Portland Hype (school, club, office)

[jm31828]

Wow, there's a topic I thought I'd never see. First of all, I don't live in Portland but have been there to travel and lived in the area some time ago. It has 2.3 million people- that is a GOOD thing. Being a bigger city is good, it means more amenities, more things to do, more culture, etc. And being "just a city in a valley"- what? It's gorgeous there, it's in a lush green valley with mountains on both sides, topped off by a beautiful Mt. Hood floating on the eastern horizon. If someone can't see what's special about all of that then they should move out here to the flat, dull Great Plains.

[jm31828]

Originally Posted by Cheeto

Actually, El Paso, Austin, Tuscon, Columbus,Ohio just to name a few are all major cities with one or less professional sports teams. Besides, quality of life in a city can hardly be determined by the presence or quality of a professional sports team. I'm from Detroit where we often have sports teams in the playoffs (minus the lions of course), but when the games off we still have high crime, crappy weather, and the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.

All of those metro areas you mention are FAR smaller than Portland. At 2.3 Million, Portland is definitely in a league of its own by only having one major professional sports franchise, this is sad but true.

[cdelena]

Originally Posted by jm31828

All of those metro areas you mention are FAR smaller than Portland. At 2.3 Million, Portland is definitely in a league of its own by only having one major professional sports franchise, this is sad but true.

Don't be fooled about El Paso... there are almost 3 million just accross the border in Juarez on top of the .7 million or so on this side... and heavy traffic back and forth. The Austin metro area is now over 1.5 million so as far a metro areas Portland does not really dwarf some of the examples.

[roneb]

Originally Posted by jm31828

All of those metro areas you mention are FAR smaller than Portland. At 2.3 Million, Portland is definitely in a league of its own by only having one major professional sports franchise, this is sad but true.

The presence of a pro sports team should be the very last way to judge a community. Arts, culture, education, job market? Yes. The presence of pro athletes? That counts as a negative in most instances these days! If you want sports, look for colleges!

Having said that, it IS awefully nice to have a Blazers team made up of classy young men for a change!

[Tesaje]

Originally Posted by roneb

The presence of a pro sports team should be the very last way to judge a community. Arts, culture, education, job market? Yes. The presence of pro athletes? That counts as a negative in most instances these days! If you want sports, look for colleges!

I sooo agree! The taxpayers of many cities this country have been bamboozled into paying corporate welfare to these companies

[esya]

I agree with Vanyaji that the reactions in different regions and states vary widely. I am not sure that a few posters on this site are representative but it certainly gives you something to think about. After all, most of the places I have lived I have really had only a handful of people I felt really close to anyway. So I don't know that I care if there are 6.3 million others to support a professional sports team; of late I am more concerned about the traffic noise.

[EnricoV]

I think the one thing professional sports are good for, is attracting national attention. Without them, you don't exist. At least until you have a national disaster or some horrific crime. And then it's only fleeting. Subsequently, national attention helps attract business to the city.

Now I'm not saying it's necessary, just that it does have it's purposes.

[FunkyMonk]

Originally Posted by GB1

I agree with the latest posters in this thread (with some exceptions; I couldn't care less about men in drag or "weirdos" or whatever; most of the "Keep Portland Weird" stuff is about as weird as Wacky Shirt Friday at a local insurance office, anyway).

But the groupthink mentality in PDX is as stultifying and doctrinaire as that in any Bible-banging small town. Instead of Jesus, you've got recycling and sustainability. Instead of "family values," you've got progressivism (whatever that means this week - and if you want a laugh, ask a Portlander to define "progressive").

Not that any or all of those things aren't laudable; they're just not thought through. They're buzzwords, and they take the place of original thought...and, all too often, original conversation. An acquaintance of mine there once said "Diversity in Portland means that everyone has a different tattoo and thinks the exact same," and there's some truth in that.

My own politics are probably slightly left-of-center on the national scale. In Portland I felt like Sean Hannity.

This is totally true.

Speaking for myself. I would say I am very liberal, spiritual, intellectual, educated, open-minded and all that good stuff. But when I went to Portland for an extended visit and I found that the other "Liberals" were judging me on little things. Like my clothes were different than the style out there, or I carried myself and spoke a little differently, or God forbid, I actually voiced an opinion on something that went against the stereotypical liberal mindset.

I actually got outright snubbed a few times on things like this. Instead of people openly accepting my differences and being interested in the diversity of meeting a new type of person, I had people saying "Where are you from?" with glaring, judgemental eyes and things like that a few times. Which I completely wasn't expecting. I guess my view of "Liberal" is different than lots of other people's. And the funny thing is, I had nothing but the purest intentions, yet lots of people were treating me like i'm "one of them".

Portland is liberal, but within a box for sure. But really, is there anywhre these days that isn't within some kind of box like that? If there is, someone please let me know and i'll pack my bags right now to go there. Although Portland isn't perfect, no place is. Any city of over 2 million people is going to have good and bad.

I love Portland, and even though it's not perfect, I think what's going on in Portland overall is a breath of fresh air in America.

[Venusian_Artist]

I think the trick to handling Portland liberals is to teach them why they're wrong. They mostly do what they do reflexively, on auto pilot. If you can get them off auto pilot by asking them why they believe what they believe, they'll usually capitulate. It works on Conservatives too.

Back on topic: of course Portland's overhyped. All places are. I went through a period where I was visiting Hawaii several times a year because I liked it so much. I told a friend of mine how great it was, he went there for his honeymoon, and hated it.

If he had discovered it on his own, he might have been the one to sing its praises. But there was no way his time there could live up to the expectations I'd unintentionally created for him. We always learn best from our own experiences.

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by Venusian_Artist

I think the trick to handling Portland liberals is to teach them why they're wrong. They mostly do what they do reflexively, on auto pilot... ... It works on Conservatives too.

So, you are one of those people who claims to be neither Liberal nor Conservative but the perfect balance of ideologies necessary to make only the very rightest of the difficult decisions that must be made in a complex global theatre. Definitely, dude, stop wasting your time here and make a viable run for office, your country needs you.