Oakland vs Portland (living, compared, places, population)

[jade408]

Well I went to Portland for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And I live in Oakland.

I had all kinds of Portlandia-influenced ideas of what Portland would be like. And actually, it wasn't like I thought it would be at all.

So I am just going to compare, based on my observation.

There is no winner here. Only about observations (some of them may be Bay Area-wide comparisons).

Eating Local:
I have never seen Portlandia, but so many people have told me about the episode about the chicken in the restaurant. With a life commemorated in photos.

So I was really expecting Portland to be even worse than the Bay Area in terms of menu name dropping. But the Bay Area wins. In Portland I was able to read the menu and find out what I was eating. The farm listing was an aside or insert on the menu. Here in the Bay menus read more like:

Full Belly Farm mixed greens, served with local honey (from our rooftop beehive) grilled Frog Hollow Peaches, Acme baguette croutons, house-smoked bacon from heritage local pork with a meyer lemon vinaigrette (lemon's source from local trees) and Stonehouse olive oil.

Local in Portland for food is more local than the Bay. The farms are like 10-12 miles from the city, vs our 50-60 mile radius of local. And Portland had more access to local meat than we do it seems here in the Bay.

Hipster Culture:
I was expecting way more hipsters. Dowtown Portland seemed to be way more posh and polished than expected. There were also way more chains. It was actually more like Walnut Creek downtown than what I was expecting. I was expectng hipsters everywhere, but it wasn't actually that many. One key difference I noticed is that places that would be "hipster-only" zones in the Bay Area actually had a more mixed crowd of young people and families.

Diversity:
Well Portland was much less diverse than I was expecting. I think the latest census results of Portland's Chinatown sum things up pretty well. 8 chinese people live in Chinatown.
Obviously I live in one of the most diverse cities in the country. And what isn't well documented about Oakland is that the "diverse" people all go to the same places. It isn't super segregated. Portland on the other hand did seem very segregated.

One thing that did feel a little weird? There seemed to be a serious lack of other black women around my age. I was puzzled. Not that I was expecting to see tons of fellow black people, but oddly it seemed like most I did see were me. It was a little bizarre. I also didn't see many Asians or Latinos either. I was expecting more Asian people. I did chat with a few Indian women who were also noticing the lack of fellow Indians (especially compared with their hometowns).

Transit:
Overall it was pretty good in Portland. But based on other info I have seen, it seems like Portland does have a little problem with investing in trendy transit serving discretional riders, and less transit options (or cutbacks) serving the lifeline riders. We don't have a ton of new transit in Oakland at the moment, and this hasn't been a huge concern yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up soon. The current transit projects on the table include BRT in a non-trendy/minimal gentrification corridor, an airport connector everyone hates and a downtown streetcar. We have more problems with just funding any transit. Our issue is more around the fact we have way too many agencies, and there is one favorite child who sucks up all the money to expand to suburbia. This is more of a region wide issue, but there are lots of problems.

Friendliness:
I have heard about the Northwestern freeze, but I found people in Seattle to be pretty friendly. Portland, not so much. Not many casual conversations or "chattiness" with strangers like I find at home (or in the South). Unless you asked someone about Portland. Then suddenly all of the chatter poured out. It was interesting.

Those were the top of mind ones.

Anyone else have observations?

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by jade408

Diversity:
Well Portland was much less diverse than I was expecting. I think the latest census results of Portland's Chinatown sum things up pretty well. 8 chinese people live in Chinatown.

Basically no-one lives in Portland's Chinatown for the most part except for homeless and down on their luck folks living in nearby SRO hotels. The real Chinese area is out on 82nd Ave where all the Asian markets and Chinese dim sum restaurants that are actually patronized by a Chinese immigrant community are--along with a lot of Vietnamese businesses. The downtown Chinatown actually used to be Japantown until the 1940s and then became a Chinatown that became less vital as everyone moved further out.

In general Portland isn't obviously going to feel as diverse as the Bay Area(which is one of the most diverse places in the US). At the same time though the popular inner areas of Portland are mostly dominated by a certain class of transplants from other parts of the country are actually less diverse than what you find in other parts of the metro. The black community in NE Portland has been moving east since gentrification starting taking root. I lived in inner NE Portland for six years and the old Baptist churches in the neighborhood still had a lot of black people showing up for service on Sundays--though they increasingly lived further out on the east side. Also some suburbs of Portland have a higher Asian and Hispanic percentage than Portland itself. Portland isn't diverse as far as US cities go, but really the popular places like the Pearl District feel even less diverse.

[jade408]

We spent a tiny bit of time in Pearl. Went downtown and too the Mississippi area too. Mississippi felt like what expected Portland to be like. It was more diverse as well.

The entertainment district felt very very undiverse.


I am on my phone, please forgive the typos.

[EnricoV]

Well, downtown is where business is conducted. So you'll find more business people there.

If the only neighborhoods you went into were the Pearl and Mississippi ... you didn't see much of Portland, so I think your impressions are quite slanted. And Deezus is right ... no one lives in China Town but the kind of folk who live in SRO rooms.

People, from what I've seen, seem to think that if there's not a "Chinese neighborhood" a "Polish neighborhood" or a "(fill in the ethnicity of your choice) neighborhood" there's no diversity. I actually think there's an advantage to the ethnic population being dispersed throughout the community.

Where did you find an "entertainment district?"

[jade408]

Originally Posted by EnricoV

Well, downtown is where business is conducted. So you'll find more business people there.

If the only neighborhoods you went into were the Pearl and Mississippi ... you didn't see much of Portland, so I think your impressions are quite slanted. And Deezus is right ... no one lives in China Town but the kind of folk who live in SRO rooms.

People, from what I've seen, seem to think that if there's not a "Chinese neighborhood" a "Polish neighborhood" or a "(fill in the ethnicity of your choice) neighborhood" there's no diversity. I actually think there's an advantage to the ethnic population being dispersed throughout the community.

Where did you find an "entertainment district?"

I went to the Rose Garden, Pok Pok, then South Waterfront for the tram. We only spent a few days. The entertainment area? See,Ed to labelled that way but the bar district around Voodoo Donuts. Also the Saturday Market. We did a few walking tours.

We also only took transit or walked on our trip, which is more of a birds eye view than driving around. I noticed on the way to Pok Pok, there were more Asian people on the bus than in Chinatown. That was also the most diverse of the transit trips the whole time.

My measure of diversity isn't based on if people are concentrated via segregated living conditions. I'd rather see mixing. I am just looking at who is out and about in a given neighborhood, restaurant or bar. I didn't see much variety. It was a bit weird.

All though the Bay Area is diverse, it isn't always very mixed. SF the city is very segregated for blacks and Latinos. Not so much for Asians east and south. The east bay tends to be very mixed socially.

Leaving Portland it made me wonder if things were mixed socially.

[SETabor]

The "Entertainment District" is an area of bars east of Chinatown. To me it seems to mainly draw a bunch of 20-somethings just out of college looking to get drunk. I think the bar owners got together and are trying to get it to be more than it is.

Portland's not very diverse. It's 70 - 75% white. A majority of the non-white population lives east of the river so if you spent most of your time on the west side, it would seem even whiter.

Chinatown is an arch and some relic restaurants. What does a city do with an ethnic town/little ethnicity when all the old residents move? If all the Italians moved away from Little Italy and there was just a restaurant or two left, what do you call the area? Especially if there's some statue or mini Tower of Pisa in the middle?

[jade408]

Portland Chinatown is a big contrast to SF and Oakland Chinatowns which are both hubs for the Chinese community. Albeit SFs is a poorer area for recent immigrants. Lots of SROs, but also one of the densest parts of SF. Oaklands is more commercial an has lots of markets and activity. But is also a little bit residential. Portland's seemed like a landmark.


I am on my phone, please forgive the typos.

[Todd_96]

I would agree that Oakland seems much more hipster than Portland. Oakland probably has one of the strongest hipster cultures in the country.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by Todd_96

I would agree that Oakland seems much more hipster than Portland. Oakland probably has one of the strongest hipster cultures in the country.

Well I'd say that in the Bay Area, hipster places only cater to hipsters. But in Portland hipster places have non hipsters. In Oakland, hipsters are more diverse than Portland hipsters.