The most recent issue of the Washington Examiner had an article entitled “Blue City Blues” that is simply too good to pass up.
Everyone knows that cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco struggle with crime, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and drug abuse, none of which is good for business, hence property values.
However, what is less discussed is that smaller, progressively governed cities like Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Portland Oregon all suffer from the same problems but with much less by way of resources to fight back.
Baltimore suffers from a culture of corruption from the top down that has seen then Mayor Sheila Dixon convicted of embezzlement; then Mayor Catherine Pugh pleading guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy charges; and in 2024 Former State’s Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby being convicted of perjury.
With Baltimore’s elected Democratic leaders providing precedent, corruption and malfeasance have trickled down into most areas of public life, crippling service delivery and driving out business.
The public school system has been particularly hard hit, with its test scores ranking among the nation’s lowest.
Denver, following in the wake of Oregon with its legalization of marijuana, decriminalization of hard drugs, and failure to enforce bans on camping in public areas, has become a homeless dumping ground.
Colorado’s homeless population has grown by 90% since 2020, “with Denver seeing a 74% surge over that same time frame.” (Washington Examiner 10/22/2025)
Detroit’s corruption beggars the imagination, resulting in the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, under former Mayor Kwane Kilpatrick. Personally, he was convicted on 29 counts of extortion, bribery, mail fraud, and racketeering.
Even after emerging from bankruptcy in 2014, the city still has a long way to go.
Minneapolis and its ‘soft on crime’ policies were already in place well before the violence and rioting that accompanied George Floyd’s death. Since then, both violent crime and property crimes have spiked dramatically. The formerly orderly city is now anything but.
Finally, we arrive at urban decay the Portland way.
Generations of Portland politicians having spent heavily on combating climate change, income inequality, clean energy, and preschool for all, are now coming up short on money to support basic infrastructure.
Roads are crumbling, with a recent audit by the Portland Bureau of Transportation finding 64% of all streets and 56% of highly used streets in poor or very poor condition.
A separate report found that the city faces a $4.4 billion backlog in street maintenance alone.
Former City Commission Steve Novick said, “we’ll have to talk about which streets are going back to gravel.”
Other city owned infrastructure including bridges, parks, streetlights, water and sewer systems are also in poor or very poor condition.
Portland’s crime and homelessness problems are well known and much publicized. However, Portland’s current Mayor Keith Wilson has publicly stated “the roads and bridges, and bike routes we depend upon are crumbling. With hundreds of millions in deferred maintenance, an antiquated funding model, skyrocketing construction costs, mismanagement, and congestion, we’ve lost critical time on the ground.”
Does this sound like a property market you want to invest in? Fortunately, with DST properties you don’t have to.
Through their remote ownership and operational structure, they can provide a gateway to greater economic opportunity and growth in those areas of the country that may not suffer so acutely from managerial malfeasance.
You will search long and hard for stories of similar woe in mid-sized red state cities. Perhaps the most conspicuous example being Nashville, TN.
Long known and as the country music mecca, Nashville has evolved into a regional technology hub with all the cultural amenities that come in it’s wake in terms of restaurants, night life and shining infrastructure.
The city is also blessed by a conspicuous absence of homelessness and the drang and dreck that accompanies it.
With DSTs available to you, why wait? With infrastructure crumbling, and managerial incompetence on glaring display, marque properties are being sold for pennies on the dollar. At $45m, the recent US Bancorp Tower sale in Portland barely represents land value.
This may result in serious property tax compression with a corresponding diminution in service delivery.
This could likely further erode the quality of life in these blue state cities which bodes ill for retail landlords property values.
DSTs may help you avoid the potential economic doom loop.
