airport terminal, a huge, freshly constructed Ritz-Carlton hotel and, in the hip Central Eastside district across the river, a Portland outpost of Soho House, the group’s first in the Pacific Northwest, with a luxurious south-facing roof terrace where business deals are done over lunch and cocktails beside a heated infinity pool.

Portland is a sprawling city, and it will be a long process to fix all of its 94 neighbourhoods. Most of Chinatown still feels unsafe, with large groups loitering around charity buildings, tents and junk-filled shopping carts. The approach to the otherwise magnificent Union Station is a terrible introduction to the city for anyone using Amtrak; I witnessed a fight and a staff member at a local hotel told me they had suffered vehicle damage and violent behaviour with little help from the authorities. Jessie Burke, co-owner of The Society Hotel near the Lan Su Chinese Garden, said she “has long given up on the idea that any one solution will salvage us”. She added: “Instead, we have started to develop projects to revitalise our district, projects completely driven by our neighbourhood community.”

Nevertheless, the positivity that drew me and so many others here before the pandemic is returning. And the excellent range of quality restaurants and characterful venues, set amid vibrantly green trees beneath a seemingly infinite blue sky, still beckons.

Travel Portland, charged with promoting the city as a holiday destination, confirmed that policy changes have already translated into higher visitor numbers. Hotel bookings have almost reached 2019 levels. “There’s been a lot of focus on cleaning up the inner city, and making it more hospitable for visitors,” said Travel Portland’s Marcus Hibdon. “We also think that people who are visiting Portland right now are going back and telling their friends and family about the experience they had, so for the first time since 2019 we think word of mouth is working in our favour as people are coming to Portland and having a great time.”

Five of the best things to do in and around Portland

1. The Farmer’s Market at Portland State University (SW Park Avenue and Montgomery Streets, portlandfarmersmarket.org), every Saturday morning between 9am and 2pm, offers a wonderful introduction to the city’s food scene with dozens of stalls offering the likes of tofu roti with smoked pepper glaze, miso eggplant, farm pickles and tomato jam and huckleberry and lemon mochi cake.

2. Get a $5.60 all-day Trimet day pass offering unlimited bus and light rail (Max) travel, or rent a Niketown ebike or a Lyft or Lime electric scooter, to take on the city’s incredible range of restaurants and breweries, cruising between the city’s wonderfully alternative neighbourhoods, parks and shopping streets, such as Hawthorne, Division, Laurelhurst, Sellwood and Mt Tabor on the east side and downtown, Slabtown, Northwest and Forest Park on the west side. The South Waterfront is also very pleasant if the weather is good.

3. If you are renting a car, the nearby Columbia River Gorge, just 45 minutes away, is a spectacular and unforgettable sight in itself, but further highlights are the Historic Columbia River Highway, Crown Point and Multnomah Falls. If you have more time, drive an additional 45 minutes in the same direction to the millions of acres of forest surrounding Oregon’s highest mountain, Mt Hood. Drive up to Timberline Lodge below the summit for a cosy drink and spectacular views.

4. Known for pinot noir, there are some 900 wineries surrounding Portland, most of them in the Willamette Valley to the south. Take a guided or self-driven tour of a few of them and their accompanying tasting rooms, ideally in the autumn harvest time.

5. Oregon’s jaw-dropping coast is about a 90-minute drive west of the city. Head to Indian Beach at Ecola State Park for fresh air, walks amid rugged beauty and peace and quiet at any time of year. Unfortunately, the sea is too cold to swim in without a wetsuit (watch the surfers and herds of elk instead; in hot weather, swim in the Clackamas River at High Rocks Park or the Sandy River at Oxbow Regional Park).