How would you describe the personality of Corvallis? (Portland, Eugene: apartment, appliances)

[iso4everhome]

We have been interested in possibly relocating to Corvallis for a couple years. Though we visit a few times a year and we follow local news and events, we still feel we're missing out on an understanding of what the city and its residents are like, from the perspective of insiders. For lack of a better way to describe what I'm asking, we want to get a sense of the "personality" of Corvallis and its residents (broad brush questions, I know - please feel free to answer with mini brush strokes).

For instance, here are some of the questions we grapple with:

We have a young child, but have occasionally read that, because of the relatively large university population, Corvallis has a relatively small population of kids. Although the schools are reportedly great, because of the smaller population of kids, Corvallis may not have an abundance of the kind of kid-friendly activities or opportunities that regularly draw random groups of kids (and their parents) together. Is this accurate? We'd obviously like it to not be so. What have your experiences raising kids or being raised in Corvallis been like?

We live in an isolated and small town (much smaller than Corvallis!), but moved here from a medium sized city (~300k). We love how walkable our town is with the main street and the wilderness and farms all within a mile or two of each other, but we miss a lot about the city, including even some basic services (vet care beyond routine checkups) or the ability to do some kinds of shopping without the internet. We think Corvallis might be a good compromise (keep the short commutes, walkability, and the nature, gain services, and lose the isolation with Portland and Eugene so nearby), but we're still trying to get a handle on things that might be hard to understand unless you've lived somewhere for a while.

For instance, we came to understand the negative aspects of our current location only after living here for a year or two and these are the things that are spurring us to make yet another move. Specifically: due either to the size of the town, its isolation or ruralness, or who knows what, localism/xenophobia is a pretty significant personality trait of our town. To a significant chunk of the population (but definitely not everyone!) "outsiders" are a distinct category of people and they don't "belong". It is uncomfortable and divisive and can even make getting services challenging (daycare, handymen, licensed contractors, etc.). Additionally, there is a bit of an anti-intellectual streak, a fondness for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, a very normalized drug culture, and a lack of stable/non-traveling medical services. Expectations of people, from kids to business owners to healthcare providers, are set pretty low and the incentive to meet or exceed the bar is low. There aren't many opportunities or challenges. Kids don't really have opportunities to be surrounded by a variety of mentors or by the variety of people that would help to broaden their ideas of what is possible. The air quality can also be really awful in the winter with the increased use of woodburning stoves (going out for a walk means coming home smelling like you've been camping for a weekend). These are all things we learned only after living here a while and are hoping to improve with our next move (though we know the winter air quality one is probably tough across the PNW).

How does Corvallis compare? What is the "personality" or culture of Corvallis like? What are the aspects of the city (good or bad) that are hard to understand until you have lived there a while?

And lastly, what are good sources of local info or news to keep tabs on? I browse the Corvallis Gazette Times and the Corvallis Advocate regularly. What else is out there that I might be missing?

Thank you for reading this far and for any insights you can provide. We really appreciate hearing any and all viewpoints.

[Silverfall]

You might want to PM jjpop. He lived in Corvallis for many years with small kids.

[iso4everhome]

Originally Posted by Silverfall

You might want to PM jjpop. He lived in Corvallis for many years with small kids.

Thanks for the tip!

And thank you to whomever left the reputation comment about checking out this post on another recent thread. I'm adding the link here in case anyone else can benefit from this as well: //www.city-data.com/forum/54088108-post61.html

[leastprime]

Corvallis is a techie town.
HP is on the resurgerence.

[pnwguy2]

I lived in Eugene for several years in the late 90's and early 2000's. Corvallis is certainly in the Eugene orbit and I traveled through many times. The metro area is about 55K, but should be combined with Albany/Sweet Home to reach about 165K.

Corvallis is definitely a college town, and the layout of the city is pretty basic, east/west, north/south, with a nice old downtown. There are no freeways that come near the city, so traffic can be slow depending on time of day , or even time of year. It definitely has a small town feel, even though it isn't that far from Salem/Portland.

OSU drives the economy, but there does seem to be some high-tech as the above poster mentioned. Big city amenities are not common here, but as I said, you are not far from Portland...about an hour and a half with good traffic.

[iso4everhome]

Originally Posted by leastprime

Corvallis is a techie town.
HP is on the resurgerence.

@leastprime I'm curious what characteristics you'd say make Corvallis a techie town. Do you think that it has a techie "vibe" of sorts, or is it just that HP is a big employer and so there are lots of programmers walking around? When we've visited, we've easily picked up on the fact that it is a university town, but I've never noticed an obvious tech vibe. What might we missing as visitors?

...

Originally Posted by pnwguy2

I lived in Eugene for several years in the late 90's and early 2000's. Corvallis is certainly in the Eugene orbit and I traveled through many times. The metro area is about 55K, but should be combined with Albany/Sweet Home to reach about 165K...

@pnwguy2 This is interesting - I hadn't really thought of Corvallis as being that connected to Eugene. I think I know what you mean by "big city amenities" and we're okay having to go to Portland or Eugene for some services or activities.

But would you include things like handymen and contractors in that list? The inability to find any help where we currently live to repair things like dryers or electrical stuff or leaky pipes in the walls or install windows has made me a youtube fixit video junkie, but I'd like to give up that "hobby" and call someone who actually knows how to do this stuff. Are those kinds of services readily available in Corvallis? Or do people need to be hired (for extra $$, undoubtedly) from the surrounding areas?

[NW4me]

I too am planning to move to Corvallis (but I haven't lived in Oregon before,
so I'm not an expert). I like that it's very scenic, and conveniently located but NOT right on I-5.
There are cute budget-friendly little restaurants downtown, like the Broken Yolk and Laughing Planet.
Oregon State is the city's main reason for being, of course, but an apartment manager I talked to said,
"this is the quietest college town I've ever seen."


Where are you moving from, ISO?

[Silverfall]

Originally Posted by iso4everhome

@leastprime I'm curious what characteristics you'd say make Corvallis a techie town. Do you think that it has a techie "vibe" of sorts, or is it just that HP is a big employer and so there are lots of programmers walking around? When we've visited, we've easily picked up on the fact that it is a university town, but I've never noticed an obvious tech vibe. What might we missing as visitors?

...



@pnwguy2 This is interesting - I hadn't really thought of Corvallis as being that connected to Eugene. I think I know what you mean by "big city amenities" and we're okay having to go to Portland or Eugene for some services or activities.

But would you include things like handymen and contractors in that list? The inability to find any help where we currently live to repair things like dryers or electrical stuff or leaky pipes in the walls or install windows has made me a youtube fixit video junkie, but I'd like to give up that "hobby" and call someone who actually knows how to do this stuff. Are those kinds of services readily available in Corvallis? Or do people need to be hired (for extra $$, undoubtedly) from the surrounding areas?

Most handymen cover Corvallis through Salem. As for appliances, even in Salem I've had to get Portland companies to come down for my appliances. It depends on the brand that you have.

[Johnny Z]

Is it possible you're over thinking things a little?

[iso4everhome]

Originally Posted by NW4me

I too am planning to move to Corvallis (but I haven't lived in Oregon before,
so I'm not an expert). I like that it's very scenic, and conveniently located but NOT right on I-5.
There are cute budget-friendly little restaurants downtown, like the Broken Yolk and Laughing Planet.
Oregon State is the city's main reason for being, of course, but an apartment manager I talked to said,
"this is the quietest college town I've ever seen."


Where are you moving from, ISO?

@NW4me - We've had exactly the same thoughts about I-5, etc. We also really love the rivers and trails and pianos everywhere downtown. Interesting quote from the apartment manager - good to know! I'd like nothing more than to have a bigger conversation about where we're at vs where we're going, but we live in a small enough town that any further biographical detail beyond what I've given could potentially out us as seriously thinking of leaving (which employers never like). But I'll DM you some details in case you want to chat more off-thread.

.....

Originally Posted by Silverfall

Most handymen cover Corvallis through Salem. As for appliances, even in Salem I've had to get Portland companies to come down for my appliances. It depends on the brand that you have.

@Silverfall - thank you for that. It is these little bits of info that help us to wrap our heads around what we might be getting into.

.....

Originally Posted by Johnny Z

Is it possible you're over thinking things a little?

@Johnny Z - hehe, well... no one has ever accused me of missing any of the details. To each their own, I suppose. At a certain age when picking up and moving becomes more difficult and with a handful of intertwined lives all impacted by big life changing decisions, we prefer to sweat the small stuff ahead of time and hopefully avoid any so-called buyer's remorse. And, to that end, why not take advantage of the positive aspects of the great www, where you can instantly be connected with people who want to share all sorts of answers related to the questions that rattle around in your brain in the middle of the night?