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Last week, WW retraced a decade of Portland news, focusing on the moments when the Rose City achieved national fame ("Notorious PDX," Dec. 25, 2019). We contend that no American city played such an outsized role in the national imagination in the 2010s. Our readers had plenty to say about the city's claim to fame, the days we chose as standouts, and Portland's reputation shifting from quirky to violent.
John Retzlaff, via wweek.com: "'Portland turned into homeless shithole' doesn't make the cut? Talk about head in the sand."
Clayman, via wweek.com: "So basically, this is a journalistic effort catering to the entitled, navel-gazing set who think that Portland, Oregon, is the center of the universe.
"To think that Portland, Oregon, is EVER going to have some type of relevance on the national scene is ludicrous. The 'it' factor disappeared 15 years ago. Now, it's just another mid-major city (Cincinnati, OKC, Sacramento) that is living on its past reputation as fun and quirky but facing the very same challenges as those mentioned.
"It's kind of like the cool kid in high school: Their 15 minutes of fame passed years ago, and others have now equaled or surpassed them in success. Used-to-be's are fun places to visit, but nowhere to dwell."
Sarah Iannarone, via Twitter: "Decades are so arbitrary, analytically speaking. Portland's influence peaked around 2012; our darling decade ranged from 2008-17.
"They're writing a news weekly not a dissertation, so I get it. But there were policies at play behind this status gain, driven largely by efforts of people like Sam Adams & Co. seeking to elevate our global brand as an economic development strategy. It wasn't organic."
Provash Budden, via Facebook: "Pretty lame article. This is mostly inconsequential pop cultural click bait. More impactful change happened to PDX in the early 1940s, between 1965 and 1970 and in the late '80s, early '90s."
Rob Duvall, via Facebook: "Weed happened long before 10 years ago. Riots? Actually it's really protests which bad-seeded people infiltrate then try to turn into riots, partly thanks to the media attention."
Coop, via wweek.com: "The last 10 years have been a collection of Occupy a-holes ruining downtown, and the tail end was Antifa a-holes…also ruining downtown. Throw in liberal policies encouraging the pervasive homeless problem and we've really screwed over the citizens of this town. I'm a moderately liberal guy who has never voted Republican, but these far-left 'activists' can get the F out of Portland."
West of the Cascades, via wweek.com: "From a sports perspective, I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that winning one playoff series in 2011 (admittedly with an amazing shot) 'made Portland famous,' while the two professional soccer teams in Portland winning championships in 2013, 2015 and 2017 are completely ignored. Besides the championships, if I had to point to a single soccer-related event that might have 'made Portland famous,' maybe having 25,218 fans at a sold-out regular season game for the Portland Thorns in 2019? Largest crowd ever for the current incarnation of the women's professional league in the USA—and just par for the course for Portland's support of women's professional soccer."
