Joined: 20 Jan 2001 Posts: 102 Location: Gorge/Maui
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 11:08 pm Post subject: Re: living in portland and surrounding area
WAVEDAVE wrote:
how many months in specific are crappy with rainy overcast there. and also which are the nice ones as well. portland
Ha ha, parts of all of them. And same goes for Hood River. May thru October the nicer month. Dec, Jan Feb are the coldest. If you can't handle overcast, and rain it is not for you. Portland is certainly nicer than Astoria or other places on the coast.
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: living in portland and surrounding area
The rainy season runs from late October through about April.
Portland is gorgeous in the Summer. In my opinion, the biggest
issue with Portland is the traffic.
-Craig
WAVEDAVE wrote:
how many months in specific are crappy with rainy overcast there. and also which are the nice ones as well. portland
As measured by hours per year, Portland is the rainiest significant city in the continental U.S. The Cascade Locks stretch between PDX and Hood River is worse. Oregonians don't call themselves "ducks" or call rain "liquid sunshine" without reason. But rain and 6 months of overcast is nothing compared to its traffic congestion.
Here's one blogger's take on it:
"Broxy
Jan 17th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Portland,OR or Vancouver,WA ..just over the bridge. The worst place to live. moving from the rocky mountain area over a year ago, I can tell you that Portland should be near the top of any list of a city to avoid. The weather being a big one, 8 months of darkness, summer is beautiful. Kids don't play outside in Portland, they can't [because] it's a mud-fest, at least where I am from when it snows the ground is nice and frozen and kids can still play. Let's not forget about the unemployment rate, one of the nations highest, why? this is an "artsy" community. there is no major business, except Nike. it's all arts and restaurants. How do I know this? According to my realtor, I have lost all of my equity in my home if not more from the house i sold in the west. my old house? ...has INCREASED in value!! ...can't wait to get out of here. what a nightmare."
SPLIFFS MOMMY sez on May 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
"They forgot portland oregon,nastiest homeless population on earth."
Portland has the world's greatest bookstore. That's the only reason I ever go there. Otherwise I bypass the town with as wide a berth as I can.
Bias disclosure: I hate cites altogether. I'm just too spoiled by rural and small-town living to want to put up with unnecessary nuisances such as traffic, parking meters, commercial parking lots, parking restrictions even at home, endless noise, lines at movies and stores and restaurants, crowds everywhere you go, urban temperatures (often an extra 10 degrees), endless concrete, crime, gangs, gunfire, tiny yards with close neighbors, housing costs increased by 200-600%, increased rules and regulations and prices and taxes, air pollution and the attendant higher illness and death rates, the incredible time it takes to go places and do stuff, major airport departure hassles, blighted inner city schools, aggressive beggars, personal safety on the streets, the endless feeling of confinement, the near-total obscuration of the night sky by light pollution, aggro drivers ... for starters.
Thank God so many people prefer living like that! If all those people sprawled into Smallsville, there wouldn't BE Smallsville any longer.
wow that last response was pretty grim, considering where I came from in new jersey it sounds like home hahaha. All kidding aside I presently live in wilmington nc and although city living has its downfalls the windsurfing and out door activities do sound nice out there. who knows
Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 711 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:40 pm Post subject:
WAVEDAVE wrote:
wow that last response was pretty grim, considering where I came from in new jersey it sounds like home hahaha. All kidding aside I presently live in wilmington nc and although city living has its downfalls the windsurfing and out door activities do sound nice out there. who knows
Don't worry too much, WD. Mike "Isobars" Fick prefers his radioactivity of his Tri-Cities area to see beyond its borders. Myopia.
Portland is not the most glamorous but is a city with lush gardens and stunning vistas. Not every college is Yale, but it needn't be for a great education. Same thing with one's home.
Close friends live in Portland and totally love it. Housing prices are inexpensive compared to other cities with as much of a cool groove as Portland. And he starts work early from spring through fall in order to catch the afternoon sessions in the Gorge. Terrific outdoor opportunities about and the fruit and veggies are second to none.
That's his take on it and, as my time in his home showed me, Portland is a terrific place to live. It ain't the open desert or uninhabited island, but neither is any city. That's what make cities so terrific!
Seriously, take Isobars advice re: Portland with a BUCKET of salt. Portland consistently ranks highly in livability surveys, everybody from Sunset magazine to Outside to the Wall Street Journal says it's awesome. Recreation, food and arts, scenic beauty, affordable housing, it's got a lot going for it. Those bitching about the traffic have obviously never lived in LA or Seattle.
But don't drink the kool aid just yet:
- The economy is pretty weak, and not just because of the current recession. It's ALWAYS been pretty weak. The big bucks on the west coast simply gravitate to Seattle, LA, and the Bay Area. It's just how it is, for better AND worse.
- The weather kinda bites. October to May is gray and overcast a huge amount of the time. Not particularly cold, and not much snow, but a pervasive gloomy damp that pretty much sucks.
So, if you have a decent job lined up already, have the flexibility to go to Bend or Baja or Hawaii for a spell in the winter, and aren't needing to be at the hippest, hottest spot around, Portland is pretty great.
Seriously, take Isobars advice re: Portland with a BUCKET of salt. Portland consistently ranks highly in livability surveys
I agree that Portland is highly rated, but that doesn't change what I accurately stated. I wasn't trying to present both sides of the picture, because the upsides are easy to find. My larger point is below.
WAVEDAVE wrote:
although city living has its downfalls the windsurfing and out door activities do sound nice out there.
Absolutely.
But one doesn't have to live in Portland to enjoy the recreation. Unless one enjoys big city living, that's sort of like going to Paris and eating only at McDonald's, or taking NJ with you to Kuahi. If you love living in a huge, packed sanctuary city with a higher crime rate than Paterson or Jersey City, Portland may suit you just fine. If you'd rather live much closer to the recreation so you can access it before and/or after work on weekdays, there are many other towns near the Gorge or the coast with less than half the crime rate, a much more relaxed lifestyle, much better climate, and in some cases much higher-ranked livability and job markets. And here's major secret (don't tell anyone): you can still drive to the big cities from the small ones any time you feel the urge.
You've got lots of research ahead of you. Better get cracking. Every year you wait is one more year in New Jersey.
Got to love generalizations. Every city is made up of neighborhoods, good ones and bad ones. My daughter has been going to school just outside of Portland for 4 years now and has loved every minute of it except for the winters. Portland is also made up of smaller town/cities surrounding it that are connected by an excellent public transportation system. A friend who was visiting her from CA left her purse on the bus in Beaverton. She got it back the next day with all her cash, credit card and return airline ticket. My daughter said that incident alone is why she chose to go to school up there. So as Iso said, do your research because there are some really nice places to live in and around Portland.
Funny it was 58+/- fri/ Sat. / Sun here in PDX. Took the kids to the zoo, parks and skiing this weekend. My kids play outside pretty much everyday, I walk them to and from school everyday.
I love articles where people constantly complain about everything, what do you think those peoples personalities are like?
I lived and worked in Portland for 30 years, I moved to the Hood River area a year ago after my wife and I retired from our jobs.
I love Portland, the weather is fabulous, warm in the summer, beautiful Indian summers during the fall. I concede that it is rainy during the winter, but I grew up in western Montana and will take 40 degrees with rain over 10 degrees with snow anytime. The spring is breathtaking, warm, 50-60 degrees, very moist, but that makes everything green. I recreated 12 months a year. I skied during the winter, Mt Hood is 60 miles away, four ski areas, I windsurfed 6 months a year in the gorge, Rooster Rock was twenty miles away, Hood River was 76 miles from my house, and of course the fabulous Oregon Coast is 70 miles in the other direction....
Portland's city life is vibrant and exciting, lots happening, bike anywhere, good public transportation and good eco vibes. Don't let anyone tell you any different.
Of course it is a city in America. It has the same problems that any city of any size has, congestion, crime, homelessness, and lots of people... DUH...
And it is famously young and Liberal in attitude, so if you think that Sarah Paulin is the answer to our problems, Portland will not be a good fit.
If you are skilled and love a city with a good vibe, don't hesitate, go there. Check it out.
well as far as work I am a pharma rep so working in portland would probably be my territory. I would like to live closer to the gorge but I have heard the cascades get more rain than portland. Also I have noticed that the town of hood is about ten degrees cooler then portland. I have heard about the tricities but I need to be near an airport just in case I need to get out fast for work or vacation.
The TriCities is home to the first international airport west of the Mississippi. I can leave my home on the far side of the TriCities an hour before my flight, because the airport is 20 minutes away and crowds and check-in hassles are nil compared to big-city airports. Medical equipment rep buds living in Hood River had no problems with their business travel.
as for what andymc4610 wrote:
I love articles where people constantly complain about everything, what do you think those peoples personalities are like?
My GOD ... don't you people -- readers and guilty parties alike -- EVER get tired of the irrelevant, unfounded, uninformed, personal attacks?
There's a very specific, driving, vital reason I point out the downsides to important issues: somebody has to so people don't get schnookered by the prevailing, often misleading, myopic upsides. In this forum, "only" career locations, jibing, $2,000 purchases, and/or $5,000 vacations are at stake; in other forums I frequent, major physical and mental disabilities, sometimes lives, and family fortunes are at stake. Somebody needs to speak up when others unashamedly present only the best facets of a career or vacation location, a board, a life-affecting medical treatment, financial decisions, etc.
One Portland resident claimed I was lying about Portland's weather years ago until I quoted extensively from a whole freaking book on the Pacific NW's climate written by the Portland NOAA/weather bureau's career director. In addition, I've lived and worked five miles from New Jersey and 60 miles from Portland, so I'm not just spouting book larnin'. Yet another source is the many people I meet who say their lives changed for the better when they moved across the Cascades from W to E. One quote: "I told my parents near Tacoma I was just moving out here for a year, but I wouldn't go back for anything now. This is a different world (emphasis hers) out here."
My bottom line for you, Dave ... and no one else in this thread matters because they aren't considering relocating from coast to coast ... is that you add a great deal of FACTS to the free opinions you get from individuals ... particularly individuals who so frequently resort to personal attacks when facts fail them.
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Every city is made up of neighborhoods, good ones and bad ones. My daughter has been going to school just outside of Portland for 4 years now and has loved every minute of it except for the winters. Portland is also made up of smaller town/cities surrounding it that are connected by an excellent public transportation system. A friend who was visiting her from CA left her purse on the bus in Beaverton. She got it back the next day with all her cash, credit card and return airline ticket. My daughter said that incident alone is why she chose to go to school up there. So as Iso said, do your research because there are some really nice places to live in and around Portland.
sorry, I just couldn't resist that one...
