Earlier: Murder Has Quintupled In Portland
The United States was populated from east to west, so scenic western states long tended to be relatively underpopulated, considering their climates and resources, relative to colder and/or sweatier Eastern states, and fewer blacks. So, for Oregon to lose population, especially when its economy is pretty good, is striking.
From Willamette Week:
Oregon Population Declines for First time Since 1983, When Timber was Ailing
The dream of the ’90s is no longer alive in Portland, evidently.
By Anthony Effinger
December 24, 2022 at 7:18 am PSTOregon’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time since 1983, when the state’s timber industry was in recession and President Ronald Reagan campaigned at local sawmills, promising that the economy would rebound soon.
In the year ending July 1, 2022, Oregon’s population fell 0.4% to 4,240,137 from 4,256,301 on July 1, 2021, a decline that made the state the nation’s sixth-biggest loser after New York, Illinois, Louisiana, West Virginia and Hawaii, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Mississippi came in seventh.
Though the numeric decline was small—just 16,164 people—it’s a stark reversal for Oregon and its leaders, who for decades had the enviable problem of managing economic growth that came with rising population. …
Oregon was an outlier in a nation that resumed growth overall. The U.S. population rose by 1.3 million, or 0.4%, in the year ended July 1, as international immigration returned to more normal levels. The year before, the U.S. added just 376,029 people, an all-time low, the Census Bureau said yesterday.
In percentage terms, Florida was the biggest gainer this year. Its population rose 1.9% to 22.2 million from 21.8 million. Idaho was second at 1.8%. …
The new numbers come atop older, city-level ones that showed a decline for Portland. In May, the Census Bureau said the city’s population had fallen by 11,000, or 1.7%, to 641,000. Around the same time, a study of U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data showed that Portland was the 12th-least affordable major city in the nation, in large part because of housing costs.
Unlike the early 1980s, the last time Portland lost people, the state’s economy is strong now, suggesting that the decline has more to do with quality of life and cost of living than with jobs. …
Let’s see: meth, homeless, Antifa riots, free medical mutilations for transgenders attracting them from across the country, black murders exploding in Portland, etc.
Reagan won the 1984 election in a landslide, beating Democrat Walter Mondale. Reagan won Oregon by 12 percentage points. No Republican presidential candidate has won Oregon since then.
