The coolest neighborhood in America is located in Portland, Oregon, despite the city being infamous for having problems with crime and homelessness.
TimeOut, a website that helps tourists figure out what to eat and do during their travels, ranked the top 38 coolest parts of major cities around the world.
Kerns, an artsy community in central Portland, ranked number 5 on a list that included neighborhoods in Marseille, France; Bali, Indonesia; Seoul, South Korea; and many other cities.
Alice Wolf, a local writer based in Portland, had this to say: ‘Kerns might belong to one of the West Coast’s major cities, but it feels like a perfectly-formed small town.
‘It’s surrounded by residential streets filled with some of the city’s most charming craftsman homes, Spanish-style apartments, flower-filled gardens and fruiting trees.’
She goes on to explain that Northeast 28th Avenue, the main walkable thoroughfare, is dotted with quaint one- to two-story brick buildings.
If you ever find yourself in this area of Portland, Wolf recommends grabbing a beer at German restaurant Stammtisch, catching a movie at Laurelhurst Theater, or taking a stroll through Laurelhurst Park.
For coffee lovers, a caffeine boost can be found at Heart Coffee. Those with a love for specialty cheeses might be well served with a visit to Cowbell Creamery.
A good lunch choice is Vietnamese restaurant Friendship kitchen, while a nice, upscale dinner option could be had Farag’s, which doubles as a wine bar.
This undeniably charming little quarter still finds itself in a city that’s struggling.
Portland experienced a sharp rise in crime in 2020 when the city took steps to defund the police following protests over George Floyd’s murder.
The city council voted to approve $15 million in reductions to the police bureau and 84 sworn staff positions were cut.
Portland’s homicide rate then exploded from 36 in 2019 to 85 last year, which followed a record 97 homicides in 2022, according to Portland Police Bureau data.
A December 2023 poll commissioned by the Portland Police Union revealed that 56 percent of residents would move out if they could afford to.
A further 87 percent were dissatisfied with the state of public safety.
Due to the backlash, Portland reinstated police funding in 2021 and has only seen drops in crime show up in the data relatively recently.
Portland is also wracked with a severe homelessness crisis, which has led to a dramatic rise in tensions between the locals and people living in encampments.
The problem has gotten so serious that city officials created a homeless tracker that catalogues every single report of an illegal outdoor campsite.
Over the last year, discounting duplicate reports, there have been 45,000 instances of encampments popping up.
The city cleared 746 of them in August alone.
Even the Kerns neighborhood isn’t immune from homeless encampments, though it appears to have far less than other parts of the city.
It appears city officials may have responded to these major issues too late though, as employers in the area are in the midst of a job-cutting frenzy.
Non-farm employment in Portland plummeted by 0.8 percent over the past year – the steepest decline among America’s top 50 cities, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Intel, the area’s largest private employer, announced plans to slash a staggering 15 percent of its workforce – potentially affecting thousands of local jobs.
Nike, another major company in Portland, has already cut its workforce by 5 percent in the past year.
Public data shows that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 downtown businesses have filed changes of address with the US Postal Service to leave their downtown ZIP codes.
Several big-name employers, such Umpqua Bank, have been among the mass exodus, carried out by owners who have taken issue with the rising crime levels and homelessness – and the city’s failure to address it.