Portlands downtown is bad news. Its like an economic dirty bomb went off. The east side of the city and urban NW are thriving tho. Ppl are returning to the office but now their office might be in the suburbs. Were going to end up with a rustbelt downtown but all the other fun Oregon stuff people like is doing fine. WFH killed the cbd, the women running the county homeless bureau passed out 25,000 tents to transients with public money and Oregon voters chose to legalize hard drugs. The results are obvious.
Even with all that crap policy, wfh is the biggest elephant in the room. Highly unionized employees in multiple sectors are refusing to return to the office and some companies simply closed up shop or left the cbd. That being said, there is still a palpable energy. Normal Portlanders seem a little edgier than usual but most people are still friendly.