Hey, residents of Portland

Wet.

Portlandia Jones wrote:

Wet.

Drive through the "sun belt" sometime. Most of the non southwest license plates are from Oregon.

Oregonians can't wait to get someplace dry either.

Depressingly so wrote:

Portlandia Jones wrote:

Wet.

Drive through the "sun belt" sometime. Most of the non southwest license plates are from Oregon.

Oregonians can't wait to get someplace dry either.

All you have to do is drive to the other side of the Cascades and you're someplace dry. You don't have to trek all the way down to the Sun Belt.

Hipsters

Heroin

Homeless

vivalarepublica wrote:

Depressingly so wrote:

Drive through the "sun belt" sometime. Most of the non southwest license plates are from Oregon.

Oregonians can't wait to get someplace dry either.

All you have to do is drive to the other side of the Cascades and you're someplace dry. You don't have to trek all the way down to the Sun Belt.

They don't visit the sunbelt to vacation. LA to Dallas and on down to Austin they move where there are jobs.

It's really not that 'wet.' There are some rainy months but it's more of a drizzle which, if you wait 5 minutes, it will pass.

It's cool, but I'd prefer to live on the West Coast. There's good seafood like lobsters and such here.

I like rain. Conditions in Portland sound nice compared to the north of England.

Taxes = high

Schools = indoctrination camps

Cost of Living = high

Quality of life = see above

Etc. = hippies, heroin, hate, hedonism

George Bailey wrote:

Taxes = high

Schools = indoctrination camps

Cost of Living = high

Quality of life = see above

Etc. = hippies, heroin, hate, hedonism

translation for smart people:

taxes= a suitable rate to buy civilization, unlike the south and midwest

schools=produce intelligent, engaged, critical thinkers who are unlikely to vote against their own economic self-interest, unlike most poor/middle class Republicans.

Cost of living= high, but you get what you pay for. Very few rednecks, sustainable architecture, no monolithic corporations taking over small neighborhoods.

Quality of life= better than all the flyover states by a mile. Best overall year-round climate in the country.

Etc.= hippies, heroin, hate (against haters), hedonism, yes. All of those. And also very few bible thumpers, homophobes, and dumb people (though I'll concede that doing heroin is an exceptionally dumb thing to do).

First which Portland is right. Maine is no slouch.

Second, it IS overrated. There's lots of alternatives. For some reason, Portland, OR is some fairytale place. Guess what? It has warts and all. There are lots of great places to live.

Umm, ever heard of Bellingham?

Umm, ever heard of San Diego? Yes, high cost of living, but you know what, it is worth it!

Ole Timer wrote:

Hipsters

Heroin

Homeless

Sounds like Seattle. Does Portland have a snobby upper class as well?

Portland, OR, you'll either love it or hate it. i hated it.

rain will drench you 8 months out of 12 (forget the portland mist, doesn't usually happen, it dumps). some of the worst conditions to run in is when it is pissing rain and is 33 deg F (and I've run at -5F and windy, much better b/c you can stay dry). overcast and gray all months except the summer months, when the whole country seems to come and visit.

however, i heard this winter was milder, so maybe as climate change takes it's course portland may be like CA as it warms up and dries out in 10 years...

taxes on property and water are unbelievable, they will bleed you dry. middle class gets taxed like crazy and big businesses get huge cuts.

it can be hard to find work, a lot of people work several part time jobs. add that to a high cost of living and it will drain you.

it is a port, so pollution is bad (some of the US's top polluting companies are there), the river by the oil refineries is toxic and the fumes from there go up into forest park, especially in the winter when there is an inversion or fog - careful if you have asthma. the forest ecosystem there is buffering, but not much longer - looking at the state of the air reports and others shows pollution has been getting worse each of the past few years.

the infrastructure is terrible. it was built for maybe 50000 people and there are over 3 million in the area. be prepared to have a terrible commute if you don't live next to work or can't bike easily.

can't comment on the schools, but i new plenty of people who would carefully select a new house to get into a good neighborhood - and that's really hard b/c the housing market is so tight (and very expensive). there are a few magnet schools in pdx...

Portlandia Jones wrote:

Wet.

Myth.

Rains more in the East and the South than it does in Portland.

jamin wrote:

Ole Timer wrote:

Hipsters

Heroin

Homeless

Sounds like Seattle. Does Portland have a snobby upper class as well?

Yes.

Not as much as Seattle, but there is a very large snobby upper class.

malmo wrote:

Portlandia Jones wrote:

Wet.

Myth.

Rains more in the East and the South than it does in Portland.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762183.html

I suppose you are counting total amount of rain. What an odd way to look at it. Well, most people don't care if it rains half an inch or an inch. What they care about is how many days a year it rains. According to your source, Portland comes in at 153 days. That puts it in the top-10 of those cities for rainy days...

bootsie wrote:

smart people, south and midwest, intelligent, engaged, critical thinkers, poor/middle class Republicans, rednecks, monolithic corporations, flyover states, Best overall, bible thumpers, homophobes, dumb people.

Dead giveaway. 1/10 on the troll scale.

The air quality is indeed terrible. In SE, everyone has wood stoves too. Constant wood stove smog here. For a "green" place, they love the polluters. Luckily one of them closed shop and only gets used for Grimm shoots now. There's still tons of polluters. A pulp mill in a major metropolis city! By the most scenic waterfalls? Yep, there's a pulp mill spewing pollution into the air and across the river into Oregon City.

Tons of industrial right by the mighty Columbia downtown too. It is disgusting.

Air quality is Portland's dirty secret.

Commuting is a disaster.

The well off don't send their kids to PDX schools. Wonder way C.G. tuition is so high? That's why the suburbs are so expensive.

bootsie wrote:

George Bailey wrote:

Taxes = high

Schools = indoctrination camps

Cost of Living = high

Quality of life = see above

Etc. = hippies, heroin, hate, hedonism

translation for smart people:

taxes= a suitable rate to buy civilization, unlike the south and midwest

schools=produce intelligent, engaged, critical thinkers who are unlikely to vote against their own economic self-interest, unlike most poor/middle class Republicans.

Cost of living= high, but you get what you pay for. Very few rednecks, sustainable architecture, no monolithic corporations taking over small neighborhoods.

Quality of life= better than all the flyover states by a mile. Best overall year-round climate in the country.

Etc.= hippies, heroin, hate (against haters), hedonism, yes. All of those. And also very few bible thumpers, homophobes, and dumb people (though I'll concede that doing heroin is an exceptionally dumb thing to do).

You must be dizzy from all that spin .... better double up on your prozac dosages.

Your first response ...."taxes = a suitable rate to buy civilization, unlike the south and midwest" ..... is incomprehensible.

Your second response ... "schools = produce intelligent, engaged, critical thinkers who are unlikely to vote against their own economic self-interest, unlike most poor/middle class Republicans" makes about as much sense as your first response. One cannot engender the qualities of intelligence, engagement, nor critical thinkers, and then proceed to use phrases like "bible thumpers" and oxymoronic words like "homophobe". When one votes to infringe upon one's explicit Constitutional rights - such as the right to free speech, the right to express one's religious views and alternatively avoid violating one's beliefs, the right of regular citizens to keep and bear militia-suitable firearms, and the right to associate with those we choose and subsequently disassociate from those we reject - one is blatantly voting against one's self interest, unless one does not value their freedom and heritage in the first place. No, your schools produce morons that Stalin would have been proud to march through the streets of Leningrad.

Your third response would make sense if not for the fact that you DO have monolithic corporations dicating their own piece of the economic pie to their own advantage and to the disadvantages of the town's citizens.

Quality of life is a direct component of the types of people that infest your town, and the aforementioned hippies, drug addicts, culture haters, and anti-religious bigots makes Portland a city with a very poor quality of life for an average Joe per the OP's initial post. Walk down any street in Portland wearing a cross around your neck (sans a Goth look), and you'll be harrasssed and threatened by all those "enlightened" bigots who line the streets as if it's their own property. Park a car downtown with a "Jesus fish" decal, and it's almost certain some low-life will vandalize it within 15 minutes.