Do I want to move to Portland? Anybody know?

Mrs. Kay and I saw a piece on the Travel Channel yesterday about Oregon, and she brought up how she'd like to live in Portland. So...

what's good/bad about Portland? It looks like a pretty liberal place, the weather is more temperate than our current city (Atlanta), and the rain is only bad during Nov-Dec (Mar-Oct it's actually less rain than Atlanta).

Overall it looks pretty fantastic, but are there any downsides to Portland?

And would Most Adorable Child Ever like it there?

I loved the place. It's a small big city. There are some things that aren't so peachy though.

The rain does suck, because it's constant. It's not a downpour, but you're always damp. Everything is damp. Also, the public education in Oregon is aweful. And the real estate prices are a little nuts if I remember correctly.

i'm looking at going to law school and want to go somewhere in the northwest.

Good school. Great professors. Friendly (as far as law school goes) atmosphere. It's either the number one or number two ranked environmental law school too if that's your bag.

A little spendy, but everything is now.

I enjoyed studying there. I can;t say enough good things about the school and the city. I live in NYC now and do the big firm life, though my practice lets me travel back to Portland a dozen or so times a year. I get back as often as I can. I even keep an apartment with a roommate in Portland, the same one I lived in when I went to school. It is a truly great town.

replied to my self, sorry. I will report in the thread.

It also beautiful mountains and other scenery. I told my wife it would be the perfect place for a couple of old, retired, ex-hippies, meaning her and I when we do decide to take life easy.
Currently, and mostly due to careers, we're in Florida, a red state and living in an even more red town.

I've lived in Ohio, San Fran Bay Area, DC, and spent lots of time in Cambridge, Mass. and Denver area.

We came because we love the West Coast, Portland was more affordable and less crowded than the Bay Area (especially then; housing was still relatively cheap here; now, not so much). We wanted easy access to ocean, mountains, and even high desert, and we weren't disappointed. We love the liberal atmosphere of Portland. We are ten minutes from downtown, yet we live in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood on a cul-de-sac. The people we know here are community minded and progressive (of course there are "others," but it's easy to find like-minded folks here -- including lots of parents). To me there's not so much of an emphasis on looks/money/whatkindofcardoyoudrive as I found in, say, California. You can find excellent elementary schools within Portland itself; about 80 or 85 percent of residents enroll their children in the public school system, so it's not one of those urban districts that thousands have abandoned. In my kids' school, there is a LOT of parental involvement. There is never enough funding, though.

I find Portland to be family-friendly. There are lots of great community centers, for example, and the parks and recreation program is wonderful.

The rain: yes, it is hard to take. That is my only negative about this area. The gray can wear on you. It's important to get out and exercise and get fresh air, even if it's gray/drizzly. (I need to work on that!)

There are lots of bike-minded people and people here recycle and check out more library books per capita than just about anywhere else in the country.

Spring here is lush and filled with blooms everywhere (rhodies, azaeleas). Summer is intoxicating! It's usually dry and in the low-80s. The air quality is generally very good. You can see the snow-capped mountains (Hood, etc.) in the distance on clear days. You can go skiing on Mt. Hood in the summer.

It's sometimes tricky to find a decent job here as there are fewer opportunities than in bigger cities. Still, lots of "young creatives" are making Portland a mecca.

Good luck to you. Why don't you come out for a visit; preferably in the winter AND the summer! :hi:

and now live in Central Oregon. I grew up in rain. I know what it feels like to step on a slug in bare feet, to spend an hour blow drying my hair because the humidity is so high, and what poison oak looks like as I am standing in it.

I don't want to advertise too openly about this little secret, but over here near Bend... is a great place to live. On this side of the Cascades there are less liberals, but WE NEED MORE. The big bonus is there is very little rain. Snow covered mountains serve as a backdrop to everything, I constantly appreciate their beauty in the first rays of sunrise and the fading crimsons of sunset. Bend is fairly progressive, with lots of recreation and family activities, though it is far smaller than Portland and higher education is somewhat limited. The mountain passes can become somewhat of a barrier in a deep winter if one must get to Portland International Airport or any other important places in the Willamette Valley. I have found that since moving here I am more active because the days are brighter and I am not constantly getting showered on. I can go months without using windshield wipers. Most people here live in sandals and shorts all summer and half the spring and fall. Winters can get cold and you must know how to drive in ice and snow, but a good front wheel drive car or 4wd pickup/SUV with studded tires is fine.

Just some ideas to think about. I never pass up the opportunity to tell the truth about this great spot to progressives. The freepers should just move along, nothing to see here.

if interested: http://www.visitbend.com/

but I do know CUTE kids and she is definately one of the cutest i've seen!!

aA

We think so too! :hi:

Minneapolis for personal reasons. (I was in Oregon for nineteen years).

Mostly I'm happy in Minneapolis, but there are some things I miss.

1) The public transit system, good enough so that I got along easily without a car. I even took classes on a Saturday morning at a suburban campus of Portland Community College, all accessible by a well-coordinated system of light rail and buses. At the time I left (August 2003), my entire transportation expenses were $55 a month for a system-wide bus and rail pass.

2) Seeing Mt. St. Helen's and other snow-capped mountains (sometimes even a little bitty Mt. Rainer on a really clear day) out of my window.

3) The Portland Film Festival--unlike the one in the Twin Cities, the venues were close enough together so that you could easily walk from one to another.

4) Complete lack of below-zero temperatures.

5) The rain was fine most years, and I liked the fact that one can get out and walk all year without having to bundle up. Occasionally, we'd get a winter that refused to end, but the summers are absolutely glorious, with low humidity.

6) Having plant life all year round. Even in the coldest months, you get heather, ornamental cabbages, and holly.

and I love it. There is so much diversity here. The schools are excellent....my kids are in the West Linn / Wilsonville school system. My daughter attends West Linn high school, and it is very well funded.

People don't seem to take Portland or Oregon for granted....they all know how lucky they are to live in such a beautiful place. I lived my entire life in the southeast where there is a rich and long history. The only negative thing I can think of out here (beside the traffic) is that it seem sterile in the sense that there isn't a long history like the east coast.

They love Portland and even though they're aging, they absolutely refuse to move back closer to any of their children. In fact, they're really pushing me to move out there. I'm stubborn and refuse to. My experiences have been visits during the gray, dreary times of the winter. The coast is beautiful, as is the Columbia River and Mt Hood. But the West Linn area leaves me cold. Perhaps it's because it really not about Portland at all, it's about my family...

West Linn is a little strange. I live near Tualatin.

I've had some life-threatening asthma episodes. I'm allergic to everything except maple trees and feathers. My other concern is that nothing seems to die there. There's moss growing on the north side of my parents' $300k house. :wow: Life would be a constant stream of asthma and allergy meds to live in that climate.

I am just the opposite. I had chronic bronchitis living in the south.....twice a year just like clock work. I haven't had any problems since moving out here.

sterile; however, I don't get that feeling in Portland itself because it has a rich stock of pre-WWII housing that people love to fix up. The old neighborhoods are charming, livable and full of character.

Good: beautiful & relatively clean city populated by people who care about such things, vibrant downtown unscarred by wal-mart sprawl, public transportation that gets people where they need to go, subcultures with character, a friendly well-maintained public library system, plenty of educational resources for kids and adults with open minds, some great neighborhoods, summer fun at waterfront park, Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, Powell's Books, plenty of microbrew pubs, a well-organized local Democratic party, happy people on the streets who will smile and say hello and mean it, more good ethnic restaurants than you can eat at in a year, Air America on the local AM (inc. the now-resident Thom Hartmann) and KBOO community radio on the FM, big protests against both bushes, Cinema 21, bike lanes on major streets and bridges, reasonably close to the ocean and the mountains, windsurfing on the Colombia River, plenty of nature embedded in the cityscape via parks & rec, Saturday Market, lots of nice scenery and clean water, a mayor who rides a recumbent bicycle to work, vote-by-mail, Willy Week, Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clinton Street Theatre, Rep. Earl Blumenaur, Chamber Music Northwest, medical marijuana and right-to-die laws

Bad: perenially-underfunded public schools, police department notorious for abuse, property development interests running wild at City Hall, severe price gouging by PGE(Enron), meth labs galore, parking in NW portland, perpetual road construction on major arterials, entire city goes belly-up in any amount of snow, exhorbitant property taxes and lotto profits used to "compensate" for ridiculously regressive income tax laws, Newhouse-owned "Oregonian" fishwrapper, Tonya Harding

Ugly: rains for 6 months straight, on-again/off-again job market, inflated housing prices leading to gentrification of colorful neighborhoods, the crazy lady with 5 cats in the shopping cart screaming past your window at 2am on her way to the bottle return, crack hos on Burnside, rush hour traffic that lasts 3 hours, the Portland Trailblazers, flat and apathetic suburbs, "unimproved" roads, bike lanes that suddenly end, some truly amazing allergens

Well, good luck with everything, hope this helped, and best wishes for the new year whatever your decision.

>rains for 6 months straight<

Today is the 21st straight day of rain in the Seattle area, for instance. If you're okay with gray and drizzle from November - March, things are fine. If you get depressed, this can be a tough place to be during the wintertime. The natives even start chomping at the bit about the middle of February.

Julie
Seattle native

The Oregonian is considered, within the industry, one of the best papers of its size in the country. Tim Harrower, who used to be a designer there, wrote one of the definitive books on page design. I wouldn't be without it.

Just sayin'.

Rather, it's the "fair & balanced" coverage and the editorial shilling for developers and multinationals.

That's just what they're especially known for.

It's the likes of this:

NEW YORK Investigative probes of the nation's methamphetamine epidemic, systemic failures in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the loss of Florida's wetlands were named today as winners of the first Philip Meyer Awards.

<snip>

First Place went to The Oregonian (Portland) for "Unnecessary Epidemic," a series of articles showing how Congress and the Drug Enforcement Administration could have stopped the growth of meth abuse by aggressively regulating the import of the chemicals necessary to make it. Lead reporter Steve Suo's work included sophisticated statistical analyses of data on hospital and treatment center admissions, arrests, meth prices and purity, and chemical imports.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001808489

That's a great idea.

We love the sights, culture, and politics...but we're really concerned about the rain. Exactly how much DOES it rain there? Is there a "rainy season" lasting a few months when it rains a lot, or is it steady year round? We want acreage so we can have lots of dogs and a few horses, but we're worried about not being able to enjoy the outdoors due to constant rain and mud.

Also, which is better, the Portland side of the river or the Clark Co Washington side?

Northwest weathercasters are notorious for their attempts to sugar-coat the constant rain, using dubious euphemisms such as "partly sunny", "sun-breaks", and "we should see some clearing by next week".

The upshot of it is, you will get used to the rain within 3 years or leave or go bonkers. If you're keeping horses, you'll have to be extra careful about rain-rot. The secret to enjoying outdoor activities during the "dark months" is to learn to enjoy rain and mud and, occasionally, ice. However, there are exceptions. Much of last February was dry as a bone and unseasonably warm. You can never tell for sure, but the safe money is on rain between mid-October and May.

Remember, there is another side of Oregon east of the Cascades, if you're willing to venture into the Land of a Thousand Freepers. It's much sunnier there in general, and you get real snow instead of the slush that falls in the west cascades -- a bit like the southern rockies. "Acreage", as you say, would be somewhat easier to afford there, but Portland it ain't.

As to whether Clark County is an option, I'd say, "maybe." It's not quite as nice to live over there IMHO, but it's a fair bit cheaper than Portland metro area. If you live on the WA side and shop on the OR side, you can take advantage of the lack of property taxes in Washington and the lack of sales taxes in Oregon; personally I don't care to "double-dip" like that, but I know there are some folks who do. There's some open space and farmlands just north of Vancouver (the Washington one, not the BC one) which may be a good place to look for acreage.

Thanks for the info. When would be the "worst" time to visit, then? I'm thinking we should stay there for a couple of weeks during the rainiest part of the year and see if we can handle it. My two previous trips were in early October and in March, and both times it only rained one day out of my one-week visit.

I would really like for it to work. Something about the PNW speaks to my soul.

P.S. If I wanted Freepers, I'd move back to beautiful, inexpensive Indiana where I grew up. Granted, my dad lives in liberal Bloomington, but the rest of the state terrifies me.

The worse time is late December and early January because you get both the rain and the short days. Go to work in the dark, home in the dark. We get more drizzle than rain. It seldom snows in Portland, when there is moisture the temperatures are usually in the 40s - low 50s in the winter. When it is cold, it is usually bone dry but you have the East wind.

As a native the rain doesn't bother me and I prefer it to the ocassional cold, dry, windy days. Cold is in the 20s, it seldom dips into the teens.

Portland is warmer than Seattle in the summer, colder in the winter but less likely to get snow. I lived in Tacoma for years and believe it rains more in Puget Sound, maybe not in inches but in percentage of time the drizzle is falling.

Winter is November, December and January here. February is always a mystery as to whether it will be winter or spring like. March is the beginning of spring fever and anticipation of the glorious time to follow.

So winter = the rainiest time? Also, how much snow is there? My understanding is not much (and that's what we'd prefer.)

but when it snows it paralyzes the city. Even 2-3 inches is like getting a foot+ in Indiana. My favorite snow memory was this cute SOCal girl who lived in the apartment above me dealing with her first snow. She went out to her car and placed newspaper sheets over it expecting to "peel off" the snow the next day. After the paper got wet, it froze to her car and she spent days with little pieces of newspaper all over the car. It was quite funny.

Snowfall is maybe two or three dustings a year, with one or two storms "dumping" over an inch. It is very rare.

That is perfect - just enough snow to be pretty but not enough to cause many problems.

I have heard (and noticed through searches online) that real estate is a bit high, but compared to L.A., it's dirt cheap!

You weren't kidding, that tot is carrying WAAAY more cuteness than the law currently allows!

But I digress:
Portland: I have heard good things.
I have 2 WWWfriends who have been there forever, and a 3rd who moved there
2 years ago.

They all say it's a pretty nice place to be.
There are some parts of town that go weeks without a single Freeper sighting.
How could that NOT be a good place to raise the world's most adorable child?

90 minutes to Seaside. Two hours to Timberline. 3 hours to Warm Springs. If the rain bugs you, just east for the weekend.

Hood River is windsurfing Mecca.

Snow skiing on Mt Hood all summer long.

And fishing, everywhere. You can catch a 30 lb Spring King salmon under the downtown bridges.

Biggest city park anywhere.

Grow veggies year round.

:hi:

If you come for a visit, let us know!

Coem on people, don't you fellow Oregonians and Portlanders know the rules. Alright, I am doing the Portland thing. The rule is that natives have to tell "you people" not to move to Portland, because you are driving the house prices up and spoiling our fun with crowds and longer waits for coffee and beer. The truth is that Portland is one of the best cities in the US. The food is as good as most east coast large cities. The culture is great. You can ski whenever you want and the pacific coast is like nothing you have ever seen or done before. The hiking in the Colombia gorge and the water sports on the Columbia are breathtaking. Fishing is the best in the country. The people are great and the tax is not that bad, compared to CA and the NE. The only real problem is that the town is mostly white, but that is changing. Politics are liberal, so liberal in fact that it is usually a fight between the left instead of a left v. right debate. It does NOT rain all the time. From October to March you will get mostly cloudy days and maybe 5-6 sunny days a month. The rain is not frequent, and is rarely heavy. No thunderstorms and downpours are rare. There is a frequent misty/drizzle during these months, but it is not difficult to deal with. April and May start the change to more sun. The summer is the best anywhere. No humidity, pleasant temperatures. We use the AC maybe 5-7 days a year. During the summer no rain and great clear days. Until October when the clouds move in. Also, every February there is this weird week where it is clear and 65 degrees, which is always when we go to the beach for the first time. The salaries are comparible to most mis-size towns and the rent is cheap compared to the same towns. Home prices are rising, which will eventually raise the rents too. Like all towns it has its bad points, mostly related to a growign city. there is a homeless problem growing and the cops are not suited to deal with it. The state treats mental illness as a crime, literally, and jails most homeless and poor persons who instead need help and medical treatment. There are issues with the public transit system being a spoke system with no way to move between the suburbs. Even with a few flaws, I would go there in a heartbeat. I regret having moved out, but my work takes me back to my family there once a month. I hope to move back later in life. Do yourself a favor and give Portland a chance.

I would love to go back and visit...only because being a tourist there is a blast.

Being from Atlanta, you might find that relocating to Portland is kind of like moving to Jupiter. It's that weird. There is even a group of Southerners that meets once a month just to have someone to talk to.

Shoot me a PM if you want details...I am not willing to go through the stupid Portland argument with some of the posters I see on this thread...but, I will tell you this: pay close attention to the one that says something to the tune of "no, don't come...I have to write the obligatory don't come here thread..."

It was written in jest, I am sure...but, it's the closest thing to the truth about Portland that I have seen on this thread.

Yes, the beer, coffee and bookstores are good. The weather is not all that horrible, and the scenery is unreal.

There is a reason its northern neighbor Seattle looks down on it, although both are damp, surly, and more PC-than-thou. Seattle is the better of the two. Portland is Seattle, Jr.

Very insular, provincial, and cold - and the latter isn't a climate slam.

Powell's is one of Portland's two redeeming features. Its other is that the place is 1,000 miles away.

I'm in my 30's and I have two kids. I think Portland is a great place to raise kids, but there are two downsides that I see.

Real Estate:
Dh bought a house years ago in SE Portland (late 80's). It was a charming 1900 era house with wonderful Craftsman details. The house was in an up-and-coming neighborhood - you know, old houses being renovated by families. He bought it for under $60k. We were able to sell that house (mind you - it was under 1800 sq ft) for nearly $370k just two years ago.

Affordable homes are scarcer than ever in Portland.

Schools:
It looks like plenty of people have mentioned Portland Public Schools. When we looked at Kindergarten options for our oldest, we looked mostly at a nearby neighborhood school. The good thing about Portland is that you can generally choose any PPS grade school in the city.

We would have been facing a class size of 30-32 Kindergarteners. The PE teacher, the librarian and the music teacher were all part time. Spanish instruction was via TV. Art barely existed. All those things that PPS considers extras - I consider crucial to my kids' education. Don't even get me started on the free breakfast crap. Let's just say it was crap.

We bailed on PPS. We're still in a public school. We still live in Portland. But we certainly aren't in PPS.

Lived in Hillsboro and out Gresham way.

I absolutely love Portland, the folks are nice, the rain just makes the summers all the more fun, unless you get a wet summer.
The fishing and hiking is outstanding, the skiing is great,too.
All you folks in Portland have one of the coolest things to show people.
Coming in to downtown on the Sunset hwy, you go by the old OMSI site, 4 lanes of freeway each way, trees and hills on both sides, little or no houses, then go through the tunnel and BOOM! right downtown, skyscrapers and city.

The change has brought oohs, and ahhs to the people I have shown that to.
Also, there used (?) to be a Deli called Roses Restaurant out on the east side.
I don't know if it is still there, but they made HUGE sandwiches and cakes.
And the food was good.
Reasonably priced too.

The advantage of living there is that it feels like a small town, and the recreational opportunities are abundant and not that far away.

If I could get my wife to live up to the promise that she gave me before we were married, we would be in Oregon right now...but she couldn't leave here.

I have lived in Delaware for 9 years, and still consider Oregon my home.

n/t