This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor.

This is CBS, I on the World. I'm John Batchelor. Jeff Bliss is Pacific Watch, and we begin

in the city of Portland, sometimes called Portland here.

Jeff has educated me that all the cities of the West Coast struggle with homelessness,

with drug addiction on the street, and with an atmosphere that is not conducive to retail

and wholesale business.

Jeff, a very good evening to you.

You introduce me to a video, I believe, made for

local news reporting about a store leaving downtown Portland. What store? Good evening, Jeff.

Good evening, John. This is Nordstrom Rack. Now, it's not the luxury Nordstrom that everybody thinks

about that you see in big malls. It gets a lot of news day in and day out. But this is

their kind of the subsidiary, Nordstrom, Rack, where they send some of their clothes and items for

discount sales, still very nice by any measure, because they carry nice products in the parent

company store. But this is another store in the downtown Portland area that's leaving. And, you know, Portland has the

highest vacancy rate for commercial, real estate, office businesses, things like that in its

core throughout the nation, the highest vacancy rate in the country. And this is just one more

example. And honestly, you've got problems with homelessness

that persist and substance abuse and mental illness and things like crime that come with some of

those things. So, you know, there are businesses like Columbia, a stalwart in Oregon, and other

places in the downtown area that are just throwing up the arms saying,

I don't think we can do business here anymore. It just, it doesn't make sense. The regulations are

too difficult to deal with. The taxes are too high. And the safety problems for our customers

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