Where would you raise your children? (Portland, Eugene: violent crime, job market, transfer)

[Me&T]

Hello All,


My question is simple; if you could pick a community, where in Oregon would you want to raise your children? My wife and I are seriously considering a move to Oregon from the Sacramento area. We have visited Ashland and Brookings several times and enjoy both places and want to expand our search. We have three children; ages 4, 4 and 8 so are concerned about a quality education and lower crime rate. Our current neighborhood is nice, but we live within 20 miles of frequent shootings, stabbings and other serious violent crimes. The Citydata.com crime index seems to be a useful tool but know that statistics can be misleading.



My wife wants to be in, or within reasonable driving distance, of a larger town for shopping, cultural activities and the like. We love the outdoors, hiking, fishing, camping, etc. The weather is a concern as we do enjoy the many sunny days in the Sacramento Valley but are very tired of the oppressive heat and smog common here from June to September. Politics is not an issue as we get along with liberals and conservatives equally; if you vote, you are friends. Fortunately, we are in the medical field so the job market is of lesser concern. Finally, we would love to be within driving distance of the coast.



We absolutely love Oregon and Oregonians and I have to fight a very strong urge to make a U-turn as soon as we hit the California border. Any advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

[Silverfall]

Define larger town and driving distance to the coast.

[bluebird39]

Hmmm sadly, the education system here in Oregon has deteriorated considerably in the last 10-ish years. I know California isn't great either. I recently did soem research abotu Olympia WA. What a neat place! In Oregon, I'd guess Eugene would have good schools, since the college is there.

I used to live in Ashland, and while it has the best school system in Southern Oregon, I have friends who have kids in the schools there. The schools are good, but it's a strange mix of society... most people with families can't afford to live there, and the schools are shrinking.

Great schools website and school digger has some good info...

Good luck!

[BLAZER PROPHET]

If you want to be within driving distance of the coast (let us presume for day trips), that would make your destination between Cottage Grove and Portland. So, nice areas with easy access to both larger cities and within day trips to the beach would be Cottage Grove, Junction City, Silverton, Stayton, Dallas, Philomath, Corvallis, Wilsonville and Vernonia- IMHO. Those range is size from 2,000 or so to 50,000 and are all rural areas, where I think is best to raise kids.

[Count David]

Me personally, Ashland.

[Me&T]

Hello again, and thank you for the replies.

By larger town I would mean a town that has access to shopping, activites for kids, etc. With three little kids in tow I don't want to have to drive 45 minutes every time I need to get some major shopping done. :-) So I don't have a particular population number in mind..... Ideally driving distance to the coast would be 1- 2 hours max... this is one of the drawbacks of Ashland for us.

Bluebird39- we are actually traveling to Portland next week. We will stop by Olympia as well.. I have also heard great things about that area. Can you explain your Ashland school comment a little more about being a strange mix of society? Honestly, this is one thing that am unsure of with the Ashland area. I love the hippie town, but I don't know if it will be too much for me once I am there? Any further info. would be great.. feel free to PM if you want. :-) Oh, why did you move from Ashland and where are you living now?

David- why Ashland for you? What do you love about Ashland? What do you dislike about the town? Are you raising a family as well?

Blazer prophet- thank you for all those places... We will look into them. The only place we have considered on your list was Corvallis, but then people say it's very "gray" all winter... and even fall and spring. We can definitely take a change in weather from Sacramento, but gray 8-9 months of the year would not work for us. Would you agree with the "gray" comment? I know everyone has different thoughts on this....

Thank you everyone!

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Originally Posted by Me&T

Hello again, and thank you for the replies.

By larger town I would mean a town that has access to shopping, activites for kids, etc. With three little kids in tow I don't want to have to drive 45 minutes every time I need to get some major shopping done. :-) So I don't have a particular population number in mind..... Ideally driving distance to the coast would be 1- 2 hours max... this is one of the drawbacks of Ashland for us.

Bluebird39- we are actually traveling to Portland next week. We will stop by Olympia as well.. I have also heard great things about that area. Can you explain your Ashland school comment a little more about being a strange mix of society? Honestly, this is one thing that am unsure of with the Ashland area. I love the hippie town, but I don't know if it will be too much for me once I am there? Any further info. would be great.. feel free to PM if you want. :-) Oh, why did you move from Ashland and where are you living now?

David- why Ashland for you? What do you love about Ashland? What do you dislike about the town? Are you raising a family as well?

Blazer prophet- thank you for all those places... We will look into them. The only place we have considered on your list was Corvallis, but then people say it's very "gray" all winter... and even fall and spring. We can definitely take a change in weather from Sacramento, but gray 8-9 months of the year would not work for us. Would you agree with the "gray" comment? I know everyone has different thoughts on this....

Thank you everyone!

As to Ashland, it's a beautiful place. But it's quite a ways (time wise) to the beach and it is HOT in the summer. Very hot. If you wanted to live in southern Oregon, I'd suggest Grants Pass- more family friendly and not quite so hot, yet remaining a very sunny place.

As to Corvallis, I'd agree about the gray. More so the last 2 years. But I was trying to think of places that are very family friendly with wholesome activities that are also close to the beach.

Good luck with your choice.

[Count David]

Originally Posted by Me&T

David- why Ashland for you? What do you love about Ashland? What do you dislike about the town? Are you raising a family as well?

It's quaint, beautiful, and kind of like the ideal setting to grow up in IMO. Ashland has always been one of my favorite spots on the map.

Medford would be big enough to satisfy most wants, but if I needed some sort of big-city amenity, I could always find a way to make it to SF, PDX, or SEA for a weekend if need be.

I too am raising a family, and would be open to doing so there, but the fairly high unemployment rate is a concern, and the winters are probably not harsh enough for me. Other than that, I think it'd be an awesome place to live.

[haggardhouseelf]

We love Eugene. We've lived in four different states (TX, CA, OR and WA) for my husbands job and Oregon has been "it" for us. We left Oregon for Washington assuming that since we loved Oregon so much, and it was in the PNW, that we'd love Washington, too, since it's also in the PNW. We were mistaken. We spent a hard sad year in the Seattle/Redmond (Eastside) area and quickly moved back to Eugene almost exactly a year later. We plan to stay here now at least until our kids are through school, if not longer. (My husband and I are eyeing the coast or the Seattle area for when it's just the two of us - but as a family with kids we find Eugene is the perfect town. We actually loved Seattle but not for a family - it would be a great place to be a couple without kids or a single person.)

The only thing about Eugene - are the schools. You are fortunate in that your kids are very young still, so you can get them started on the Immersion track. The Spanish Immersion program here in Eugene is really good, and Eugene has the International High School program which has an IB program. Check it out: Untitled Document As far as the public schools in Oregon outside of Portland, that one is probably the best.

As the kids get older it's trickier to get them set up in the good schools. We moved here kind of late, and I was under the false impression that Eugene had "open enrollment". Technically they do, but as there are more school closures due to budget issues and schools are getting more and more crowded they simply don't have room to accept students who do not live within their school neighborhood area. If you do move to Eugene - be sure to live in the neighborhood where you want your kids to go to school, because even though they say you can transfer into different schools - there's a big risk of that not actually happening for you.

Anyway - aside from the tricky aspect of the schools - Eugene is awesome. Summers are awesome. This summer alone for our kids is full of: sailing, beachcombing, horseback riding, BMX track racing, duneboarding (like surfing on sand dunes), planetarium shows, minor league baseball games (Eugene has a really nice brand new ballpark - PK Park, fireworks almost every Friday evening (also at PK Park), movies in the park, bike rides along the river bike trails, hiking the buttes, watching salmon in the creeks, fishing, go-karting, tennis camps, swimming (of course) , rope swings over the water holes, climb trees, farmer's markets, slug queen coronation, festivals and fairs, hot air balloon festivals, lots of camping, geocaching, agate hunting, driftwood art making, and this thing called reading that is done with these "book" things with actual paper pages (we're old-fashioned). And most of this stuff is either free or doesn't cost very much at all.

[jjpop]

Originally Posted by Me&T

...but gray 8-9 months of the year would not work for us.

Then you'd better focus on the Rogue Valley. Ashland-Medford-Grants Pass. In western OR anything north of there will fall into the "gray" category, and over the Cascade crest (Bend) will be too far from the coast.

And even the Rogue Valley will be cloudier than you are used to in Sacto.