Battle Ground

[coltoncity]

Even the paper in BG had a cartoon once about the immigration problem & if the immigrants were sent back home. It was a group of people in designer clothes, working in fields & pi**ed off. No one will do the job except the Hispanics. At least they are working! The other immigrants dont. You cannot get high school kids to take a job in the fields, but they certainly can feel superior over anyone not born here even if they are working.

[Six-S-Properties]

Battleground is a great place, I have owned a house there for years. It is a small community (with all the benifits) but close enough to Portland and Vancouver for an evening out. The public schools are great, The weather is nice, and the hot summers are a pleasure compared to the humidity of the East Coast - you will love it.

[lizzyb]

How long would you say is the commute from Battleground to downtown Portland (during the heavy commute times)?

[ulsterscot]

That whole area is so expensive now. From what I hear, it is even pricey ( I hate the phrase "spendy" ) out in Amboy and Yacolt now. I loved living in the area, but couldn't stand being so close to Portland.

[RobE]

I don't have crime stats for Battleground, but here they are for Vancouver, WA:
Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

But Battleground seems far enough away from Vancouver that the crime rate would probably be even lower.

Just for the sake of comparison, here are the crime figures for Portland: Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed
Good luck in finding new digs!

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by RobE

I don't have crime stats for Battleground, but here they are for Vancouver, WA:
Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

But Battleground seems far enough away from Vancouver that the crime rate would probably be even lower.

Just for the sake of comparison, here are the crime figures for Portland:Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed
Good luck in finding new digs!

Thanks for reminding everybody about areaconnect! That's a great site to play around with. I think AZ_singlemother brought that to our attention a few months ago and I liked the feature where you can compare two cities.

Just for instance and as an example, here's the comparison between Portland and Vancouver WA:

Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

The thing that surprises me is that Portland is higher than the national average in all categories except murder. I'll have to look at the C-D page for Portland to see if those statistics match.

[frannycats]

Originally Posted by NWgirl

Battle Ground is just up the road, but it's small area, lots of rural addresses, lots of older homes with acreage and horses and stuff, but not necessarily inexpensive. It's got a main drag with some chain stores and some chain restaurants, grocery stores, but for many things you will probably go in to Vancouver. I'm not sure if Battle Ground has it's own library, it might. The crime rate is fine, not particularly high, we don't have a lot of gang activity in this area and murder is not commonplace. Traffic toward Vancouver and Portland can get heavy. Summers get pretty warm, like in the 80s and 90s, but not as warm as Florida. Fall is beautiful but short, and then the rain and grey comes for winter and spring. Rarely is there ever any snow. Christmas is usually just a rainy holiday here.

Battle Ground is 2-3 hours from the coast and the mountains. Lots of beautiful places here, lots of hawks and coyotes. Battle Ground is a little more red-necky than Portland and some parts of Vancouver. Definitely not as liberal as the more urban areas.

Since my husband passed away in May, our adult son, who lives with me, and I have talked about moving away to a place with a more restful way of life. Our present home is beautiful, on the California Delta, with beautiful water views of blue herons, seagulls, cranes, river otters, and the occasional seal that wanders in from San Francisco Bay. When we moved here 23 years ago, I thought it would be the last home I'd ever had. We're still surrounded by countryside farms and orchards, but traffic is horrendous, and our once peaceful life is now claustrophobic.

I settled on Battle Ground because we needed to be near a Kaiser hospital and a VA hospital, both of which are found in Portland and Vancouver. From my research, confirmed by your remarks, Battle Ground is exactly the area we want to live our lives out in.

Yes, we're the dreaded Californians, but we promise not to spoil your beautiful area. All we want are a couple of acres surrounded by trees, a nice house, and a water view, if at all possible. Oh yes, and high-speed Internet access. At the ripe old age of 70, I still work - online, with a very successful web site, and I have no intentions of quitting until they pry my cold, stiff fingers from the keyboard.

[sushi66]

How much hotter are the summers in Battle Ground than say Forest Grove? Are there really quite a few days over 80 and 90? I live at the beach/CA now and am quite fond of it always being 65. ;-)

[sofia76]

Weird to see so many posts about BG; it's such a little town. I lived there for a few months and traveled there quite a bit (my husband's family lives there). If you're 70 and want to work from home, and want a slow pace of life, go for it. It was a bit too small for me, and the drive too long to Portland, where much of my life is centered (I live in Vancouver, close to the freeway now). If you speed, it's about 30 minutes without traffic to get from BG to downtown Portland. At rush hours you're looking at an hour or so.

There's not much to do out there, but housing prices have come down in the last year, which is good (they were getting shockingly high from my perspective). There is some pretty farmland out there, and BG State Park is nice. Not sure where anyone would get a house with a waterview, but ... you could find something with a mountain view.

The schools leave something to be desired (the public ones, at least), but since your son is an adult, that probably isn't a concern.

[sofia76]

Sushi, it can get hot in the summer in BG. How many dates exactly? Couldn't tell ya, but a site like wunderground can, if you review the historical data. From my personal experience, having lived in the Portland metro area for 17 years ... maybe about three weeks' worth of days per year are over 85 degrees.

Okay, I caved and checked wunderground dot com and there were 38 days last year in Battle Ground that had highs of 80 or above. Quite a few of those were in the 80-85 degree range, so I think my initial thought (3 weeks of 85 or above) is probably pretty close.

Keep in mind that those 80+ days were spread out between mid-May and mid-Sept. Rarely did such temps occur more than 3 or 4 consecutive days at a time. In fact, the first week of June was in the 60s, although there had been 80 degree weather in May. That's the NW for ya.