There is no One way to see any large city
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3/20/2023
I lived in Portland for 19 years (I've also lived in Boise, ID, the Bay Area, Austin, TX and now Nampa, ID). It drives me nuts when people try to give a large city a single identity. It's a large city with all sorts of people, neighborhoods, problems and perks. I did not live in Portland through the covid/BLM meltdown and from my friends perspectives, it was scary and sad. That being said, it was a country wide problem/movement that affected every large city and lots of smaller ones. The press coverage of the rioting in a city that I love was sad to watch, and the damage will take years to recover from but it did not define Portland in anyway except to show that lots of people care about social justice and a small percentage of those people think that violence is justified (their belief, not mine) and they got the media's attention. I have faith that Portland will continue to move forward (in the slow way that city governments move) towards addressing its issues in the same way that other large cities are scrambling to find ways to address these very difficult and hard to solve problems (there's not a country in the world that doesn't have homelessness). In the mean time, ragging on the city because it's white and hipster doesn't make sense. Like attracts like and that is what has happened for almost 200 years (it takes a long time to overcome the lack of diversity caused by Oregon's 1844 black exclusion laws). Lack of diversity doesn't make the people of Portland racist, but it does deprive them of things that cultural diversity brings to a city. Hopefully as it eventually becomes more diverse it will become more interesting. I didn't notice the lack of diversity as much because I lived on the East side which is far more diverse then the west (until you get further out in the burbs near the big tech companies). I rarely felt unsafe in Portland unless I had to park in an area known for drug dealing (every cities' problem). The unhoused population (in general) doesn't make you feel unsafe, they make you feel uncomfortable and those are very different feelings, not to be confused with each other. It is uncomfortable to know that you have what you need and these people do not. We should not fear them for in different circumstances, we could be them. Being unhoused does not make you a criminal. Portland is moving far too slowly to implement solutions for this population, that is true but again, this isn't a Portland problem, it's a large city problem and frankly, a national problem with housing costs and poor access to medical and addiction treatment.
Portland is full of interesting people, beautiful landscapes, beautiful views of mountains and rivers, fantastic food and lots of cool small businesses. The weather is mild. The risks are earthquakes (there's a big one coming), flooding in low areas and wildfires (though luckily, not to the level of Northern California, yet). The walking/hiking is great, in town and everywhere around it. There is a lot of rain and it is hard to get used to (really hard if you are susceptible to seasonal affective disorder) but it makes it green and colorful and that's very easy to get used to. I miss it terribly. Aesthetically it has year round beauty which I really miss living in a high desert area now. I miss the food! OMG I miss the food!
If you are conservative politically, and want to be surrounded by people of like mind, you will need to be strategic. It's a liberal city to the point that some taxes that pass, are not well thought through but pass anyway because they sound good to liberal minded people. As a liberal who grew up in a very conservative place, Portland was eye opening for me. But as with everything in the past 7 years, politics tend to teeter towards the extremes and I have to remind my liberal friends in Portland that not everyone sees things the way they do and a friendly conversation with a neighbor should probably not include politics. I now live where I grew up and BOY, is it a different political attitude around here!
Is Portland for everyone? NO. Is Portland unsafe (a question I am asked a lot)? NO. As someone else suggested, look up the violent crime statistics. Will someone steal your bike if you leave it leaning against your garage door? Probably. Petty theft was a frustrating problem in my close-in NE, high cost neighborhood. Would I move back? YEP! (Good airport, 2 hours to the ocean, 1-1 1/2 hours to good skiing, great fishing, water skiing in the Columbia, 3 hours to Seattle, 3 1/2 hours to Bend, Symphony, Ballet, Broadway traveling shows, great concerts, lots of cool small venues and on and on)
Amy | Austin, TX