Review of Portland, Oregon


Portland is a Small Town
Star Rating - 1/5/2012
I can only think that the people who say it rains too much in Portland must be from the South West. I reluctantly moved to Portland from Seattle seven years ago, only because I could not afford to buy a house in that real, beautiful, and exciting city, where the cost of housing is approaching New York City's. I had heard all of the talk about Portland, but have found much of it to be overplayed and exaggerated. Compared to Seattle, Vancouver BC, and New England, it does not rain a lot here at all. The summers are extremely long and dry (which my water bill will attest to). It rained only a very few days this past December, supposedly the wettest month of the year. And where are all of these well-educated hipsters I had read so much about? Not here in the Belmont District. Most of my neighbors are poorly educated rednecks. Most of the people I have met here over the years are very conservative and do not actually live in Portland, but in Beaverton or Lake Oswego. I wish that this wasn't the case, but that is my experience here. I would dearly love to know where all of these well-educated hip denizens of Portland are. The very few sociable and educated people I have met here are other 'foreigners'. The only actual Portlanders I have met have no class and are neither well-read nor culturally aware. An unbathed tatooed white trash drummer in a bad garage band is not, to my mind, a hipster. Is the definition of this term different in Portland?
Patrick | Portland, OR
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Portland has less total rainfall than does Seattle but it has the most hours of rain of any major metropolitan area in the country...some 1000 hours every year. In other words it is constantly drizzling which means it is constantly grey and depressing. Make sure you get an artificial light source or you may become afflicted with Portland SAD. Portland likes to think itself hip and weird but that just means Portlanders chase trends and refuse to bathe. Voodoo doughnuts...really? Come on, they are dry and tasteless and are something you could find in Iowa. Restauranteurs kindly take a mop and inflict a hard scrubbing on your premises. Why is Portland so grimy? Take NW 23rd for instance. This is supposedly a gentrified higher-end shopping district. Have you seen the trash collecting in the gutters? Put down whatever you are smoking or drinking and clean something Portlanders! The reason Portland feels unsophisticated and uncouth is because it is actually quite rural. Forest Park pretends to be in the middle of a city but it really is not. It is in hickville a few hundred yards up the trail. Drive 15 minutes out of town and you hit farmland. You can easily feel as if you are in Iowa because the population takes a dive and you go from rows of ugly townhouses to farmland instantly. Portland is less a city than an overbuilt town.
Ann | Portland, OR | Report Abuse
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