once wild

Let’s get real.  Portland doesn’t have a legit ghetto.  I live in NE, and, yeah, they found a decapitated head in my neighbor’s basement more than ten years ago…and, yeah, we had a drive by on my street almost twenty years ago…but gun shots in the distance once or twice a week, an abundance of prostitutes doing their thang, and some shootings do not a ghetto make.  Compare: in 2009, there were 19 homicides in all of Portland (with a projected 23 for 2012); in the 1st three months of 2012, Detroit had 98 homicides.  I’m not saying hurray for Portland and our great record (because how can anyone’s murder be considered a win?), only that violent crime is an issue all over the place, not just in the ghetto (& don’t get me started on how loaded that word is).