[noduerme]

Portland, Oregon here. For a few years now if I'm out in the suburbs or conservative exurbs and tell people I live in the city, I hear, "sorry for you. Portland's a shithole." That view went national over the summer of 2020, with a lot of help from Fox news. (The president declaring our city an anarchy zone and sending in unmarked humvees with DC plates to black bag protesters didn't help). And yet it's an incredibly livable, fun, interesting town. Outside perception rarely matches the reality.

[cafard]

Resident of Washington, DC, here. When we moved into the city, a friend of my father's--both men had lived in DC in the 1950s--resident in Arlington said dire things. Now, parts of Arlington are great, and in other parts of Arlington gangs were going after each other with machetes. I cannot say that my part of DC is as safe as I'd like, but a lot of suburbanites--including some who could throw a football across the city line--have a pretty lurid picture.

[couchridr]

New idea for a t-shirt. “Baltimore: Trump hates it.”

[noduerme]

From Trump's POV, Baltimore is a flyover city.

My grandparents came from Baltimore and I spent some time there with cousins. My grandpa owned a bar in West Baltimore during segregation. He was Russian. Lot of stories there. It seems like a cool town. It's definitely got a depressing, kinda inward vibe about it. I should probably go back and hang out again, but most of my family has moved away now.