Portland
Rebuilding Portland’s Reputation Through Strategic Narrative Management
Focus Areas: Reputation Management
Working with EMC has been pivotal in restoring Portland's reputation and image. They built a comprehensive messaging infrastructure and brought together a coalition that helped shift public perception from 69% negative to 58% positive. EMC's strategic approach enabled us to reclaim our narrative and position Portland as a city on the rise.
Opportunity
Portland was confronting serious challenges in 2023—declining downtown foot traffic, rising drug use, struggling businesses, and public safety concerns that had dominated headlines around the country and worried residents for years. Yet even as thoughtful policies began to turn the tide and the city showed measurable progress, Portland’s reputation remained anchored to outdated narratives of city adrift. Only 26% of residents said they were proud to live there, and Portland had become a national shorthand for urban decline—ignoring the resilience, innovation, and economic recovery taking place.
EMC developed a plan, a message, and the infrastructure for strategic narrative management to match perception to reality. Working with Travel Portland, the city, the county, and state leaders, along with advocates and business leaders, we amplified the city’s progress in order to shift public perception locally and nationally. By building a framework for unified messaging and proactive storytelling, EMC gave Portland the tools to tell its own story with clarity and confidence, connecting journalists with the data, voices, and authentic experiences that reflected the city’s recovery.
Results so far
- 356 positive media placements since 2024, reaching 510.5 million unique viewers
- 75% of Portlanders now say they’re proud to live there—a 26-point increase from 2023
- 90% of residents encourage friends and family to visit—up 29 percentage points
- Negative impressions of downtown dropped 15 percentage points
- 54% increase in downtown foot traffic since the pandemic low point
- Shift public perception from 69% negative to 58% positive.
- The New York Times named Portland one of its 52 Places to Go in 2026, calling it one of the most culturally dynamic cities in the country.
- PR Daily Award finalist, Brand Reputation Campaign category.
Solution
EMC Communications developed a narrative management strategy to clarify Portland’s story and equip the city’s key stakeholders with unified messaging, credible data, and coordinated voices to effectively communicate Portland’s recovery and progress.
EMC established the monthly Reputational Recovery Working Group, convening approximately 25 stakeholders from city, county, and state government, the police bureau, business leaders, and community organizations to align on messaging strategy. We developed the “Portland: A City on the Rise” messaging framework, providing consistent language that acknowledged challenges while emphasizing resilience and forward momentum. EMC recruited, vetted, and trained more than 35 diverse spokespeople—from substance abuse counselors to downtown business owners—to speak authentically about Portland’s progress. Rather than waiting to respond to negative coverage, we proactively pitched human-centered stories about the city’s achievements, connecting journalists with credible sources and fresh angles that reflected Portland’s economic growth, cultural vitality, and innovative policy solutions.
Conclusion
In 2025, when the president called Portland a “hellhole” and deployed the National Guard, national media attention followed immediately. Because we’d built the communications infrastructure in advance, EMC could coordinate a rapid, unified response. Portland didn’t appear fractured or defensive. Instead, the city presented itself as confident and in control: making documented progress, rejecting outside intervention, and speaking with remarkable consistency across leadership, business, and community voices. This unified response demonstrated a stark contrast to Trump’s language. The message was clear: Portland is a city on the rise, and it will address its challenges on its own terms.
EMC Communications’ strategic approach to coalition building, unified messaging, and proactive media relations is helping transform the national narrative and local perception of Portland. By developing a messaging framework, equipping leaders with tools for coordinated storytelling, and connecting journalists with credible data and authentic voices, EMC helped Portland shift public perception and reclaim its ability to define itself. We were honored to be nominated for a PR Daily Award in the Brand Reputation Campaign category for this work.
Our work with Portland demonstrates how strategic narrative management can create sustainable impact for cities and organizations navigating complex reputation challenges.