Portland is only good for a very few
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10/7/2014
I've lived in Portland off and on for years since the mid-1970s (been here taking care of family).
Portland as a whole likes to believe it's very "livable", and "cool", and "weird", but Portland is mostly just self-congratulation and conformity. It's just an odd city little city that still hasn't become what it claims it has been all along.
Like most places, most of Portland hasn't recovered from the Great Recession. For example, more and more jobs here require a college degree for work that doesn't require a college education (I've seen receptionist jobs requiring a 4 year degree), and want to pay you $12 an hour part time. Portland's biggest problem, however, is that Portland's economy was ridiculous even before the Great Recession - and it had been even back into the 1970s. It's just not ever been able to be a "big player" like Seattle or San Francisco, and never been able to attract much industry/tech that actually puts good money into the local economy (e.g., sure, Nike is here - but the people making Nike shoes are thousands of miles away being paid slave wages). This never changes about Portland, and all the bluster and bragging from the local government, et al, doesn't change that. So unless you are already a person of money, don't come expecting to do well or find a good job here. Could it happen? Sure it could. But you could win big playing Bingo at the casino, too.
Portland, despite it's love of "diversity", is just as guilty as everyone else of demanding conformity to whatever ideal is held by a person at the time. I've been in bike shops where bike repair techs make speeches about how "fat" people are destroying the world. I've been in "diversity" trainings where the "liberal" instructor would only recognize certain groups as part of the "diversity" of the human world and USA culture. I overheard a well-off hipster neighbor accusing a working class tenant of being "classist" because she didn't agree with the hipster's politics. Again - it's all ridiculous. But it's Portland.
Note too that the cost of living here is high, especially housing. Not as bad as Seattle or San Fran, but high enough that you are going to pay most of your income for rent on even a basic or crappy place (which is going to hurt even more if all you can get for a job here is part time low wage). You can also save money by living with a lot of roommates, if you don't mind living like you are 20 years old your whole life. This is just Portland.
Add to all this that too many people here think that if you are offended by their intentional body odor you are "oppressing" them, that many people here over-smoke so much marijuana that a good deal of their brain cells are gone, and that people who drive $60,000 vehicles and live in $400,000 are the top pushers of "simple living" and "environmental" protection - and it all adds up to Portland.
So, if you love marijuana, radical left or right politics, don't mind a crappy economy, and don't mind listening to a lot of blowhards talk constantly about how "great" and "weird" and "booming" it is here, come to Portland.
Otherwise, you'd find more what you're looking for elsewhere.
Angel | ,