Portland’s rise: A city rebuilding through public-private partnership

#WarRavagedPortland has become a love letter to a city that’s been quietly but determinedly rebuilding itself through pragmatic collaboration and doing it in our own way.

By Andrew Hoan

When President Trump declared that Portlanders are “living in hell,” residents responded with an avalanche of photos showing people biking along tree-lined streets, farmers markets overflowing with local produce, and packed restaurants serving award-winning cuisine. The hashtag #WarRavagedPortland has become a love letter to a city that’s been quietly but determinedly rebuilding itself through pragmatic collaboration and doing it in our own way.

One hundred seventy-five Oregon-based organizations—from business, labor, religious, academic, and community sectors— alongside our elected leaders including the governor, district attorney, mayor, and attorney general have all united to tell the administration: We don’t need a troop deployment because it would do more harm than good.

Like cities across America, Portland faced significant challenges during and after the pandemic. The business community has never hesitated to speak to our city’s issues and initiate hard conversations with local leaders. We are clear-eyed about the obstacles we still face, which is why we can say without hesitation that Portland is not a “war-ravaged” city or in chaos. After coming to terms with how we could improve in the aftermath of the pandemic, our local leaders, law enforcement, prosecutors, and business community collaborated closely on pragmatic solutions.

Those solutions are working—and the data reveals a recovery that we cannot afford to disrupt. Homicides dropped 51% in the first half of 2025—the largest reduction among major American cities. Gun violence has fallen 30% from last year, and homicides nearly 60% since 2022. Last year, car thefts dropped to 2015 levels. More than 21 million pedestrians visited downtown through August, making summer 2025 the busiest for foot traffic since before the pandemic. LinkedIn just ranked Portland among its top 25 “Cities on the Rise 2025,” recognizing the metro as one of the fastest-growing areas for jobs and new talent.

Recovery Through Community

Collaboration between the business community and local and state governments has driven real progress—from tax reform to new enterprise zones and innovative incentives designed to attract talent and investment to our urban core. Entrepreneurship has surged, with the past few years seeing an influx of diverse businesses that are bringing vibrancy to our city.

For example, Gregory Gourdet’s Haitian-inspired restaurant Kann earned numerous accolades while helping to redefine Portland’s culinary scene. The PDX Pop-Ups business startup program supports entrepreneurs with establishing new brick-and-mortar storefronts, like queer-owned coffee and ice cream shop Sinister Coffee and Creamery. The Sports Bra, one of the nation’s first bar dedicated to women’s sports, is now franchising across the country.

Portland is also executing transformative infrastructure projects that position us for decades of growth. Our $2 billion renovation of the PDX airport impresses international visitors with its groundbreaking seismic and mass-timber technology. This feat contributed to the development of the first mass-timber manufacturing facility in the nation. Albina Vision Trust is spearheading one of the nation’s largest urban renewal projects, rebuilding 94 acres of the historically Black Lower Albina neighborhood that was divided by the construction of Interstate 5. When completed, the project will facilitate the return of more than 3,000 displaced people to the central city.

Major cultural and entertainment investments are further cementing Portland’s resurgence. A new WNBA team launches in Portland in 2026. Live Nation and AEG are building major concert venues. The James Beard Public Market opens in 2026. And the Portland Art Museum is undertaking an $111 million expansion.

Portland’s recovery hasn’t been about returning to what was but building a better foundation for sustainable growth. This progress is precisely what’s at stake with threatened federal intervention. Deploying troops is bad for business—in Washington, D.C., restaurants saw sales plummet following National Guard deployment. An armed military presence dissuades customers, reduces tourism, and impacts small businesses, all of which are vital to our economy.

Real Challenges Require Real Solutions

Though we’ve seen progress, we aren’t claiming perfection.

Our city still faces real challenges: Downtown office vacancy rates remain high, commercial buildings need tenants, and taxes need reform. Property crimes, while declining, remain concerning for our businesses and residents alike. And we will never be satisfied until we have ended the unsheltered crisis. Yet these are precisely the kinds of complex urban challenges that require nuanced policy solutions—not force.

Our locally led approach has delivered progress, which is why even signatories who sometimes don’t see eye to eye on policy solutions have united against federal intervention—we all believe Portland’s solutions should come from Portland. Despite our differences, we all signed onto our open letter to support local law enforcement and local governance.

I call on all Portlanders, all Oregonians, and all Americans to remember the principles of local governance, diversity in perspective, and disagreeing—agreeably. Let’s remember our better angels and celebrate each other’s successes, not denigrate each other’s communities. Let’s debate the policy, not the ideology. We should express ourselves peacefully, not violently.

Earnestness, community collaboration, and peaceful civic engagement are what brought Portland back from our hardest days. That unity is what will propel our city into a brighter future. It makes our democracy resilient and worth defending—and it will carry us through whatever comes next. We invite you to the city that we love and call home. We’ll welcome you to see for yourself the roses and the thorns.

Andrew Hoan is president and CEO of the Portland Metro Chamber, an affiliate of the Portland Business Alliance.

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