Yes, Portland is both growing very fast (high rise condos are popping up everywhere) and descending into a hell hole (Google springwater corridor) at the same time.

Portland has established itself as a safe haven for homeless and down trodden folks due to it's mild weather, abundance of services, and general lack of enforcement. I've lived here under two mayor's and both have been horribly ineffective at tackling this issue. I'm not sure there is another downtown metro area as bad as Portland when it comes to homelessness.

Anecdotally, I worked in SOMA in SF for 2 years, and now I've been working downtown in Portland for a few months...while it seems there are significant problems here, it's definitely not comparable to the problems in SF in my opinion.

I think the issue here is Portland used to be a small-ish "big city" and now it's a medium-ish city and the growth has happened incredibly fast. For people on the ground, it feels like everything's spiraling out of control. Growing pains and the challenges the come with being a major American city that people want to move to (both middle-class and transient groups) are to some extent inevitable. But I'm optimistic that progress can and will be made.

(But I could easily be wrong. As I said, I've only lived here for a few months.)

I've only spent a little time in Portland but I wouldn't be surprised. I moved out of SF because I was fed up with the "Cloud Corridor" (aka Tenderloin) for the same problems -- public defecation, drug use, mentally unsound people wandering into the lobby, etc.

Oh it's terrible. There are no toilets. Even though open carry is legal there's crime everywhere. It's horrible. The suburbs are so much better. Lake Oswego is a nice place. None of those dirty anarchists or loud musicians or street thugs. Portland is what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum. It's awful. They'll steal your laptop, key your Tesla, spit in your latte, and defecate on your front lawn, if you can even find a house. Otherwise you'll be in a condo where 8 people in a rock band live next door, smoke pot all the time, and play loud guitars. And the weather is terrible. It's awful. Don't move there.