One day after President Donald Trump infamously blurted out that living in Portland is, “like living in hell,” we got yet another sign living here is anything but.
Calling it “downtown’s strongest year since the pandemic,” Downtown Clean & Safe reports that there have been six straight months of foot traffic increases. “From bustling Saturday crowds to record-breaking events, 2025 shows what happens when Portland’s cultural energy meets sustained community investment,” reads their latest report on the state of walking in the 213-block Clean & Safe district.
The district, which runs roughly from SW Harrison to the Broadway Bridge and from Naito Parkway to SW 11th, saw a growth in the number of people walking for the six months between March and August of this year. That’s an accomplishment that never happened last year. According to their annual counts, there were 21.45 million total pedestrians in the district between January and August of 2025 — an increase of 5.6% over the same period last year.
Clean & Safe is a nonprofit “enhanced service district” and offshoot of the Portland Metro Chamber that’s funded by annual fees from downtown business and property owners. They use Placer.ai data to monitor downtown foot traffic 24-hours a day across the entire 213-block area. That data found that the three intersections below has the highest volume of foot traffic in the month of June:
- SW 10th & Burnside (Powell’s Books / Pearl District / West End gateway). June 2025: 1.2 M crossings (steady compared to 2024)
- SW Park & Burnside (Cart Blocks food pod & North Park Blocks gateway). June 2025: 805,0000 crossings (down from 864K June 2024 but consistent with long-term averages).
- SW 4th & Yamhill (Pioneer Place retail hub). June 2025: 1.1 M crossings (30% increase over last year)
Clean & Safe says “cultural and retail anchors” are the reason for the positive foot traffic numbers. They also point to high-profile events and programming that’s drawing more people downtown. Even Old Town is showing signs of growth. Foot traffic at NW Couch and 5th for the month of June were up 39% over last year.
Relative to pre-COVID numbers, the Clean & Safe district is at about 70% of visitor volumes. One ominous cloud that looms over this report is employee visits to downtown, which remain at just 50% of 2019 levels — well below the national average of around 73%. “The gap in office worker return remains a critical challenge, keeping weekday activity below that of peer cities,” reads the report.
To keep the momentum going, the City of Portland has recently nabbed a tourism grant to invest in a pedestrian signage and wayfinding pilot project.
These numbers mirror transit ridership in the Portland region. The latest numbers summarized by Metro show that in July there were 6.5 million transit rides in the region — over 4% more than last year at this time and about 70% of the ridership we had before Covid.
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Something is weird in the total foot traffic for 2019. Eyeballing it, it shows ~10 million employees and ~19 million visitors, but it has a total of ~42 million.
“*Pedestrians includes visitors, employees and residents. These are not unique visitors but cumulative totals”
Fine, but there were ~14 million resident pedestrians in 2019 and only ~2.5 million in 2025? Something isn’t adding up there.
I was just side-eyeing that too. It says “Pedestrians includes visitors, employees and residents,” but there are only individual plots for the first two. So presumably the gap is residents. But what I don’t understand is why it appears there were ~15m resident pedestrians in 2019, and less than 2m in 2025 (and virtually none in 2020 and 2021). As someone who lives downtown, I can tell you that vacancy rates are extremely low (as they are throughout the city), which is what you would expect given our housing crunch. Are downtown residents no longer leaving the home on foot? Given how much it costs to park downtown—and anecdotally how people often afford living downtown by NOT driving—I find that hard to square.
The chart if wrong. If you look at the source data, it clearly shouldn’t be 42 million total.
https://downtownportland.org/research-reports/downtown-recovery-tracker/
I work in Old Town, and 5% more, lets see, if I normally see 20 people on the street on my way home, that’s 1 additional person. Wow! Oh man, call Portland recovered and be done with it!
Funny how pats on the back all around when it is still way below the levels before Covid and the destroying of downtown by the rioters and the abject failure of our elected officials to get people into first temporary housing, then triaged out into more permanent facilities once their needs are determined and met.
I still see tons of campers on the sidewalks, maybe there’s additional campers downtown to account for some of those numbers.
Sorry, I know some of the City of Portland staff (primarily managers) who are touting all these great numbers, but the line staff know better.
Yeah, ooohhhh ahhhhh.
It could also be people have accepted this as a new norm and their tolerances have adjusted
And if you really love Portland, you’re only making it worse by listening to these reports and think all is well and there is nothing left to do. Portland STILL needs a major reset.
I’ll bite. Despite my upbeat comments yesterday, I am among those who believe Old Town-Chinatown still needs a lot of attention. On September 8, when I walked through the Central Eastside District and then Old Town-Chinatown, I saw many new encampments and some troubling behavior. Having lunch in the lobby at The Society Hotel gave me a front-row seat on NW 3rd Avenue.
That said, since September 8, I have been trying to promote the “No Vacancy Windows Gallery Art Walk” in Old Town-Chinatown to encourage people to visit the area on foot. Interestingly, when I passed out flyers at Sunday Parkways Downtown, many people seemed unaware of the project, so please help spread the word.
An organization funded by the city used a data broker that illegally collects and sells people’s location data:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/location-data-broker-placer-admits-accessed-planned-parenthood-data/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/location-data-firm-heat-maps-planned-parenthood-abortion-clinics-placer-ai/
https://www.techpolicy.press/data-brokers-police-and-the-criminalization-of-abortion/
And you’d be amazed how much bureaus are paying for placer.ai services. One of my contacts in just one bureau say they’ll be spending upwards of $50,000 to track the visitors around various areas, primarily downtown, in Portland
So there’s a few more people wandering around Powell’s and the footy food carts are doing alright — and now we’re meant to believe downtown’s back? Give us a break.
Foot traffic’s still 30% down, office workers are MIA, and transit’s limping along at 70%. But hey, chuck a bongo drum in the park and suddenly it’s the bloody golden age?
Old Town foot traffic’s “up 39%”? From what — three blokes and a lost tourist to five and a dog on a lead?
This isn’t a comeback — it’s a clever PR job dressed up in civic boosterism and progressive oat milk optimism. We’re calling it a win because it’s not quite as cooked as it was last year.
If Portland’s “back,” then so is my uncle’s 1993 Commodore — still rattling, still unreliable, and still stalling at every red light.
Let’s be honest: it’s progress — not a parade
Exactly! And if the report and the article were more objective, they would have included some of those statistics that you noted!
And if the report were honest, it would have included comments like, say, “The gap in office worker return remains a critical challenge, keeping weekday activity below that of peer cities,” ! And Jonathan wouldn’t have censored those kind of cautionary statements out of his article!
And instead of a headline like, “DOWNTOWN’S BACK!! IT’S THE GOLDEN AGE!!!” there article would have had a more objective one–something factual like “Foot traffic downtown up 5.6% over last year”.
“Let’s be honest: it’s progress — not a parade”
Yeah that’s obvious. Rest of rant can be disregarded.
Office workers aren’t coming back (fingers crossed), so the fact that it’s progress dispells the entire “doom loop” trope people are trying to push.
Do you just willingly accept failure and mediocrity?
Some slight progress is OK?
Apparently you never leave this city because European cities are just packed and busier than ever.
You can drive or take the train 180 miles north to Seattle which is as bustling as it was in 2019.
This city with our new completely inept council is barely keeping above water.
Tax revenues are way down so Doom loop talk is not a trope.
The entire state budget is a mess but you will always shoot the messenger because your life is going swell apparently.
How does a 5% increase that leaves up more than 35% down since 2019 dispel the theory of a doom loop? You do know how much worse these numbers are compared to Seattle, San Francisco, and LA?
The Left, Progressives and socialists in Portland are the BIGGEST defenders of the status quo in this city.
There seems to be very little they find wrong about how this city is run.
It’s all hunky dory.
Yeah…the left that demands tenant legal representation, strong rent control, a large increase in mandatory relocation assistance, right-to-tenure/just cause, strict laws that protect tenants from landlord harassment, and tenant/coop/nonprofit right to purchase “are the BIGGEST defenders of the status quo in this city”. /s
Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between older “liberals” and republicans.
The “left” in Portland do nothing on your list.
There are 3 Socialists on this council who do none of what you suggest.
They go on Old school junkets to Europe.
I was referring to the “left” in Portland, not your personal views of what you think they should support. They Don’t.
Where are these leftists that are supporting the status quo? I have yet to meet a single one of them, which is weird, since I really only run in leftist circles.
Give me ONE example of the new city council proposing anything that is not the STATUS QUO?
Nothing is changing in this city.
Well said, I agree.
Okay, I guess I’ll be the (cautiously) optimistic person? The “dying patient” metaphor isn’t entirely inappropriate: we’d like to see better, but the trend continues upward. Hopefully this distribution of traffic is throughout the day, because that is just as important.
Hmm. Up 6% year over year, still down 50% from 2019. Compare that to San Francisco, LA, Seattle, who have all essentially seen more or less a return to 2019 levels. It’s a fucking joke.
The charts wrong. 2019 wasn’t 42 million. It was 29. Were way closer to 2019 than this depicts.
Look at the source data: https://downtownportland.org/research-reports/downtown-recovery-tracker/
Several of these comments is wild to me. Just fully reacting to a story that doesn’t exist. Nowhere in the above does it say anything about Portland being “back” or calling “Portland recovered and [being] done with it,” or “all is well.” Just using a fairly anodyne report about levels of foot traffic to go off on how much downtown still sucks for vibes, I guess?
Soren’s really excellent point about the source notwithstanding, do you think that city groups shouldn’t report data? What would satisfy you? They recognize “critical challenges.” Should they say that foot traffic is up significantly from last year but it’s still just AWFUL there? This is a group that wants to boost visitors to downtown, of course they’re going to have a slightly positive spin on what is, unambiguously good news. No one is standing in front of a “mission accomplished” banner here. Get a grip, come hang out downtown sometime, it’s really nice.
Agreed, and I think it’s important to show data. We hear plenty of opinions that things are bad and concerns of a death loop and no one going downtown. So it seems ok to show, actually it’s trending up. Maybe not quickly and there is a long way to go, but it’s not staying flat or doing down. That’s good news.
Some people simply can’t pass up an opportunity to broadcast their point of view, even if it means imagining people and articles to argue with and expecting us to understand their alternate reality.
What?!?! Come downtown and risk actually viewing a poor person with my eyes?? How DARE you! That would traumatize my kids! /s
Seriously the amount of pearl-clutching is a bit much. Yeah, the city has problems, but from the BP comment section some days you’d think the city was a war zone.
Well, according to The Great Orange One, as a nominally left-leaning city, it must be actively burning down, so….
Seriously. This is such a “meh” bit of news, and instead of receiving it accordingly, a few people are acting as if it’s some glowing puff-piece on how vibrant Portland is as a cover for Democratic incompetence.
Conservatives always seem to want the world to be a more dramatic and worse place, perhaps so they can complain about everything and everyone they don’t like more loudly.
Apparently, you haven’t talked to people who work in Old Town all night, not just during 9 A – 5 P. They would most certainly call it a war zone.
Oh I get it, there’s a large number of narcists in Portland that are happy with the status quo so that they can observe people suffering on the streets. Afterall, that’s the modus operandi of narcists, watching others suffer.
No, I’m clutching my pearls not that there are people living on the streets, but that after 15 years of a declared housing emergency and $100s of millions (might be billions by now) that our city and county have completely failed to provide the most basic, temporary beds for at least 20,000 people. That’s what we should be appalled at. Getting people off the streets, with a roof over their heads (if even temporary), and a meal in their bellies would be just the 1st step in a multi-step process to getting them the assistance they need.
So, for the city to come out with these “look how great it is” when we can just walk around downtown (and the rest of the city) and see with our own eyes, that no, it isn’t all that great and that the city and county think we are naive that trying to force people to go downtown to work is going to solve all the issues. All it’ll do is help the already wealthy property owners from having to step up and come up with new ways to make money instead of continuing to rely on the tax payers to bail them out.
Urban Alchemy has done a great deal to help people off the street with temp. Housing. It is quite difficult for severely mental residents to comply with much, staying fed is hard enough. We need a lot more services still but there has been a lot of progress since 2020. Tax dollars aren’t enough at this point I feel. We need more smiles greeting and helping the needy imo.
“So, for the city to come out with these “look how great it is””
Sounds like maybe you read a different article maybe? That doesn’t seem to be what this one says. This one is about a modest improvement in order to factually counter the “things are getting worse” lie.
Thanks, Josh. I agree. I spend a lot of time walking through all parts of downtown. Just yesterday, I was at PSU for the entire day attending the event below. The excerpt comes from the description of a photo album I just published.
2025 AARP Age-Friendly Oregon Summit
Yesterday I attended the 2025 Age-Friendly Oregon Summit, which was held at Portland State University. The turnout was impressive; I overheard that about 400 people were there. The speakers, panel sessions, and workshops were all informative.
It was good to reconnect with several AARP members I first met while volunteering as a photographer for the 2019 AARP Oregon Neighbor Walks program.
Ref: https://www.flickr.com/photos/memcclure/albums/72177720306097171/
I also enjoyed meeting new people in the two workshops I joined:
1. The Road Less Traveled: Transportation Choices Now and in the Future
Connecting life experiences with a discussion of policies and technologies shaping our transportation future.
2. Walk Portland Discover Downtown
Exploring downtown amenities, including a new pedestrian wayfinding route.
Interesting. Based on my bicycle rides to and through downtown and Old Town, I would have estimated that foot traffic was much closer to fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels than 50% and 70% respectively. Maybe my memory of six years ago has faded a bit. Or my sample size is too small. Anyway, sounds like an improvement!
Take a look at Seattle, San Francisco, and LA. All have returned to 2019 levels more or less. Portland’s recovery is so far behind, it is really hard to spin this as a positive. up 6% year over year, still down 50% from 2019. That’s crazy, and it takes a special kind of person to find any positive in this.
Up 6% from last year, still down almost 50% from 2019. Not sure how this can be spun as a win. Seems like a pretty slow recovery compares to other cities.
Remote work is another identity politics minefield. You’ll get funny looks if you say you actually like working downtown. Yet we’re all supposed to be rooting for the revival of downtown and a return to the Good Old Days?
People, listen up: you can’t have it both ways. We’re going to need to fill them with workers if you want stuff to go back to the way it was.
Now I know half of you are going to shout, “We don’t want to to back! Let it crumble!” etc. Trust me, I don’t think you really want that future. It won’t be a fun one.
The other half of you will shout “Turn them into low income apartments!” Sorry, but it doesn’t pencil out, no matter how many sightline dot org tweets you’ve huffed this week. Massive redevelopment is not coming to those skyscrapers. Portland is a middling small city that simply lacks the skills and funding (read: industrial capital) needed to finance such follies.
I do wish that we’d elected some adults last time around.
Do you really think people are in only those two camps? I don’t know anyone personally who’d fall into either.
Hows foot traffic in other parts of the city? Is it up comparativley? Why such a focus on downtown when we have so many great neighborhood urban areas with a lot to do?
Because as a society we’ve been fed the false narrative that “downtowns” are the only thing that matters in a city. And who feeds us those false narratives, yes you guessed it, the rich property owners of downtown real estate.
It is completely ridiculous that we, Portland tax payers, continue to prop up wealthy property owners at the expense of other areas of town. City government offices should be spread throughout the city, county offices throughout the county. Afterall they are supposed to serve the many (us taxpayers) and not the few (wealthy property owners).
I’m afraid you have it backwards. Even as depressed as downtown is right now, it makes vastly more tax revenue per acre than anywhere else. Our neighborhoods are great places, but the density and property tax is often so low that residents don’t pay for all the public infrastructure they use. Downtown is subsidizing the rest of us.
I agree that commercial use should be more viable elsewhere in the city (as should increased housing density), but it’s not some evil conspiracy to have a central business district. It’s much more efficient to organize a transportation system around a central, job-dense place than spreading everything out evenly.
I work downtown in the office four days a week. (closer to the PSU side)
I enjoy heading to the city core for the occasional lunch or to visit a couple of my favorite stores. Besides work, I don’t go downtown much. My reason for not spending more time downtown is not because of the homeless or other social ills. It is because my neighborhood (FOPO) is finally awesome—fantastic food, killer bars, fun shops, and three grocery stores within easy walking distance. I am lucky enough to live where I can walk to most places, and I like being a homebody. Portland and the world have changed, so downtown needs to get creative and offer what I can’t get at home.