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I've been looking at a move to Portland from Chicago for the past year. I've never seen the show, I've lived in Chicago for the past 10 years. ( Online ) Portl
by p3llin0r3 9y ago
I've been looking at a move to Portland from Chicago for the past year. I've never seen the show, I've lived in Chicago for the past 10 years.
( Online ) Portlanders love to say that people are moving there for the show, are openly hostile to the thought of people moving there, harass people online, and quote things like "Oregon is full" and for some reason seem to think their city is the most expensive in the United States.
You see things like people explaining they're moving to Portland from New York for a job, and people's advice will be: "HAH, good lock affording the rent!", when in reality, rent is much higher in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and the nice parts of Chicago.
I guess my point is: Portland is experiencing what these cities experienced a decade later. It sucks and it's wrong. But blaming a television show and harassing people for moving there isn't really productive.
> Tobias Read, the Oregon state treasurer, stood at a podium before news station cameras and a heaping display of cupcakes to applaud Portlandia for providing the city with $36 million in direct spending, 200 annual jobs, and $18 million spent on in-state goods to Oregon vendors. The show “increased tourism and our city’s notoriety,” he said.
I find it telling that city officials are thanking Portlandia for the tourism money.
There are a lot of good reasons for moving to Oregon besides a television show. Here are mine:
- Better housing. Sure, you can find pretty cheap housing in Chicago, if you're willing to ride the El to and from work at an hour a pop each way ( MINIMUM ). Living in the upscale neighborhoods of Portland cost basically the same amount as living in an upscale Chicago neighborhood ( AKA, has good proximity to work ).
- Less violent crime.
- Better climate. Last year I swore I would not live through another Chicago winter, they are absolutely horrible and never end.
- Proximity to nature. The midwest is boring for nature, especially around Chicago. It's cornfields and nothing else for miles and miles.
- Access to skiing and other active lifestyle activities.
- Portland is legendary for it's biking infrastructure and culture, and has one of the highest pedestrian commuting rates in the country.
- It has decent public transit.
- It's a smaller city, and is not a nightmare to traverse.
- My partner is an architect, and Portland is actually building housing like crazy.
For the sake of fairness, I'll list out the cons:
- Locals seem to be hostile to transplants
- VERY LARGE homeless problem. Not as bad as Los Angeles, Seattle, or New York, though. Problem with this is that you really have to live there for a while to understand the extent of the problem.
- Taxes are higher
- Smaller city, smaller tech scene, less job opportunities
- SAD amount of diversity, and an extremely racist past
- Much fewer days of sunlight.
- eindiran 9y agoRegarding your list of cons, what was "extremely racist" in Portland's past? I am mostly unaware of the city's history, but I visited the city recently and it seemed quite progressive in that regard (lack of diversity notwithstanding).
- p3llin0r3 9y agoThey're extremely progressive nowadays, but here is the article: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/portland-race-against-the-past-white-supremacy/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/portland-race-against-the-past-...
- brewdad 9y agoI wanted to add to your housing price comments. True, housing in Portland is cheaper on a nominal basis than Seattle, NY, LA, etc. but prices have been rising more than 10% a year for the past 5 years or so. The near eastside neighborhoods (the walkable and bikeable ones) have more than doubled in that time. Pay scales have not kept pace. If you have a $500,000+ home to sell in a different market, you'll be able to buy here. If you are moving here hoping to be a first-time homebuyer, good luck. Also,, we have plenty of sunlight. It just gets heavily filtered through a gray drizzle for 9 months a year.
- p3llin0r3 9y agoYeah, the rising rent is totally unacceptable. There need to be more homes built YESTERDAY to keep up with demand, but that is it's OWN can of worms. I feel that ALL U.S. cities have been blind-sided by the population boom, and all of us millennials flocking to cities to find high paying jobs. I'm NOT hoping to be a homebuyer. I'd love to, but it's just not financially realistic even as a well-paid developer who recently paid off their student debt... maybe in 5 or 6 years. As an aside: I've heard the sentiment that I should lower my expectations on where I can live and buy a home, but: The most expensive home is the one you can't sell!
- maxsilver 9y ago> True, housing in Portland is cheaper on a nominal basis than Seattle, NY, LA, etc. but prices have been rising more than 10% a year for the past 5 years or so. Pay scales have not kept pace. If you have a $500,000+ home to sell in a different market, you'll be able to buy here. If you are moving here hoping to be a first-time homebuyer, good luck. I think people forget that this is a nationwide problem in basically every city, not just a Portland problem. "Prices rising 50% over the past 5 years" and "pay scales have not kept pace" equally describes five different cities in basically-nowheresville-Michigan, not to mention all the multiple dozens of other cities in other states equally effected in this exact same manner (Denver, Salt Lake, Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, Reno, etc) Portlandia gives Portland residents a convenient spectre to point fingers at. But if that show had never existed, Portland housing would still be every bit as broken, just as it is nearly everywhere across the country right now.