askchapo

You've gotten a ton of comments and info, but here's one more.

What's bad about the city that makes people move away?

One of my online friends lives in Portland, and I asked them "hey rant about pdx for moment, tell me why you hate it". This is gonna be filled with their personal opinions so I can't say how accurate it is. They're.... Pretty jaded, to my eyes, and very opinionated. Sometimes their opinions are on point, but sometimes they're heavily generalized from their direct experiences. So take all this with a grain (or several grains) of salt.

Again, take this with salt. I'm sure some criticisms are on point, but dont know enough to differentiate between those ones and the more, uh, personal opinions.

::: spoiler edit one more thing they said that I realized is maybe worth including, even if its a possibly jaded/hyperbolic view Dont stop on [interstate 5] north of Vancouver at night if your black or visibly trans, and be careful in hood river if your not white, people get disappeared.

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.

Honestly, I love Portland. I stayed there for many years, as well as Eugene. It's really rainy and you got to watch out if you have allergies. But otherwise, it's a great place. I found dating there to be good.

you'll need vitamin d supplement

I love Oregon in general and Portland in particular.

There are better housing options than the one you shared. I have an artist friend who was recently able to get a new 2/1 townhome for like $250k.

The green space is truly top tier. There are so many trees. It's lovely.

The politics are not as good as you'd hope, maybe, but better than a lot of places in the US. We just drastically diluted the business lobby's stranglehold on city council, so that should be improving.

The lack of sun does fuck people up, for sure. Sun sets at like 4 in the middle of winter. I just deal with it by having winter hobbies like skiing (good skiing within an hour and a half of downtown) and whitewater kayaking (good whitewater the same distance away).

On the flip side, during the summer there's only sun. If you haven't lived on the West Coast you might not be used to it, but it simply does not rain at all in the summer. Could be good or bad depending on your perspective. We do have some water security, but it can fluctuate a lot. With the severe lack of snow this winter we'll almost certainly be in a drought and have a pretty bad fire season.

The public transit is still pretty good for a city its size, but has been dying a death of a thousand cuts due to austerity. I find a bike is the best way to get around town, but you'll have to be prepared to ride on shared streets: there aren't as many separated bike paths like MPLS.

I think people mostly move because the rent is really high compared to wages. A lot of artists moved to Olympia, Washington, but I can't really speak about it. Astoria is great if you can handle it being cold and cloudy most of the year. Salem is like tiny Portland with worse amenities. Eugene is home to the University of Oregon, which is huge, and basically dominates the priorities of the city. Ashland is a tiny but cute town known for its Shakespeare festival. East of the Cascades you get into turbo-racism country and I would definitely avoid living there. Bend has okay politics but is incredibly unaffordable except for retirees and the bike infra is bad.

I bet if you asked people who are leaving, they'd say they "feel stifled in their city". And people say this everywhere. That's the problem with shopping around like it's a menu: you're consuming the city as a novelty, and nothing ever remains good enough.

The factors that really matter are the connections you make, the quality of life you get, and the things you absolutely can't live without.

What level of public university is "good"? Does the city have to be big enough to have an international airport and pro sports teams?

I don't live in an urban area that spans multiple counties (or multiple hundreds of square miles, for comparisons west of the Great Plains). I have a job with a rather modest wage but I save about $1000 a month. Property taxes here are often below $5000 a year. There's a college in town, a mostly complete retail diversification, and cultural stuff from all over the world, but I can still easily ride my bike over to the wilder spaces. On mass transit I can get to multiple big cities for less than $70 if I so please. And I feel more relevant and connected and even powerful here than I ever did in the big cities I've lived in. I suspect there are dozens upon dozens of places like mine. There are at least 3 that I could basically move to whenever I wanted.

If you dream about Portland and your heart is set on Portland then move to Portland. (Or Eugene or Corvallis, or maybe Salem, idk.) But if you just crave "something new", search deeper for reasons why.

I’ve never been to oregon but the whole “we didn’t let POCs in until after WW2” thing gives weird vibes.

Also I suggest adding Milwaukee to your list.

Wait 300k for an abandoned 2 bedroom 1 bath home is now considered an affordable home?

As far as Portland itself, the city is fairly nice. However, anywhere the homes are somewhat affordable even near the outskirts of the metro is filled with turbo racist. The cops are also really aggressive for the west coast if you aren't white. I've visited friends there and I have been pulled over less than when I've visited the rural south.

Do you want to live in a diverse area with a radical political scene, or do you want natural amenities and greenspace and bike infrastructure? Access to these nice things is highly racialized in the US. If you're in the market for $300k homes and a university gig(?), you should consider where you'd be more of a gentrifier than a middle-class neighbor. I can sympathize with seeking better environs and taking advantage of whatever upward mobility you find, but I'm not going to validate a decision to donate $2k/mo to a rando sex pest landlord because the scenery is nice and whites-only.

There is a flip side to having the freedom to migrate that should be considered: intentionally moving to a more neglected area, a place where the marketing and tourism doesn't stick. Where there are kinks to your experience and no real estate developers censoring the unpleasant realities in the local subreddit. Where a white boy airing left views at a city council meeting might punch a little more. It takes more research, but you have to consider the nitty-gritty of what you really want from a place. It sounds like you have the resources to make quite the leap, so broaden your horizons. Wherever you look, be sure to fit in a proper visit before committing to a lease.

Someone here said Oregon has a speed limit of 55mph which tells me there's something extremely wrong with that entire state

Because then you'll be closer to me and I'll want to be your friend

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.

Portland's nice but a few things: It's on the Willamette river, 2 hours from the coast. And the coast of Oregon is pretty mountainy and stormy. It rains a lot in Portland, so seasonal depression can hit everyone for like half the year. If you don't already have a job, there isn't much industry in Portland proper aside from healthcare, government and higher ed. The neighboring cities have some options like Intel and Nike. Oh also the state has a super racist history, used to be a whites-only state that confederates moved to after they lost the civil war. Portland proper and some of the neighboring areas there's a bit of diversity but outside that its pretty white and racist.

Outside of these things, it meets your other criteria