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?
Portland is pretty sick, I like it here. Try to secure a job here before you land though, if you can. Homeless resources are stretched real fuckin thin right now and the mayors new directives are not helping. Getting food stamps and medicaid are pretty easy, anything beyond that is hard.
The city is gets a lot less white out in the outer east side ("the numbers)" and in North Portland, and seems to be all sorts of gay all over the place.
The left-wing scene here can be real frustrating sometimes. I've had multiple events with my old org crashed by childish "anti-tankie" anarchists that outnumber principled activists 10:1.
We have lots of good food trucks, like everywhere.
People often leave here cause it's expensive and they don't like dealing with homeless people (which in fairness, this situation has caused lots of social problems. Nobody likes seeing needles in the street, and there have been some high profile violent crimes committed by homeless people recently). I'd have reservations if I had young children (like with any big city), but as a childless millennial I love it here.