|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 400,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 14,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. Within the last few months our forum was cited in an article in 15 newspaper and in a story on AOL's homepage.| Search our forums (advanced): |
 |
|
|
03-25-2008, 12:43 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Dangerous Dave...are you in the Lexington/Lehigh area? I'm in the "zoo" out off 53rd.
DP 
|
|
04-01-2008, 06:09 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
The following is a slight update of my post on this subject...
Culture Corvallis is the big university town for the Mid Valley, and much of the town is oriented around supporting OSU and the Hewlett-Packard plant. This means a lot of one-way streets, a lot of novelty restaurants and shops, and a lot of apartments and duplexes. It's also cleaner and more environmentally minded. Albany is the big industrial and agricultural hub for the Mid Valley. You can literally smell the difference in this case, though environmental emissions controls have reduced this. Albany has a train station and a municipal airport and is located right on the I-5 corridor, with ORS 20, 99, and 34 running through it all. Its a two-way street kind of town. Also a bit dirtier. While the shopping generally sucks, Corvallis actually has a better selection of young-adult media, both in terms of live performances and albums. Most of the dedicated CD and DVD shops in the Valley moved down to Eugene years ago, but I still prefer to shop for media in Corvallis. Borders, Fred Meyers, and Happy Trails are the places to go. Corvallis is also a much more book-oriented town. It has a larger library, and the OSU library, and finally a Book Bin. Also, Corvallis hosts a Borders bookstore. Albany used to have bookstores, but not really anymore. Corvallis is officially more politically Liberal-Democrat than Albany, though President Bush has a core of vocal supporters there, too. Albany, in contrast, votes pretty consistently in favor of Republican presidents and anti-gay measures (It supported the recent ban on gay marriage, for example). However, Albany has no problem with hosting porn shops, video arcades, and bars. Corvallis police is generally more aggressive about vehicle traffic, in my experience, and you are more likely to get ticketed there. Albany is more inclined to warnings. Both towns support very small subcultures in music, dancing, theater, and skateboarding, with slightly more to be found in Corvallis. OSU in particular attracts a lot of speakers and comedians, as well as college sports fans. Football and basketball are big here, and the OSU baseball team has also been doing very well. Bicycling is also popular, but Corvallis is bicycle friendly, whereas Albany is not. The Mid-Valley has an active target shooting community, though ranges are located outside of Albany. Neither Albany nor Corvallis police departments have struck me as supportive of this, and instead have a tendency to treat citizens in possession of a firearm with more paranoia than any cop I encounter in big cities. Car clubs and cruising communities used to be big, at least in Albany, but have tapered off dramatically in the last five years. Underground scenes, such as gay communities, punk, hippy, or goth circles, and the BDSM scene, have very limited support in the Mid-Valley. Drug use, on the otherhand, remains very popular among all ages; with locally produced meth, weed, and acid being the most prevalent illegal drugs; and alcoholism being a major legal pastime. Shopping Albany generally has a lot more shopping, particularly for furniture, motor vehicles, clothing, and appliances. It has a Costco, while a Walmart mega store is located a few minutes away in Lebanon. Albany tends to be cheaper, with lower gas prices. Fast food tends to be as much as a dollar cheaper, as well. Corvallis has more office supplies and computer stores, and it also has the biggest dedicated grocery store in the Mid-Valley, the Win-Co. I also reccommend Trump's Hobbies. Corvallis has more eateries and coffee shops and they generally have a lot more local charm. Albany hosts a lot of national chain type restaurants. Albany is also an early-to-bed kind of town. Most businesses close by 9:00 pm and the Albany Police Department tends to be prickly about people wandering the streets after the bars close, in part due to frequent problems with drug-related burglaries and vandalism. Pop's Branding Iron and Denny's are the only 24-hour restaurants in town; and McDonald's and Jack 'n' the Box have the only 24-hour drive-throughs. Corvallis is the place to go for anything remotely approaching a night-life. Traffic Traffic is relatively bad if you are planning to commute between Albany and Corvallis. The Corvallis Van Buren Street bridge is a one-lane historic steel truss--narrowing down from a three-lane major artery. Also, the bridge undergoes periodic renovations which detours traffic over the three-lane Harrison Street bridge, effectively turning it into two-way transist during renovation hours (6 pm to 6 am). You can also take the Highway 34-20 bridge, or detour down to Camp Adair or Lewisburg; these latter routes will put you on the ORS 20 to North Albany and across the Willamette River. Pay attention to college football days--when Reeser Stadium is hosting a game, you can guarantee that the roads out of town will be a mess for at least an hour afterwards. Geography and Parks Albany and Corvallis both sit at confluences of the Willamette River, with the Calapooia bordering the former and the Mary's River bordering the latter. Corvallis is located on a verdant strip between the rivers and the Coast Range, so the view is dominated by the mountains. It is surrounded by dense farmland, which opens up to the north as the Willamette veers east to Albany. Smell the mint and strawberries in the summer! Fir trees are relatively common in the area, as are orchards. Albany is located smack-dab in the middle of the Valley, and is surrounded on most sides by broad expanses of rolling farmland and flood plains, patched with old oak forests. Buttes and hills are the dominate feature to the north, and they extend all the way to Salem before the Valley floor flats out again. A lot of Christmas trees are grown here. Here also be a grass-seed capital of the world, so watch out if you have allergies! Both towns feature renovated historic riverside districts, complete with tourist-trap shops and restaurants. I prefer Albany's riverside parks to Corvallis, as they are much larger and more accessible. Corvallis has a large but underdeveloped park on the Linn County side of the Willamette, while the developed parks are narrow, but usually above the winter and spring floods. The Corvallis historic downtown also has more, as well as more hip, restaurants. Albany has a lot of canals and railways running through town. OSU is predominately an engineering-agricultural college, so a lot of agricultural science industry is located in the Corvallis area. Weather Albany is located in a bizarre weather vortex. It rarely snows here, and when it does, it seldom sticks. The temperature is generally somewhat higher here during the winter, probably due to our factories. People tend to wear shorts and short sleeved shirts long after the Corvallis residents have gone to fall wardrobes. We catch plenty of rain, however. Flooding is a small, but periodic problem. The Mid Valley tends to get a lot of heavy fog in the winter. Last edited by woerkilt; 04-01-2008 at 06:48 AM.
|
|
04-01-2008, 09:58 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
I moved here three years ago. Nice community of about 2100 people but the local politics are a total mess. Entrenched group of idiots who thing they own the town. I think Millersburg has a similar problem.
|
|
04-01-2008, 10:07 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
I moved here three years ago. Nice community of about 2100 people but the local politics are a total mess. Entrenched group of idiots who thing they own the town. I think Millersburg has a similar problem.
|
|
04-01-2008, 06:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
04-04-2008, 10:14 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Flylooper...my apologies! Jefferson is a quaint little town. I often forget about it (although I have helped some people buy homes there)...maybe its because I am more in Linn / Benton county in my day to day activities.
Woerkilt - I know nothing of the Jefferson politics...so I'll stay clear of that one. Dave Last edited by DavePautsch; 04-04-2008 at 10:14 AM. Reason: typo correction
|
|
04-24-2008, 08:53 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I lived in Corvallis for about three years many a year ago, still visit from time to time. For housing most areas away from OSU student housing are good (North of NW Circle) but there are some nice neighborhoods just outside the "student zone", and you can find some nice places in the more rural areas along the stretch between Albany and Corvallis along Highway 20.
Hey, is Woodstocks still around? By far the best pizza in the NW!!!
|
|
04-26-2008, 09:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Some of the replies here have been very informative about Corvallis and Albany. (Woerkilt's description of the two was awesome! ) I am retiring and am considering Corvallis, Albany and Eugene. How would you compare Eugene with Corvallis? I am mostly interested in a walkable downtown with some nice cafes, some bookstores, cultural events, and a live and let live lifestyle. I am male, single and have 2 dogs and like the cultural and some sporting events that a University can bring in. I have visited Eugene and really liked it. I wish I had visited Corvallis and will come back to see it too. I was impressed by Eugene's Performing Arts Center and the downtown. Can Corvallis compete? Any difference in weather between the two? I appreciate any comments from people who know both cities well. Thanks!
|
|
05-01-2008, 02:16 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Corvallis and Eugene will have proper bookstores, while Albany has the most immediately accessible large parks, including a couple of golf courses. Albany’s parks have extensive dirt trails for adventurous folks to explore, many of them running the length of the river past the foundations of long-lost bridges, saw mills, and train stations. Once you head east past Lyons and towards main street, however, you are out of downtown and in the Albany ghetto. Nevertheless, this is where several more parks, including a skate park, are located. Corvallis at the Riverside district is actually less walk friendly than either Albany or Eugene, due to high density and the presence of several busy streets, including the three-lane thoroughfare known as 4th Street. However, I consider Corvallis more pleasant to look at, as well as more bicycle-friendly overall. Downtown Corvallis also has a somewhat larger variety of shops than downtown Albany, the latter of which has homogenized somewhat in the past 12 years, in my opinion. Naturally, Eugene has more of everything, both good and bad. I’ve found my trips to parts of downtown to be interesting and enjoyable; the big problem being that there is a lot of it to traverse. I think I also got charged an arm and a leg for coffee, too. The weather in Eugene is mildly warmer; and they tend to be sunny earlier in the spring, while we are still catching a lot of rain. However, Eugene lies in the path of storms, as Mary's Peak protects Albany and Corvallis from the brunt of coastal activity.
|
|
05-01-2008, 02:37 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It's free and quick. Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com. |
|
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
) I would say that OSU has a great reputation for some programs, and for others, you may be better off at U of O or another school. Which Master's program are you interested in pursuing?
Linear Mode
