Want to hear something funny as heck? (Portland, Wheeler: real estate, for rent)

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Ted Wheeler wants to clean up Portland!

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/...p_trash_a.html

Read the comment section!

I hope he starts with the root of the problems.

After that maybe he can tackle out of control petty crime by vagrants, total lack of police response, and then clean up a few filthy dangerous homeless camps.

It's a start, I guess, but you know, it's very, very complicated.
(That's a very well known Portland meme BTW, for you out-of-towners)

[Minervah]

Neighborhoods aren't much better. Friend who has a beautiful old duplex in my former Hawthorne neighborhood is selling. After twenty years she is fed up with what it has become in the last ten or so. She says she is tired of waking up to seeing human poop, needles, garbage and sometimes the people responsible for creating all the debris in her backyard.

She probably won't have trouble selling her home. She's made a great deal of improvements and updates. No doubt someone from out of town with more money than sense who believes they will be living in "Portlandia" with Fred Armisen will buy it. Then she can move to a less trendy area and have some peace.

[Nell Plotts]

All those homeless sleeping areas give pigs a bad name. Trash bins don't address the core problem.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Only a couple responses huh?

I guess people don't know or don't really care what it is really like in Portland.
Portlandia it ain't.

Maybe I should have picked a better thread title.

[ccjarider]

Unless you are unlucky enough to live in that city - Who actually cares anymore? The leftists that run the place have won.

They can have it.

[JonathanLB]

LOL, yup you guys are both right, let them have it. I am genuinely very happy for everyone who loves Portland. I think it's important to find the place you call home and hopefully you love it there! I know quite a few people who do. I suppose I know quite a few more though who are just here because they have a good job and there's no way they can leave, basically.

I would just caution people moving to a city like Portland to understand that the love letters written by other people across the nation who haven't lived here and only visited are a bit far from the truth. I rather wonder about the middle class Portlanders, how they feel, because to me at least, if I was making $50,000-60,000/year, by no means a bad income nationwide, I'd feel pretty pinched paying 9% income taxes on most of that money while also dealing with the very high cost of living given what I get for it. I associate high cost of living with exceptional place, and Portland is just not exceptional. If you are paying a lot of money to live in NYC, you get a world class nightlife, Broadway plays, amazing sports teams (like, 2 of every sport lol), incredible diversity, and almost anything else imaginable... though you do also get some horrible weather. In Portland, you get the horrible weather, but you get none of the arts scene, no sports except if you like soccer (get real) or don't mind watching the Blazers be mediocre every year, so I guess you get a world class beer scene? I mean, that's not nothing. But it's not really worth the hassle, either.

[SumTingy]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

Unless you are unlucky enough to live in that city - Who actually cares anymore? The leftists that run the place have won.

They can have it.

Lol. We have a neighborhood blog out in the burbs. Many arguments about neighborhood topics are underscored with “we don’t want to end up like Portland”.

Portland is a model for what you don’t want to be.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

I rather wonder about the middle class Portlanders, how they feel, because to me at least, if I was making $50,000-60,000/year, by no means a bad income nationwide, I'd feel pretty pinched paying 9% income taxes on most of that money while also dealing with the very high cost of living given what I get for it.

This is ongoing concern for many. 50k-60k seems to be an entry level income especially if you are thinking about a small house and raising a family.
It is extremely tough for young folks to break out of the 20/30 years old single party life and transition to a stable family life.
Most young couples I see that are making it seem to have at least one professional job at 100k a year or more.
Even better when both are working.

But if you are just some regular Joe, it's pretty tough.
You have to get at least one hour out of Portland before real estate prices start to get a little bit more realistic and affordable and even that is changing rapidly as people move out of Portland to less expensive locales.

Portlanders are really starting to get fed up with what they feel is a total lack of concern by our city politicians and our virtually non-existent police department.

Petty crime is starting to get out of hand because there is no enforcement and no repercussions for bad behaviour, whether it be drug crimes (meth, tweaking, etc...) or just driving infractions.
I can't remember the last time I have seen someone pulled over (or even a patrolling police car) for anything in Multnomah County, especially the East side of Portland.

Portland is starting to be a lawless place, which is not desirable, because public vigilantism is the natural next step.

[FSF]

Originally Posted by JonathanLB

LOL, yup you guys are both right, let them have it. I am genuinely very happy for everyone who loves Portland. I think it's important to find the place you call home and hopefully you love it there! I know quite a few people who do. I suppose I know quite a few more though who are just here because they have a good job and there's no way they can leave, basically.

I would just caution people moving to a city like Portland to understand that the love letters written by other people across the nation who haven't lived here and only visited are a bit far from the truth. I rather wonder about the middle class Portlanders, how they feel, because to me at least, if I was making $50,000-60,000/year, by no means a bad income nationwide, I'd feel pretty pinched paying 9% income taxes on most of that money while also dealing with the very high cost of living given what I get for it. I associate high cost of living with exceptional place, and Portland is just not exceptional. If you are paying a lot of money to live in NYC, you get a world class nightlife, Broadway plays, amazing sports teams (like, 2 of every sport lol), incredible diversity, and almost anything else imaginable... though you do also get some horrible weather. In Portland, you get the horrible weather, but you get none of the arts scene, no sports except if you like soccer (get real) or don't mind watching the Blazers be mediocre every year, so I guess you get a world class beer scene? I mean, that's not nothing. But it's not really worth the hassle, either.

While I agree with much of what you say philosophically, your comparison is not close to being apples to apples. One can still get by on $50-60K in Portland. You can't come close to doing that in NYC unless you're live WAY out in the boonies or in a somewhat closer in unsafe neighborhood. And if you want Manhattan or a close surrounding burrough, $100K would be tough to get by on.

Portland has never been expensive to me but having lived in the SF Bay Area most of my life, my perspective is completely different. But being as objective as I can, I still don't think the overall cost of living in Portland relative to what it provides overall is a bad trade-off. No one cared about Portland for the longest time. And let's be quite frank, it's not at all consequential on a national landscape still and will never be in the foreseeable future IMO. But no doubt more people over the past decade plus want to live and move here and they have and continue to do so. It will find it's equilibrium point if it already hasn't.

As for Portland housing costs, all assets and housing in most all metros are inflated right now. IMO, Portland will not be anymore expensive 10 years from now and could actually be less expensive unless the national deficit/debt gets to a point where the dollar currency encounters a quasi apocalyptic situation

[pdxMIKEpdx]

I see your point, however.....

If you are a family with two kids, an education level below a bachelors (STEM excepted), and a combined income of 60k a year, you are going to be living in the least desirable parts of Portland, and you are going to have to watch every single penny to keep your heads minimally above water.

None of the glory and entertainment aspects of Portland are going to be available to you because you can't afford it.

60K IS TWO PEOPLE WORKING FORTY HOURS A WEEK FOR 15 BUCKS AN HOUR.
Sure that is 5k a month, but then subtract income and federal taxes, 2000k a month goes out for rent or mortgage, utilities, high premiums for minimal health care with high deductibles, exhorbitant day care prices, the basics of life (kid expenses and school, etc) and what do you have left?
Pennies.
Face it, life in Portland may not be worth the struggle it takes to live here.

Quadruple your expenses if you have local extended family to help out and take care of, daycare expenses of 200 bucks a week per kid, gas or transit costs (A Tri-Met pass is currently 100 bucks a month, Whoopee! ....it's probably a break even situation to own a cheap used 1000 buck compact car and drive yourself to work) from where you can afford to live versus where you work, the lists of crushing down-stomping life depressing expenses go on and on.

You might as well be living in a cold rainy depressed PNW town like Aberdeen.
At least welfare is easy to get there.

What you are going to see is the exodus of "normal folks" from Portland, making it more and more impossible for people making less than 100k a year to live here.
The COL will continue to go up and up.
Prices will increase for everything because your "service class" is no longer there, and the ones that remain will cost you considerably.

And let's be quite frank, there are plenty of people who have no familial roots in the Portland area, probably have an income and education that allows them to live anywhere they want (and what we locally despise as a "TechBro), and quite frankly, no long term Portlander gives a hoot about how it is "where I come from" or how some outsider projects how it is going to be ten years from now....

They are more interested in how it is for me and my family.....right now....IN PORTLAND........

But no worries, our glorious Mayor "One Term Wheeler" is vowing to "Clean Up Portland"!

BTW, I have not heard a word about this program since it was announced.
I guess the public ridicule was too much to bear.