Eugene: Is it worth it? (Portland, Springfield: transplants, high crime, home)

[Midwesterns45]

Moving away from the east coast to a small city on the west coast, I'm sick of the population denisty, high crime and milchonaly in the east (Particuallary metro NY) I'm considering a move to either Eugene, Fresno or Spokane. WHICH ONE DO YOU SUGGEST for a quiet writer who needs to be in a place of 'calmness' so to speak...
I really loved touring Eugene but after reading here on city-data that the unemployment rate is 17% and the mean income is way below Oregon's average (which isn't high) I have become very skeptical. My final question is ARE THERE ANY NEGATIVE ELEMENTS TO EUGENE THAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT?

[skypros]

Well based on your choices...... Eugene is 500% better than Fresno
and Spokane.... I was going to move there..... Traveled all the way there from So. California.... Had one short look..... and DROVE HOME Less than 24 hours later....

I lived in so. california...... so i know a little about traffic (although nothing like the NY metro) and There really is not any traffic here in Eugene..... and for that matter the state of Oregon..... EXCEPT the Portland area (salem has a tad bit of gridlock)

C'ya in Eugene

[FresnoFacts]

While many don't know it, Fresno has quite a diverse writing community.

There is a strong poetry community here, led by Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine. It writes with a down-to-earth straightforward style that has come out of the fields and small towns of the Central Valley.
Poetry Is Deeply Rooted In Rural California Valley - washingtonpost.com

Fresno State has a MFA program that is taught by authors like novelist Steve Yarbrough, author of 7 published novels including "Prisoners of War" and "The Oxygen Man".
Steve Yarbrough - Authors - Random House
Fresno MFA Program in Creative Writing

[Waterlily]

Originally Posted by Midwesterns45

Moving away from the east coast to a small city on the west coast, I'm sick of the population denisty, high crime and milchonaly in the east (Particuallary metro NY) I'm considering a move to either Eugene, Fresno or Spokane. WHICH ONE DO YOU SUGGEST for a quiet writer who needs to be in a place of 'calmness' so to speak...
I really loved touring Eugene but after reading here on city-data that the unemployment rate is 17% and the mean income is way below Oregon's average (which isn't high) I have become very skeptical. My final question is ARE THERE ANY NEGATIVE ELEMENTS TO EUGENE THAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT?

The unemployment rate does not seem to be as you stated. You can look here Eugene-Springfield, OR Economy at a Glance For the last month the unemployment rate was 6.7%. That's not good, but not too bad.

[haggardhouseelf]

Originally Posted by Midwesterns45

... milchonaly in the east (Particuallary metro NY) ... ARE THERE ANY NEGATIVE ELEMENTS TO EUGENE THAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT?

milchonaly - you mean melancholy?

No place is perfect, and melancholy is certainly present at times in the sun-shrouded pacific northwest for better part of the year (long winters)... but my family is absolutely loving it here.

Probably the hardest thing about living in Eugene for most people - especially transplants (as we are) - is employment. If you choose to come out here, make sure you have a job waiting for you. Don't just show up and expect to find a job quickly. If money/employment is not an issue for you, you'll love it here. It's a wonderful place especially if you enjoy the outdoors and being around a creative, eclectic community full of all sorts of different types of people.

Sometimes a person can grow stagnant in one place. It's not so much that the place itself is a bad place, or any worse or better than it ever was to begin with, it's just that the person needs a change. Like a plant that needs to be repotted. Good luck to you!

[tiffela74]

the only thing i dislike about Eugene is I get lost each and everytime i go there....of course though, i am from a much smaller town!
My little girl goes through torture when she is there. She is a diehard Beaver fanatic and all the Ducks stuff everywhere just drives her batty. lol
its a very nice place IMO. Lots to offer, lots of good people (even if they are Ducks. lol)

[haggardhouseelf]

Quack - Quack!

[tiffela74]

we're so gonna kick your butts again at Civil War....
lol wouldnt it be a blast to all get together for a CW Party! That'd be a kick!
(especially when the Beavs win again....evil laugh heheheheehe) And if, IF, horror of horrors, something goes cosmicly terribly wrong, and the.....ohh...i cant say it.....the....ducks.....(gulp) .......win, well, i'll need some help consouling my little one. She cried herself to sleep last time her beloved beavers lost a game. And she just turned 7 last week.
I wonder...if we rented some place, part way between us all, w/a big ole tv, how many people we could get together for a friendly rival game...think it'd work?

oh yeah, thread subject....dislikes about Eugene....um......just the lost factor and those silly duck fans I think......and if you want quieter, go along the outskirts of town. Around the college and housing for students, it might be a bit noisy. Especially on weekends. Also, anywhere around the mall. Lots of people go to Eugene from surrounding areas to hit the malls. Even us hicks out in Coos Bay. lol so mall area can get a bit crazy.
plenty of beautiful parks, trails, bike paths, outdoor stuff abound. some pretty cool shopping too.

[orygun]

Originally Posted by Midwesterns45

Moving away from the east coast to a small city on the west coast, I'm sick of the population denisty, high crime and milchonaly in the east (Particuallary metro NY) I'm considering a move to either Eugene, Fresno or Spokane. WHICH ONE DO YOU SUGGEST for a quiet writer who needs to be in a place of 'calmness' so to speak...
I really loved touring Eugene but after reading here on city-data that the unemployment rate is 17% and the mean income is way below Oregon's average (which isn't high) I have become very skeptical. My final question is ARE THERE ANY NEGATIVE ELEMENTS TO EUGENE THAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT?

I have lived in Eugene and Spokane and would choose Eugene in a heartbeat! I spent several years in Eugene and Cottage Grove and 5 months in Spokane which was more than enough. Eugene is a writer's hotbed particularly with the university there. Spokane is dull and stagnant and way nastier than Eugene. Eugene does have a lot of homeless people, including a large homeless teen population. There is a fair amount of crime and traffic is bad. Small towns on the outskirts are nicer I think.

[haggardhouseelf]

Originally Posted by orygun

I have lived in Eugene and Spokane and would choose Eugene in a heartbeat! I spent several years in Eugene and Cottage Grove and 5 months in Spokane which was more than enough. Eugene is a writer's hotbed particularly with the university there. Spokane is dull and stagnant and way nastier than Eugene. Eugene does have a lot of homeless people, including a large homeless teen population. There is a fair amount of crime and traffic is bad. Small towns on the outskirts are nicer I think.

I agree with just about everything Orygun mentioned except that bit about traffic. We just returned home to Eugene from living in the Seattle/Bellevue area for a year. I am from DFW (Texas) and we've aldo spent time living in California. Oh my gosh!!! Eugene doesn't have traffic problems. Or at least, the small bit of congestion we do experience certain times of the day at certain intersections is minor. Maybe around rush hours things slow down a bit, and you'll actually have a line of cars to wait behind and it'll add a whole 5 minutes to your commute... maybe... but it's nothing compared to what other cities are dealing with.

In the Seattle area, you are often waiting behind one single light at one single intersection for 30 - 45 minutes. And that's just that one light and one intersection. Meanwhile, you have lots of frustrated drivers all crazy and manic from drinking too much caffeine (it's insane, the coffee-addiction up there) and who have put themselves under too much stress (high-stress jobs, high cost of living, highly competitive area...) who go all road ragey and flip out... hopping curbs and disobeying traffic laws... and flipping you off when you won't move out of their way... they flip you off and cuss at you right in front of your kids, and often with their own kids in the car! This one business guy - in a business suit driving a cadillac escalade - was right on my tail once, and swerving around trying to squeeze by me (it was a one-lane road) and was really driving erratically. This was in a school zone! When we finally got to a place where the lane opened up, he - dangerously - went around me but managed to slow down long enough to roll down his window and give me the "blow me" hand signal - with my kids in the car. This was a daily sort of occurance where we lived in that area. It was awful. Even if the gps navigator or map or whatever said a location was 10 minutes or 5 miles away or whatever, we always planned at least an hour to get whereever we wanted to go. In Eugene, I can get anywhere within the city at any time of the day in 15 - 20 minutes. It's so nice!

Anyway - that's bad traffic. It's been a dream coming back to Eugene!