Why Is There No Graffiti in Portland?

I moved to Portland, OR, a few months ago. Though I love it here, there’s one thing that confounds me: I’ve wandered the city, and seen no graffiti. Not on walls, not on the trains, not anywhere. There are corporate billboards that seem to be begging to be tagged, but no one does.

There are some seriously ugly murals, but they’ve been commissioned and painted legally.

I can’t think of another U.S. city that has such an absence of graffiti, and I can’t figure why.

Ed...