I'm feeling a bit stifled in my city and want to move. My priorities are $1500-2000/mo rent and a path to an affordable house (see: picture), a unionised city workforce, good greenspace with an extensive parks system, good biking infrastructure, a good public university, and a good political scene. That leaves Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and maybe an East Coast city I haven't researched yet. Of those, Portland is at the top of my list because I'm getting an ocean for Great Lakes prices.
What's bad about the city that makes people move away? Is there a better option in Oregon, especially one that would let me commute into Portland without whatever problems it has?
This was several years back at this point so things may have changed, but I knew someone who was looking to move to Portland and they found that most landlords weren’t willing to rent to someone that didn’t already have a job in Portland, and most employers weren’t willing to hire people that didn’t already have an address in Portland.
That seems like a miserable catch-22. I haven't yet attempted to do either but definitely faced that barrier when moving to my current city.