What's Wrong with West Coast Cities?
A question for you readers: Why aren't blue places in the West doing as well as blue places in the East?
What’s wrong with West Coast cities?
More precisely, why aren’t Democratic cities in the West doing as well as Democratic cities in the East? Are West Coast cities less manageable? Is governance less effective on the West Coast? These are questions I’ve been pondering, and I’d welcome your thoughts.
Here in Oregon, we often focus on the struggles in Portland, where only 8 percent of voters say the city is headed in the right direction. Unsheltered homelessness is widespread, Portland’s murder rate last year was four times New York City’s, garbage frustrations are such that The Oregonian has labeled Portland “Dumptown,” and even Portland’s Congressman, my friend Earl Blumenauer, a longtime champion of the city, bluntly says, “Portland is broken.”
One glimpse of the crisis: This 82-year-old retired university professor, Donald Pierce, was just beaten to death while waiting at a bus stop near Portland State University. A 29-year-old man, apparently mentally ill with a long felony record, has been charged with making an unprovoked attack on Pierce and an 88-year-old companion, knocking them to the ground and punching and kicking them.
But it’s not just Portland. The frustrations in Portland parallel those in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
The five states with the highest rates of homelessness include the three West Coast states, along with two other blue states, Hawaii and New York. Some studies suggest that a majority of unsheltered homelessness in America is in the three West Coast states, which also suffer public safety problems and second-rate educational outcomes. And during the pandemic, the three West Coast states were quick to close school buildings and send kids home, a historic mistake that increased drop-out rates and will exacerbate racial and economic inequality for decades to come.
The Fox News interpretation is that the West Coast problem is Democrats. A new book by Michael Shellenberger (a former progressive), “San Fransicko,” offers a parallel interpretation; its subtitle is: “Why Progressives Ruin Cities.” I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s true that West Coast cities are not models of good governance, but simply blaming Democrats and leaving it at that doesn’t ring true to me, for Democratic cities in the East have much lower unsheltered homelessness, fewer open-air drug markets and manage to serve their people better. Blue states in the Northeast simply do better on outcomes.
While West Coast states falter on education – maybe the best metric for predicting where a society will be in 25 years – Massachusetts is arguably the state with the best K-12 education system in the country, and it has a strong Democratic majority as well as robust teacher unions. And East Coast leaders, led by then-Governor Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island, worked very hard to keep students in school even as West Coast states sent kids home to fall behind.
It also seems wrong to say flatly that Democrats can’t govern because, overall, blue states have a life expectancy almost three years longer than red states, higher high school graduation rates, lower poverty, and a household income that is 25 percent greater. Meanwhile, these gaps are now increasing. Democratic-run states are, overall, simply doing better for their people than Republican-run states.
So what’s wrong with the West Coast? There are lots of theories, including more purity and less pragmatism, less accountability, less public attention to politics, less business engagement, and dumber policies. President Obama recently suggested (correctly in my view) that some well-intentioned progressive policies have backfired and made housing problems worse. The Oregonian has likewise asked whether Portland initiatives meant to reduce homelessness are actually aggravating it.
The San Francisco School Board’s much scorned effort to allocate energy and resources to rename schools rather than actually get kids in school is an example of how the West Coast left sometimes substitutes virtue signaling for substance.
Here in Oregon, we saw something similar. This state has one of the worst high school graduation rates in the country. So what did legislators do to address educational needs? They ordered tampons and sanitary pads be placed in school restrooms, including boys bathrooms in elementary schools. The cost is $6 million, coming out of school funds meant to make sure kids learn to read and eventually graduate.
In fairness, the West Coast has done very well in some areas. California has led the way on developing smart gun safety policies, and as a result has unusually low gun mortality. Oregon has pioneered voting by mail and assisted suicide. All three West Coast states did a good job reducing Covid deaths.
I have my own theories about the policy failures in the West on homelessness, education and public safety (I think there are several inter-connected factors), and I’ve been thinking about them in the context of the book I’m working on, but for now I’d welcome your views. Do you agree with my thesis that blue cities in the West haven’t delivered for the public as well as blue cities in the Northeast? And if so, what are the main factors that you think explain the difference?
I've worked as primary care clinician in a "homeless clinic" in San Francisco for close to 30 years; a friend has worked in a similar clinic in Boston for the same length of time. Our jobs are not so different. I find it puzzling that people write essays & books trying to understand American homelessness without simultaneously analyzing American "billionaire-ness." It's all part of the same problem. Talking about the poor without simultaneously touching on the mega-rich & the hollowing of the middle class is like the blind man talking about the elephant's tail while ignoring its ears & tusks. Nick, you have lots of experience with side-by-side extreme wealth & extreme poverty in developing countries. I'd be more interested in your reflections on what you've seen there compared to what you're noticing here in the US, than in your commentary on the superficial differences in homelessness on east & west coasts.
It isn’t so difficult as it has been made out to be. When the cities on the West Coast decided to offer ever more services and to stop policing petty crime and drug crimes, the homeless population ballooned overwhelming those efforts. Yes, the climate is more moderate, but that isn’t the reason. The reason is well intentioned but ineffective solutions have backfired at the same time that cities like Seattle and Portland have seen their longtime leaders bow out and replaced by ideologues with few, if any practical solutions. Allowing park camping, wanton vandalism, petty theft and the drug trade to go on unabated is killing these cities.
It’s tragic because Portland and Seattle’s once had livability that was envied by tourists and cherished by locals. No more. Still possessed of much natural beauty, the once vibrant downtown in each place is very different today. Failure to favor the interests and concerns of the majority in misplaced notions of so called “compassion” only increased the numbers of, and misery and suffering of, the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted. Businesses have been done in by the burden of protecting themselves from crime, and cleaning up after the street denizens, and have thrown in the towel.
Effective leaders are scarce, and those who try are quickly labeled by every distasteful name in the extreme lexicon, jeered at, and pretty much run out of office. No wonder few put themselves forward.
Without better, more effective leaders, and more civic engagement by the citizens, nothing will change. It’s easier to blame “the rich”, or “the system” or “end stage capitalism” than it is to get involved in solutions and leadership.
That’s heartbreaking, because without the involvement of the people who complain about the conditions in the parks, or the petty crime in the neighborhoods, or the drug use and vandalism but do nothing else, nothing will change. But those people need a defined call to action, and something to coalesce around to be effective….and that takes leaders. Leaders with guts, determination, and the ability to communicate a clear set of desired actions.