America’s coolest neighborhood revealed to be in West Coast city struggling with crime, homelessness and now job cuts
America’s coolest neighborhood is in Portland, Oregon, despite the city being notorious for its problems with crime and homelessness.
Time-outa website that helps tourists figure out what to eat and do during their travels has ranked the top 38 coolest parts of major cities around the world.
Kerns, an artsy community in downtown Portland, ranked No. 5 on a list of neighborhoods in Marseille, France; Bali, Indonesia; Seoul, South Korea; and many other cities.
Alice Wolf, a local writer based in Portland, said: “Kerns may be one of the big cities on the West Coast, but it feels like a perfectly formed small town.
‘It is surrounded by residential streets filled with some of the city’s most charming half-timbered houses, Spanish-style apartments, flower-filled gardens and fruit trees.’
Kerns, a neighborhood in Portland (pictured), was ranked as the coolest American neighborhood
Pictured: German restaurant Stammtisch, on Northeast 28th Avenue in Kerns
Cowbell Creamery is a specialty cheese shop on the other side of town, next to Stammtisch
The locals of Kerns often get their fresh produce from Providore Fine Foods (photo)
She goes on to explain that Northeast 28th Avenue, the main walkable thoroughfare, is lined with quaint one- to two-story brick buildings.
If you’re ever in this part of Portland, Wolf recommends having a beer at Stammtisch German restaurant, watching a movie at the Laurelhurst Theater or taking a stroll through Laurelhurst Park.
For coffee lovers, a caffeine boost can be found at Heart Coffee. Those with a taste for specialty cheeses will be well served with a visit to Cowbell Creamery.
A good lunch choice is the Vietnamese restaurant Friendship Kitchen, while a nice, upscale dinner option can be Farag’s, which doubles as a wine bar.
This undeniably charming little neighborhood remains in a struggling city.
Portland saw a sharp increase in crime in 2020 as the city took steps to dismantle the police following protests over the killing of George Floyd.
The City Council voted to approve $15 million in cuts to the police department, cutting 84 sworn staff positions.
Portland would later repay the police department after a 2020 attempt to divert funds from the department led to unwanted results. Above, officers confront protesters at an ICE facility in Portland in May
A graph shows that Portland’s homicide rate has risen since the city cut police budgets in 2020
Portland’s homicide rate then exploded from 36 in 2019 to 85 last year, following a record 97 homicides in 2022, according to data from the Portland Police Bureau.
A December 2023 survey commissioned by the Portland Police Union found that 56 percent of residents would move if they could afford to.
Another 87 percent were dissatisfied with the state of public safety.
As a result of the backlash, Portland reinstated police funding in 2021 and has only seen a drop in crime in the data relatively recently.
Portland is also plagued by a serious homelessness crisis, which has led to a dramatic rise in tensions between locals and people living in encampments.
The problem has become so serious that city officials created it a homeless tracker that catalogs every report of an illegal outdoor campsite.
In the past year, excluding duplicate reports, 45,000 cases of encampments have surfaced.
In August alone, the city evacuated 746 of them.
Homeless camps in Old Town Portland on May 14, 2020
However, it appears that city officials may have responded too late to these major problems, as employers in the area are in the midst of a job-cutting frenzy.
Even the Kerns neighborhood is not immune to homeless encampments, although there appear to be far fewer of them than other parts of the city.
However, it appears that city officials may have responded too late to these major problems, as employers in the area are in the midst of a job loss frenzy.
Nonfarm employment in Portland fell 0.8 percent over the past year — the steepest decline among the top 50 U.S. cities, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Intel, the region’s largest private employer, has announced plans to cut as much as 15 percent of its workforce, potentially hurting thousands of local jobs.
Nike, another major Portland company, has already reduced its workforce by 5 percent in the past year.
Public data shows that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 downtown businesses have filed address changes with the U.S. Postal Service to leave their downtown zip codes.
Several major employers, such as Umpqua Bank, were among the mass exodus, carried out by owners who objected to rising crime rates and homelessness – and the city’s inability to address it.