General Portland Discussion

New addition to https://cranewatch.biz/ (Greater Portland Crane Watch). Previously, only one project image was on the site. For projects under construction, two (2) photos are included: 1.) Final design rendering, and 2.) latest construction photo (before and after :) ). See attached picture from 246 Eastern Prom, taken yesterday....compare to initial rendering. Check it out!
246 ep 7-21.JPG
 
OMG—sorry for the shameless plug, but the new Greater Portland Crane Watch is live! I recently migrated the site to Replit, and the improvement is massive.

This isn’t a sales pitch—my revenue is $0. It’s purely a retirement passion project designed for anyone interested in commercial construction across Greater Portland.

Have you heard of "vibe coding"? Using Replit, I simply described my vision for the site—map view, list view, etc.—and pasted a link to my legacy SpreadSimple site for reference. Replit built the entire web app automatically. Zero coding required, just plain English prompts.

The underlying project data is the same (just updated!), but the user experience is dramatically more polished and significantly easier to maintain.

Please check it out and let me know what you think: https://cranewatch.biz/
 
cranewatch said:
OMG—sorry for the shameless plug, but the new Greater Portland Crane Watch is live! I recently migrated the site to Replit, and the improvement is massive.

This isn’t a sales pitch—my revenue is $0. It’s purely a retirement passion project designed for anyone interested in commercial construction across Greater Portland.

Have you heard of "vibe coding"? Using Replit, I simply described my vision for the site—map view, list view, etc.—and pasted a link to my legacy SpreadSimple site for reference. Replit built the entire web app automatically. Zero coding required, just plain English prompts.

The underlying project data is the same (just updated!), but the user experience is dramatically more polished and significantly easier to maintain.

Please check it out and let me know what you think: https://cranewatch.biz/
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I don't know if you've seen it, but the Roux Institute actually has a barge crane onsite!
 
I recognize this is largely a propaganda video, but I've also seen all this stuff with my own eyes. Last year I brought my friend there after a hike and was talking up the city's beauty, but his lasting impression mirrored what is seen in the video. A couple weeks ago I walked down Congress and it was as bad as ever. I also often use the bathroom at the Holiday Inn and the parking lot down the street from it was a tent city that forced me to cross the road (last year, didn't go there this year). I've felt unsafe walking in part of the residential neighborhood near the Eastern Prom, particularly near the Promenade East condos. A few years ago I was accosted by a drugged out lady near the Old Port with my 2 young children, who wanted to know why she came over to us. So really, what the hell is going on here? This stuff should never be tolerated, and before anybody says "compassion" I'd like to know where the compassion is for normal people, families, etc as their city degrades around them?

 
DZH22 said:
I recognize this is largely a propaganda video, but I've also seen all this stuff with my own eyes. Last year I brought my friend there after a hike and was talking up the city's beauty, but his lasting impression mirrored what is seen in the video. A couple weeks ago I walked down Congress and it was as bad as ever. I also often use the bathroom at the Holiday Inn and the parking lot down the street from it was a tent city that forced me to cross the road (last year, didn't go there this year). I've felt unsafe walking in part of the residential neighborhood near the Eastern Prom, particularly near the Promenade East condos. A few years ago I was accosted by a drugged out lady near the Old Port with my 2 young children, who wanted to know why she came over to us. So really, what the hell is going on here? This stuff should never be tolerated, and before anybody says "compassion" I'd like to know where the compassion is for normal people, families, etc as their city degrades around them?

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Here's a thought: Trickledown economics is a lie.

Wages haven't risen with inflation since the 70's. If they did, a basic standard income would be apx $102k. Yet the Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 p/h (which no one can live on).

Meanwhile CEO's are making 800-1400% more than their workers (a huge leap since the 70's).

Compound corporate welfare, tax breaks, loopholes, offshore havens for the rich ... and the fact that they are hoarding the wealth rather than creating jobs or allowing it to "trickledown". It's wage theft ... pocketing the surplus of their worker's labor. Then crying poverty while reporting massive profits. Shareholders are certainly pleased, the business models are working in their favor. But screw the workers. The rich will just identify some scapegoat/villain to keep eyes off the vast inequities. Or maybe start a war. Distractions - look over here! They think they're untouchable, the rules don't apply to them, and there's no accountability or consequences for them. And the rich still can't be satiated.

Wages remain flat ... prices go up for food, housing, utilities, heating/cooling, gas, insurance, health care ... the middle class shrinks (or exponentially spends on credit). People are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Parents are busy, exhausted, unhealthy, absent. Children fall through the cracks, become susceptible to all kinds of issues, and go to school hungry and tired. Forget that they're entitled to a "free and appropriate education" to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Some don't have bootstraps to begin with.

Healthcare is prone to exorbitant, incestuous corruption between the government, pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies (just look at CVS). No one can afford healthcare, let alone mental healthcare (which is stigmatized AF, esp for men). Veterans are completely abandoned, despite serving the country. If only we could create an affordable or universal option (like our European counterparts) - we would have healthier, happier, cared for citizens. But the "free market" won't allow that. Compounded with inequitable wages, housing and food insecurity ... unchecked mental health issues and stress .... people turn to alcohol, drugs, and addiction.

Jobs get shipped abroad, phased out, lack of job re-training, CEO's pocket huge bonuses while firing massive amounts of people. We can't survive as a "service industry" alone, where are the jobs they promised to create? And then BOOM, you're homeless for a plethora of reasons. Not because they didn't try their hardest - but because the entire system is inequitable and rigged against success. But somehow, we need more babies to fill the labor force ... but not THOSE babies (brown people). There's still both obvious and covert ways of systemic red-lining, poverty, injustice, you name it. Perhaps housing should be a "human right"?

It's not "socialism" to want the taxes you pay into the system to actually go toward things you can actually benefit from. Not endless war, tax breaks for the rich, program cuts without cutting spending (wracking up huge deficits).

We could also talk about "values". Why aren't people practicing what they preach? Why aren't they helping the poor, the sick, the foreigner? The hypocrisy and double standards are exorbitant, rendering their misguided values mere "hobbies" or something they leverage only when it's convenient, suits their narratives, aligns with what they like/believe/prefer ... and think everyone else should be subject to these values. Yet if this is the land of "freedom" and "don't tread on me", then that's not how freedom works. The rich will just align/unite with/leverage christo-fascists, bigots, and the ignorant (as useful idiots and manpower/strength) to play dirty as a trick to ensure and keep their wealth.

It's as if we first create an unfair, inequitable system ... and then blame people for becoming homeless, mentally ill, addicted, or poor. Shaming them for existing. Are people accountable for their own choices, actions, behaviors and the subsequent outcomes/consequences? Sure. But there's no accountability or consequences for the rich.

It's true, homelessness is a blight on Portland (and cities across the country). But you're not going to cure it by pointing at it and complaining, crying "I feel unsafe!". Ok, well then what the hell are you doing about it? Who are you endorsing, what are you enabling, who are you voting for? The solution isn't cured by banning the homeless, restricting them, moving them ... or even scooping them up to work on farms or the military. That's some authoritarian nonsense. If you want to fix homelessness, then fix the inequitable and fucked up systems that create the mass disparity and illness in the first place. Not turn a blind eye to the corrupt systems you've enabled to persist with your inaction.

Maybe the homeless will rise up to eat the rich. I wonder who will bring the mustard?

Anything else?
 
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I think part of what we're seeing is the result of a policy shift that was never fully built out.

For decades, the American response to addiction, homelessness and related crime centered heavily on policing, prosecution and incarceration. Over time, we rightly recognized that addiction isn't cured by jail and homelessness isn't solved through arrest, so we moved toward a more treatment- and harm-reduction-oriented approach.

The problem is that we adopted much of the tolerance side of that model without building the infrastructure needed to support it. That being, enough detox and treatment capacity, psychiatric care, supportive housing, intensive case management, and in some cases a mechanism for mandatory intervention when someone is clearly incapable of functioning safely on their own.

At the same time, many communities became increasingly reluctant to enforce rules around public drug use, encampments and disruptive behavior because enforcement itself was viewed as punitive. Burlington, VT is a prime example of this.

So now we're stuck in the middle. We don't want to throw people in jail simply for being addicted, which is reasonable. But we also don't have an effective system for saying, "You cannot continue living this way on the sidewalk, and we're going to intervene until you're stable."

Compassion for people suffering from addiction and mental illness matters. But so does compassion for families, residents and businesses who are watching public spaces become less safe and usable. The answer shouldn't be a return to the War on Drugs, but it also shouldn't be normalizing destructive behavior. Treatment and harm reduction have to be paired with meaningful intervention, public-order enforcement and actual consequences for crime.
 
Dr. StrangeHat said:
I think part of what we're seeing is the result of a policy shift that was never fully built out.

For decades, the American response to addiction, homelessness and related crime centered heavily on policing, prosecution and incarceration. Over time, we rightly recognized that addiction isn't cured by jail and homelessness isn't solved through arrest, so we moved toward a more treatment- and harm-reduction-oriented approach.

The problem is that we adopted much of the tolerance side of that model without building the infrastructure needed to support it. That being, enough detox and treatment capacity, psychiatric care, supportive housing, intensive case management, and in some cases a mechanism for mandatory intervention when someone is clearly incapable of functioning safely on their own.

At the same time, many communities became increasingly reluctant to enforce rules around public drug use, encampments and disruptive behavior because enforcement itself was viewed as punitive. Burlington, VT is a prime example of this.

So now we're stuck in the middle. We don't want to throw people in jail simply for being addicted, which is reasonable. But we also don't have an effective system for saying, "You cannot continue living this way on the sidewalk, and we're going to intervene until you're stable."

Compassion for people suffering from addiction and mental illness matters. But so does compassion for families, residents and businesses who are watching public spaces become less safe and usable. The answer shouldn't be a return to the War on Drugs, but it also shouldn't be normalizing destructive behavior. Treatment and harm reduction have to be paired with meaningful intervention, public-order enforcement and actual consequences for cri
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The "War on Drugs" is futile and has proven doesn't work.

Policing, prosecution, and incarceration doesn't work.

Filling corporate prisons with "bodies" does nothing.

The "infrastructure" needed to support it - such as detox, treatment facilities, psychiatric care, transitional housing ... are reactionary systems created to treat the issues of addiction and homelessness after the fact.
Mandatory intervention (hospitalization) isn't much different than incarceration; and while can yield positive results ... the person needs to be integrated back into society, find jobs, and be lifted out of the poverty that caused their homelessness.

Compassion for families, residents, businesses ... sure ... it sucks to be faced with homeless people everywhere. They can be a source of unease, fear, concern, discomfort, disgust.
But we're also projecting a lot of bias and prejudice toward the homeless as well.

No one is trying to "normalize" their destructive behavior, choices, situations, and so on ...

People do more "blaming them" for their own situations, choices, laziness ... as if they did this on purpose ... and why don't they just get jobs?
Well ... many of them had a job, sometimes several jobs ... but the systemic poverty and lack of mental health resources failed them too ...

The best "intervention" for this situation ... is to end the government-created issue by mismanaging our tax dollars toward bullshit wars, tax breaks, and corporate welfare. If you want to end homelessness ... get the goddamn government to give a shit about equitable wages, raising the minimum wage, closing tax gaps, stop disappearing immigrants, losing money at the pentagon, millions for a ballroom, reflecting pool, trillions for war and bombs, border walls, zero money for failing infrastructure, education, science, forced child birth but screw you for childcare, and on and on and on ...

Doing something for the situation that exists is important ... the issue is getting to big and not sustainable. The programs created to treat homelessness, housing, mental healthcare are lovely and necessary. It's a redirection of our tax dollars to treat something the inequitable system caused in the first place.

But we need to change the cause if you want anything to change at all.
 
Interesting stuff on this week's City Council agenda. The city's "Social Housing Task Force" issued its final report with ideas to finance more middle-income housing using city tax-exempt bonding authority – which is an idea several other big cities have adopted.
https://portlandme.portal.civicclerk.com/event/9572/files/attachment/31762

The report includes a suggestion that public finance could chip in to help private developers meet their Inclusionary Housing requirements – an idea known as "publicly-funded inclusionary housing". I'd note that some of the larger-scale developments currently under construction in Portland, the Port Properties Bayside multi-phase development, is basically using public funding (the state low-income housing tax credit) to meet their inclusionary housing requirement.

"Social housing would operate alongside inclusionary zoning, LIHTC, PHA/PHDC development, private and nonprofit housing production, and other existing City housing programs. As the City evaluates these tools, it should consider which income levels are being served, how much housing is being produced, whether development remains feasible, and what long-term public value is retained. The creation of a social housing program should inform those evaluations, but should not by itself predetermine changes to inclusionary zoning or any other housing program..."
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