Earlier quoted context omitted.
A city can function just fine with out a bunch of local by-laws controlling what you can and can't do on your own property and proactive enforcement of local codes and minor civil infractions that aren't harming anyone. I live in one such city (of similar size). It's awesome. Portland's problem in my observation is the wealth and cultural norms (not the same thing as the politics) of the tourists who become permanent…
So anywhere with zoning and parking tickets is authoritarian? Come on. What, specifically, is Portland doing that you'd consider to be authoritarian, and what would you propose in its place? Also, tourists who become permanent residents are just residents. Trying to paint a group of fellow citizens as outsiders is a negative pattern, IMHO.
Zoning is inherently authoritarian and an affront to individual liberty.
Parking tickets depends on whether they write citations for things that aren't harming anyone, like people parking unregistered stuff on the street where there's ample parking available. If you're enforcing minor laws just because they're there and forcing people to step in line when them doing whatever doesn't appear to be bothering anyone then that passes my duck test for authoritarianism.
Frankly from the rest of your comments in here you're coming across like a masshole who thinks Portland is perfect because they don't have busybodies calling the cops on people over nothing and cops just chilling waiting to see someone do something so they can go fishing (or waiting to get one of those calls). And for the record, the poor parts of MA aren't authoritarian like that but people from the poor parts don't retire to Portland.
>Trying to paint a group of fellow citizens as outsiders is a negative pattern,
They're from elsewhere and are of a different culture. Sounds like a reasonable definition of "outsider" to me.