Portland looks like an awesome city- how do you guys do it? (West Linn: elementary school, living in)

[HappyinCali]

Originally Posted by makes no sense at all

it's not true that all of SF is filthy. All of the photos on that blog are from one neighborhood, SOMA.

SOMA and 6th and Market area are indeed filthy, to a scary degree. It is unclear why the city has let that area be so gross for so long. There is another gross area, the Tenderloin. However, a lot of the loin isn't even that bad. It's mostly the parts that run into the civic center area.

The rest of SF is fine in terms of cleanliness. I'd go so far as to say it's even cleaner than a lot of other cities. The average level of cleanliness is definitely cleaner than NYC, which has a layer of grime covering basically the entirety of the 5 boroughs.

Relative to Portland, portland is much cleaner than either of these cities. However, it's also less populated, less dense and has fewer people commuting in to work.

I definitely agree with you on NYC. Whenever I have to travel there, I usually can't wait to leave. Everything just seems so dilapidated an dirty.

I visited several neighborhoods in Portland and I was generally impressed by how clean and organized they were. I thought it was very pleasant and refreshing. And I just loved the solar trash cans. I thought that was such a great idea and I have no clue why they are not widespread. I found it so ironic that a city known for gloomy weather is the pioneer of solar trash cans.

[VTHokieFan]

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

I definitely agree with you on NYC. Whenever I have to travel there, I usually can't wait to leave. Everything just seems so dilapidated an dirty.

I visited several neighborhoods in Portland and I was generally impressed by how clean and organized they were. I thought it was very pleasant and refreshing. And I just loved the solar trash cans. I thought that was such a great idea and I have no clue why they are not widespread. I found it so ironic that a city known for gloomy weather is the pioneer of solar trash cans.

I was appalled by how much litter there was in the street in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg which is one of the nicer parts.

[PNWdreamin]

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

Hello everyone. My wife and I recently visited the city and we absolutely loved it. Don't worry, there is zero chance of us moving there any time soon, so we won't become transplants who raise rents.

The disclaimer here is that we were there for only 2 days. However, we have both traveled extensively and have seen many cities and places and were floored by how clean and well run Portland seemed to be compared to other places.

We also live in San Francisco and have a pretty good basis for comparison. We both kind of agreed that Portland is what San Francisco would look like if it were well run.

I am sure there are a lot of issues that are not visible to the naked eye. I am pretty involved in local politics and I would love to hear the perspective of how you think Portland achieves it.

I was amazed after seeing Portland. The streets were very clean, the public transportation was very clean and looked frequent (I only rode 1 bus and one tram) and there were no potholes. These are the three things that amazed me most. I don’t understand why we can’t have nice things in San Francisco, too.

They are doing that with a proposed budget of $3.68 bn for a city with 619k people with multiple expensive bridges in the middle of it and 133 sq miles area. That is compared to San Francisco’s 49 sq miles 852k people and $7.3 bn budget.

Of course, this could be due to me being a tourist and things might be different if I lived there, but I think my observations were pretty factual. I drove and rode a bike around the city a lot and I know I did not see a single pothole. The public transportation was efficient with a machine to purchase tickets on each station and not going to the driver to buy a flimsy paper ticket that is torn at a certain hour (like in SF). The tram and the bus I rode were very clean and pleasant.

Finally the streets – I walked extensively around the city – downtown and several neighborhoods. I saw plenty of homeless people. However, what I did not see was human filth (actually I did once). I saw several bathrooms and strategic locations near parks etc. SF is covered in urine and human excrement, especially our downtown area. In fact, there was an article last year about a subway escalator that kept breaking because of poop!

I also saw a lot of trash cans with solar cells on the top, so they could compact trash and hold more. This was in stark contrast to our bootleg, constantly overfilling trashcans, which are also once every 19 blocks. In Portland, they were every 2 blocks or so – I know because we had a dog and in San Francisco, I carry its poop bag for many blocks at a time, while in Portland, it was out of my hand within a minute.

In essence, Portland is what San Francisco should look like, if not for corruption, inefficiency and lack of accountability. It is so infuriating to me that we cannot get it right in this city with its massive budget, area the size of a small suburb in any other city in America, and many high tech companies. There is just no political will, voter apathy, and resistance to anything innovative.

Also, traffic lights were there to help move traffic, not to impede it. Green waves reduce congestion and emissions and improve safety by not leading to people gunning it through yellow lights. Their traffic lights just made sense. Maybe the combination of no potholes and well-timed lights contributed to the fact that I didn’t hear one horn in three days.

So frustrating…

And you don't even have a sales tax!

P.S. One other thing that jumped out at me – I might be imagining it, but I pointed it out to my wife and she paid attention, as well and tended to agree. A lot fewer people had their heads buried in their smartphones there. We waited in tow brunch lines and people were chatting, laughing and just hanging out. A look at an SF brunch line reveals a lot of people staring at their phones. I just thought it was interesting.

I agree with most of this. I don't claim to be an expert on Portland or SF, but I have been to both cities MANY times, and yes, plan to move to Portland next year I have to say that overall as a city, SF does feel, smell, look, much "dirtier" than Portland. SF is a great to visit, with tons to see and do, but even in the "touristy" areas, I always see overflowing trash cans, dirty sidewalks, homeless everywhere, and an overwhelming smell of Urine! Portland, though of course has plenty of homeless and gritty "areas", is surprising clean for a city of it's size. I'm sure the rain does help to clean the sidewalks and keep smells away, but hey, it works!! I've have also ridden multiple forms of public transportation in both cities and agree that riding in Portland was a much more pleasant experience! My hubby and I were just in Portland a few weeks ago on a scouting trip, and tried to cover as much of Portland as possible, driving and walking through many neighborhoods, looking at schools, enjoying restaurants etc. We both commented on how much cleaner all the streets seemed then where we're from (yes, the dreaded So Cal). There was a very noticeable lack of litter and graffiti! We did see some, but it was minimal compared to what we are used to seeing. Portland just feels like the residents, as a whole, take pride in where they live!

By the way, I completely agree with you on the cell phone thing!! Of course I'm sure there are people all over Portland that have their heads in their phones, text and drive etc.. But it does not even seem close to the degree that it is here in California! I noticed during the entire week we were there this last time, at every restaurant we went to, everyone was talking to each other, and not on their phones. It was so nice. Out of about 10 or so restaurants, I counted 2 people on their phone. No joke! It was so refreshing! Here, it's like people forget how to talk to each other. You will have a family of 5, or a group of friends at a table, and everyone has their eyes glued to their phones and sit in silence. It's sad really

[58rhodes]

Portland is fairly clean no doubt and people here are somewhat liter conscience especially older native Portlanders but.................... Portland has much less density than either Seattle or especially San Francisco. In fact most of Portland's suburbs have as much density as Portland.

[Elk Wallow]

Thank you Op for what you said. I agree in general about Portland.

[SickOfAllThePC1983]

Portland is -only- a great place to live IF you are strictly aligned with their near-socialist ideology over there. There is only "one" way in Portland, and that is A. Hating yourself for being white as you bemoan your own race and sing the praises of all other ehtnicities, which incidentally, make up exactly 0% of your tightly insular, exclusionary click of lilly white friends, and B. Handing carte blanche to the homeless and paying through the nose in taxes for them to congregate en masse over the entire of the central areas of the city.




Nay, Portland is probably the least genuinely cool place I've ever been and definitely the place where the folks try the hardest to appear laid-back, or "in."


Buncha weirdo, emotionally unbalanced little brat kids is about the best summation a single sentence 'ell do ya.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by SickOfAllThePC1983

Portland is -only- a great place to live IF you are strictly aligned with their near-socialist ideology over there. There is only "one" way in Portland, and that is A. Hating yourself for being white as you bemoan your own race and sing the praises of all other ehtnicities, which incidentally, make up exactly 0% of your tightly insular, exclusionary click of lilly white friends, and B. Handing carte blanche to the homeless and paying through the nose in taxes for them to congregate en masse over the entire of the central areas of the city.




Nay, Portland is probably the least genuinely cool place I've ever been and definitely the place where the folks try the hardest to appear laid-back, or "in."


Buncha weirdo, emotionally unbalanced little brat kids is about the best summation a single sentence 'ell do ya.

False, but thanks for sharing I guess....

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by SickOfAllThePC1983

Portland is -only- a great place to live IF you are strictly aligned with their near-socialist ideology over there. There is only "one" way in Portland, and that is A. Hating yourself for being white as you bemoan your own race and sing the praises of all other ehtnicities, which incidentally, make up exactly 0% of your tightly insular, exclusionary click of lilly white friends, and B. Handing carte blanche to the homeless and paying through the nose in taxes for them to congregate en masse over the entire of the central areas of the city.




Nay, Portland is probably the least genuinely cool place I've ever been and definitely the place where the folks try the hardest to appear laid-back, or "in."


Buncha weirdo, emotionally unbalanced little brat kids is about the best summation a single sentence 'ell do ya.

The native Portlanders I have met during the last five and half years have been very helpful people especially at my kids' school. I have never met more caring people than the native Portlanders and long time residents of Portland that have extended good will towards my family. There are many annoying hipsters in Portland, for sure, but they are NOT the back bone of Portland. We need stickers that say, "keep Portland genuine".

[58rhodes]

Its kind of funny how a city of 600,000 and a metro of 2.3 mill gets lumped into one identity

Originally Posted by 58rhodes

Its kind of funny how a city of 600,000 and a metro of 2.3 mill gets lumped into one identity

Those posts seem to come from two types of people: those who have never actually spent time in Portland and those who are failures and lack the capacity to admit their own faults, so they instead sit around dreaming up ways the city has slighted them.

I had no idea until a minute or so ago that I was supposed to hate myself for being white.