None of the people elected at the local level have any interest in making the city better for everyone. They have their coalition that is large enough to ensure their continued re-election and their terms are served by parceling out sufficient benefits to said coalition partners to guarantee their ongoing support.

They now act bewildered that, like Portland, their downtown is dead and shows no sign of improvement in the near term. As the tax base continues to collapse and more pressure is put on existing homeowners/residents, it’ll be interesting to see how the resulting cost of living crisis impacts these coalitions. I suspect things get far, far worse before they get any better.