Moving to Oregon (Portland, St. Helens, Astoria: for sale, real estate, apartment)

[truck9969]

Seriously need help...my husband could possibly be taking a job in the clatskanie area...I have two children 11 & 8. I need a good community to live in, with good schools. We are willing to live within an hours drive of clatskanie. Weather is not an issue, as we are originally from the NE. I have researched the area and I am overwhelmed. Housing prices are a bit pricey. We are willing to live in Oregon or Washington..the more opinions I have the better. Thanx.

[rtg143]

I'm not eamiliar with that area and someone will let you know about the area but I use www.trulia.com or Zillow - Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Recent Sales, Apartment Rentals to check on housing prices. There are maps to show where they are located too. You may already know but just in case.

[hamellr]

You pretty much are going to want to live in Clatskanie. The next town to the east is Rainier, 13 miles away. Across the river from there is Longview. To the West, your next big town is Astoria, 35 miles away. The problem is that Highway 30 is the major road and the only route between Portland and Astoria. It's small town, then miles of rural houses and farms, then another small town. In addition it gets busy with tourist traffic, so an hour drive is totally different in the Summer months then it is in the Winter.

You don't want to live in Washington as you'll still end up paying taxes in Oregon. But you'll have to go into Longview for groceries and such, so your cost of living is going to be slightly higher as you'll need to deal with sales taxes on some items. Luckily for most goods and services, you can flash your Oregon Driver's license and get the taxes waved.

There aren't any great schools out that way, small towns like everywhere have cut budgets. None were great schools in the first place. I would avoid Rainier though, the schools there seem to have a culture of teachers/student relationships and it keeps getting pushed under the rug. The last one was between a foreign exchange student and the Principle's wife, the whistleblower was another student, but nothing ever happened except the foreign exchange student went home early. Granted, that was about the time the Rainier Police Chief was killed, so the police department may have been a bit preoccupied and lacking direction.

Clatskanie itself is a bit of a contradictory town. It was originally a lumber town, but that has long dried up. It has a lot of senior citizens who live there, the historic Flippin House, or Clatskanie Castle was made into a Senior Center. There are several bars in town, a Safeway, a (pretty good,) gun shop, and a very well regarded Buddhist Temple.

About the only real good news I can pass on is that despite being a rural Oregon town, Clatskanie has few of the drug problems that a lot of rural other towns have. The cops are pretty up on ticketing speeders through town, but there isn't a lot of other crime for them to deal with. The only other thing I can really say is that the "Portland/Seattle Freeze" everyone talks about is highly prevalent in Clatskanie due to the numbers of second generation Northern Europe immigrants who live there.

I would totally avoid living in Longview if you can. It's known as the "armpit of Portland," and few residents there would disagree with you. Drug use is high. Car Prowling crimes are high. The hospital has a bad reputation (one of the highest staph infection rates in Oregon or Washington,) smells from the Mill can be an issue. It has it's nice areas, plus a pretty nice park in the middle of town. But there is little for kids/teen agers to do and the entire town has to deal with it.

[Steve Pickering]

No drugs. That is a good thing. Rare in many places in Oregon. I think the last post was good advice.

[truck9969]

Ok I thank you all for replying to my post..I have done so much research on so places near Clatskanie. I never thought about the traffic, leading in and out of some of the places...so that is definately something to think about. Here are some of the places that I have looked into...Astoria, Clatskanie, Veronia, Vancouver, Kelso. I don't mind a small town, but I really don't want to be rural. I would prefer some place with side walks so me and my family can take a walk and feel safe. We want to be able to enjoy all that Oregon has to offer as far as outdoor activities, and some culture. Are any of these places suitable? Are there any places in between that I might have missed? Perhaps good neighborhoods within the places I mentioned? Any help would be appreciated.

[truck9969]

Hey I looked on a map..it said that I could take the 101 to the 26 to Portland from Astoria...

[hamellr]

Astoria population 9,738
Clatskanie population 1,621
Kelso population 12,150
Vancouver population 165,809
Vernonia population 2,311


Of all those, only Vancouver, Kelso and possibly Astoria can really be considered Urban. But Astoria is the big city in it's region, people come from Seaside and Long Beach to go shopping there. Kelso may have more population then Astoria, but it's all rural folks with a downtown area around the Mall. It is effectively an indistinguishable suburb of Longview.

All of them have sidewalks to a certain extent or another. But you're not going to be able to walk very far on sidewalks in the smallest three.

You absolutely do not want to commute Vancouver to Clatskanie. It's not reasonable, nor is the drive from Astoria to Clatskanie really. You're look at 53 miles Vancouver to Clatskanie, and 35 from Astoria to Clatskanie. Vernonia is 28.5. Much of the road to Astoria and Vernonia is winding roads with hills, even if you have a hybrid gas is still going to get expensive fast.

None of the cities you mentioned, except Astoria really have much culture. Even then it's in the form of a few community theaters and local museums. Even Vancouver realistically relies on Portland for it's culture. Clatskanie and Vernonia don't even have bookstores.

Highway 26 goes directly west from Portland to Seaside. You then need to take Highway 101 from Seaside to get to Astoria. Or you can take Highway 30 Northwest of Portland through Rainer and Clatskanie to Astoria.

Of the cities you mentioned, only Vancouver, Longview and Astoria have neighborhoods. The others are too small for any such thing. It could be argued that Kelso is a neighborhood of Longview. Also keep in mind that Vancouver and Kelso are both in Washington, if you live in Washington and work in Oregon, you will still be paying some Oregon taxes.

The only city that you're really overlooking is Rainier, but see above why I would recommend against that. You could perhaps look into St. Helens or Scapoose, but neither of those are much better then Rainier or Clatskanie. They both have higher drug use then Clatskanie does.

You should really use Google Maps' street view feature to take a look at each of these towns.

[ksucher]

From Clatskanie you would want to take hwy 30 east to Portland much shorter and not a bad road.

[truck9969]

I so appreciate the replies....I have checked map quest once again..to see what else is out there...there are some other areas I found....Cathlemat, Battleground, Camas, LA Center places that way in Washington. I would prefer to live in Oregon...just not in such a small town. Can anyone help me.

[truck9969]

what about Portland...any good neighborhoods or communities there