Reviews & Comments
Portland, OR
Corbett Neighborhood Very Unfriendly/Mean-Sprited. -
9/5/2006After living in Oregon from 1963 until 1997, I moved to Miami Beach due to a job opportunity for my husband. We loved getting away from the rain and cloudiness that hangs over the Northwest for so much of the year. When it didn't work out for us in Florida after a year, we couldn't go back to the depressing weather of Portland, so we moved instead to Los Angeles and purchased a small postwar home in need of fixing up... not far from LAX. Our neighbors there were very welcoming to us. They were so happy that we rescued the home from the disrepair it had fallen into from years of ownership by a vindictive woman raising her daughter with hatred of her father. When we decided to sell the home three years later right after 9/11, it sold in a less than an hour. We moved back to Portland to be close to family members (in a spirit of sentimentality from the 9/11 shock). Having recently attended a few family events where the weather was beautiful there... we forgot temporarily the reason we were happy to leave five years earlier. Being back in Portland, the weather bothered us some... but more than the foul weather, was the foul attitude of our neighbors when we purchased a fixer upper close to downtown Portland in the Corbett/Lairhill Park neighborhood. We had the front yard landscaped beautifully, repainted the inside, got attractive new windowcoverings, installed stainless appliances, put up a very attractive fence on the only side of the property that provided us with outdoor sitting space. The neighbors were horrible to us....turning us into the city for anything they thought was in violation of codes. Wouldn't speak to us except to criticize. We were later told by the people whose home we purchased that they got divorced because of the mean- spiritness of one particular neighbor who made their life so unbearably miserable.
We sold the newly improved home after 8 months and moved back to sunny California. I love my family members in Portland, but am happier now just visiting a few times a year.
Santa Monica, CA
Ocean Park neighborhood south of Pico becoming muc -
9/5/2006After selling a huge old home near downtown Portland, Oregon, three years ago and purchasing a small condo in the Ocean Park area of Santa Monica, every day is a reminder how much I love the glorious sunshine and blue sky, the tropical plants and colorful flowers in bloom all year round and especially the closeness to miles of beautiful beaches. The Ocean Park area has been beautified a lot in the past three years and with it's easy access (by a short walk) to the beach, many popular coffee shops, one of a kind boutiques and restaurants.... it is in many ways now considered more desirable than the area north of Wilshire (which doesn't have walking access to the beach because of the PCH highway and Palisades cliffs preventing direct access). My only complaint is: not enough is being done to take care of the homeless problem throughout all of Santa Monica. The city is always working on the issue but not quickly enough. Since it is so easy to live outside all year around, it's understandable why there are so many homeless. I think they should be picked up and taken to a community set up in an area that is much less populated, east or north of here. They could be given counseling and art therapy to help them with the emotional problems which are the cause their inability to cope in this fast-paced world which judges people mainly by their ability to earn lots of money. They could be expected then to help in the running of their own community....learning to grow, prepare, serve food....keep their living spaces clean and maintained....and eventually...through their own artistic expression, even beautified. This would provide these pour wounded souls with a sense of pride and dignity. Cottage industries could be started where they could use skills to make things that could be sold to make an income.
Why do we send so much money to other countries when people right under our noses need our help so much? Instead of looking away and hiding in big McMansions with gated protection and sending money to other parts of the world, I have used my artistic/organizational skills to turn a small condo into a very attractive livable space which I can afford as a self-employed artist while being able to enjoy my short walk to a beautiful beach and to take advantage of the fun dining and shopping here.