I live in Portland. My advice for you would be to avoid staying (or even visiting if possible) in downtown and Old Town. The Pearl is not too safe either, although things are starting to look up. However, there are plenty of neighborhoods that are thriving. The Nob Hill neighborhood in Northwest Portland, Clinton/Division in Southeast Portland for example are alive and buzzing. Try staying there and explore these neighborhoods. I guarantee you'll have a wonderful time.
>> The money India spent on this pointless endeavour is beyond reason
The Government of India spends orders of magnitude more money on safety nets for poor people each year. I'm not making claims about whether its enough, or about its effectiveness. It's also not true that the poor people have no hope. India's growing economy has lifted millions out of poverty each year for about 3 decades now, and it continues to grow at a faster pace than other emerging economies. To call a spend of $150m (which is peanuts compared to how much India spends directly on its people) on a scientific mission, which benefits the scientific community and is positively an inspiration to the nation's population, a waste of money seems misguided to me.
It doesn't seem misguided to me - what is this space program even meant to achieve? It seems to me that it's doing little more than reinventing the wheel.
140M may be small in the grand scheme of things, but that helps demonstrate the scale of the problem. And let's not forget the money India receives in foreign aid.
Now, the country can't of course give up everything until poverty is "solved"; it's far from that simple, and of course the nation must work for the rest of the populace. But a trip to the moon seems like the ultimate political vanity project.
