Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Oregon
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 06-30-2010, 07:38 AM
 
Location: Oceanside and Chehalem Mtns.
716 posts, read 2,817,307 times
Reputation: 531

Advertisements

When people say they want a liberal area or conservative area I wish they'd be more specific in what exact qualities they're asking for. The OP appears to want acceptance of their lifestyle.

Oregonians tend to be pretty liberal when it comes to environmental stewardship and acceptance of alternate lifestyles. However even the die hard liberals are becomming increasingly conservative when it comes to fiscal discipline, economics and the instrusion of a "nanny style" of government into our lives.

If the OP wants acceptance, then there are few areas that I would say to avoid.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 06-30-2010, 10:17 AM
 
Location: Lake Lure, NC
16 posts, read 102,215 times
Reputation: 16
North Carolina has sweet mountains and kind people. It has been a joy to be here. But I am looking to take my hiking into the more rugged Cascades. By Liberal I mean open minded, progressive. NC is in the bible belt and about a generation behind on social issues... at least in many areas. I am looking for a community that is comfortable allowing others to simply be who they are.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-30-2010, 10:47 AM
 
9,961 posts, read 17,519,162 times
Reputation: 9193
Quote:
Originally Posted by lbbshine View Post
How about the Mt Hood area? Grants Pass?
The Mt. Hood area is kind of limited for cool towns(or towns at all). The best place to check out is Hood River, which is about a 30-40 minute drive down the Hood River Valley from Mt. Hood yourself. The town is right at the end of the Columbia Gorge, so you've got beautiful views of the river and lot's of stuff to do in the surrounding mountains. The town seems fairly liberal---much of the populace is pretty outdoorsy(windsurfers, kiteboarders, skiers, etc), so it's pretty laidback. In a way it sort of reminds me of Ashland, Oregon without the snobbery. The weather is usually warmer and a little drier than Portland on average as you are just at the point where the wet western Cascades transition to the drier Eastern Oregon desert country.

Closer to Mt. Hood there are some little villages like Rhodendendron or Zigzag--which are basically a few businesses along the highway and some cabins up in the surrounding woods. Government Camp is the one town right on the rim of Mt. Hood although it's more of a tourist resort for the skiers and hikers who flock to Hood seasonally--probably not the best place to live unless you're a serious ski bum working at Hood.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-30-2010, 11:33 AM
 
Location: Salem, OR
15,575 posts, read 40,425,076 times
Reputation: 17473
Quote:
Originally Posted by lbbshine View Post
North Carolina has sweet mountains and kind people. It has been a joy to be here. But I am looking to take my hiking into the more rugged Cascades. By Liberal I mean open minded, progressive. NC is in the bible belt and about a generation behind on social issues... at least in many areas. I am looking for a community that is comfortable allowing others to simply be who they are.

Most of Oregon will be like this. Affordability is more of an issue for most people. I mean Sisters and Bend would work for mountain towns, but Sister's isn't cheap and Bend has gotten cheaper but I still wouldn't . If you want great small town America, I'd recommend Silverton, but it is in the valley not the mountains.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-30-2010, 03:46 PM
 
Location: Bend, OR
1,337 posts, read 3,278,212 times
Reputation: 857
Quote:
Originally Posted by lbbshine View Post
North Carolina has sweet mountains and kind people. It has been a joy to be here. But I am looking to take my hiking into the more rugged Cascades. By Liberal I mean open minded, progressive. NC is in the bible belt and about a generation behind on social issues... at least in many areas. I am looking for a community that is comfortable allowing others to simply be who they are.
I did a quick search on your current location and saw you're close to Asheville. It's funny, I went on a quest for my dream location 6 months ago and Asheville was on the short list along with Bend, OR, Burlington, VT and Portland, MA.

Asheville was an amazing town - my biggest problem was that it was a anomaly in the area. An extremely progressive/open minded city surrounded by, as you said, the Bible belt......also, I am green and enjoy the hippie mentality...just not all the time ….

To be fair, Asheville is an extremely special city (Appalachian mindset, beacon for hippies, etc, etc, etc), and I want to be clear, Bend certainly is not much like Asheville. It is more of an extreme outdoor adventure town. People enjoy their Northface/Paddy/Mountain Hardware gear as opposed to Asheville (where I felt that people looked down on me for some of that).

Hope some of this insight helps somewhere down the line. Most of the real Oregonians can point you in a better direction than I can anyway....

Last edited by kapetrich; 06-30-2010 at 04:09 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-30-2010, 09:22 PM
 
Location: Bend, OR
1,337 posts, read 3,278,212 times
Reputation: 857
Quote:
Originally Posted by jesterseven View Post
another thing to keep in mind for those of you thinking about Bend. Unemployment is still a huge problem here, still hovering around 14-15%. Also, word on the street is that when our police department releases new crime rate statistics its gonna show a 20% increase in overall crime. And for home buyers, I would wait another year or two, housing prices are gonna keep on tumbling.

Also, Bend is not a sunny place. We can have overcast skies that last for weeks in the winter, and even the summer where you sometimes won't see the sun at all.

I would agree that housing prices in Bend, OR will continue to tumble. Probably another 10-20%. That said, it's damn near impossible to predict the bottom.......

Last edited by kapetrich; 06-30-2010 at 10:08 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-01-2010, 06:47 AM
 
20 posts, read 53,095 times
Reputation: 10
how weird...I've been following a house on one of the realtor sites and it just went UP $15k!!

what I have not looked at is foreclosures.......are they still popping up?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-01-2010, 11:12 AM
 
Location: Salem, OR
15,575 posts, read 40,425,076 times
Reputation: 17473
Quote:
Originally Posted by zogg View Post
how weird...I've been following a house on one of the realtor sites and it just went UP $15k!!

what I have not looked at is foreclosures.......are they still popping up?

Sometimes that happens with short sales. The agent goes in too low with an offer and the bank insists they will only take a certain amount and no less, so the price pops up to the lender required number. Doesn't mean that home prices are going up per se.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-01-2010, 07:45 PM
 
4 posts, read 20,360 times
Reputation: 11
Park City UT? Boulder CO?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2010, 04:07 AM
 
625 posts, read 1,389,777 times
Reputation: 580
Fort Collins, CO might be a good choice. The Front Range of CO is tallgrass prairie - 13-15" of rain a year, so sunny but not a desert, winters not bad at all, summers usually have evening clouds or short thundersotrms to cool things off (unless its a dry spell!) The north half of town is pretty liberal, but in a progressive way without the 1960s baggage; and the social conservatives seem to keep their views to themselves. (I think it depends on age too - probably the under 40 demographic tilts pretty progressive.) Good cycling (recreational and commuting), a nice downtown with more and more restaurants, music venues, etc., a nice river running through town, reasonable housing costs, a great economy. Mountains are not out your back door, but not far - 15-30 minutes for foothills hiking, but about an hour to the higher mountains or to Rocky Mountain National Park. Overall a nice place to live.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Oregon

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:15 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top