Why do I have to dig so far down into this thread before finding someone with an informed position based in actual history of cities? Everything else I'm seeing is coming from a standpoint that screams of a sheltered position separated from the realities of the city and a society that fails to provide a dignified existence for these people. I have seen no mention of the fact that america has the most homeless and undernourishment for any developed country, or three times as many empty homes as there are homeless. Or that we subsidize the lifestyle of these suburban dwellers by exhausting municipal budgets just repairing the sewer lines that serve neighborhoods that are 1/5th or less the density of the city. Just a long stream of "this looks bad, I don't like looking at it, we should just push the problem outward."
Portland is the only city in the country that is taking as aggressive an approach towards decriminalizing and formalizing encampments, and it shouldn't be surprising that it is experiencing visible failures this early on, or an indictment of those policies.
> Portland is the only city in the country that is taking as aggressive an approach towards decriminalizing and formalizing encampments
Who the hell wants "formalized encampments"?! We going to turn our cities into third-world-style shanty towns now like you can find on the outskirts of Nairobi?
If you really want to destroy a city, I can't think of a better way to do it than going down this path.
> Who the hell wants "formalized encampments"?! We going to turn our cities into third-world-style shanty towns now like you can find on the outskirts of Nairobi?
I mean, it sounds like what you have now is worse. If your city is going to have an underclass either way, a formal shanty town seems less bad than a homeless encampment.
Portland is the only city in the country that is taking as aggressive an approach towards decriminalizing and formalizing encampments, and it shouldn't be surprising that it is experiencing visible failures this early on, or an indictment of those policies.