A great irony here is that historically hipper-than-thou, self-styled uber-progressive Portland can't seem to do much of anything about this situation better than any other city in a similar situation. And this applies to San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle, and on and on. Politicians full of "progressive" rhetoric and promises are fundamentally powerless against the implicit and explicit constraints of our fear and greed based culture. They may actually care more than those 'other' candidates, or just say they care more, but either way they really can't do much in practical terms. The adequately comfortable masses - including most self-styled 'progressives' - are too scared to put their adequate comfort on the same line where they claim their values are located.