"But some Portlanders came to see the demonstrations as a threat to the city’s appeal to tourists and investors."

"'Lenders and purchasers have for all intents and purposes blacklisted Portland,' said John Russell, a longtime Portland real estate developer. Dramatic clashes between protesters and law enforcement provided the opportunity for right-wing politicians and media to depict the city as besieged by violent anarchists and, as Donald Trump claimed, 'ablaze all the time.'... Far-right groups had turned the city into a culture war battleground.... 'I just have no sympathy for people who speak with visceral disgust about the city. It’s human people who are really struggling, and you haven’t even actually seen them,' said Lisa Bates, associate professor of urban studies at Portland State University, which is located downtown.... There has been genuine debate among Black organizers and community leaders about protest tactics and the extent to which activists with an antiestablishment agenda and a penchant for property destruction undermined a more focused racial justice movement.... 'The conversation about the city’s major issues is, in my view, reprehensibly putting the blame on poor people, Black people, and allies of Black civil rights for essentially every ill that’s happening in the city right now,' Bates continued. The result is a narrative that insists 'the only way we can save us is more cops; get out of the way of my development; juice at the top so high-income tourists come back.' To acknowledge that Portland’s greatest challenges have little to do with anarchists would mean having a more difficult conversation about the city’s future. It would mean asking, 'Who is this city for?'"

 
From "The Past 2 Years Have Left Portland Reeling. What Kind of Recovery Comes Next?/Will efforts to rehabilitate Portland’s brand eclipse the tentative steps taken toward real reform?" by Zoë Carpenter (The Nation).