Commuting (Portland, Eugene, Gresham: apartments, rental, houses)

[eling]

Is living in a suburb southeast of Portland by 20 minutes considered a reasonable commute or would traffic back it up for much longer compared to working in Oregon City?

[EnricoV]

It'd be too long of a commute for me, but lots of people happily do it. You have to decide what's reasonable for yourself. No one else can tell you.

[hamellr]

It depends on where you're commuting too.

[Twilighter]

Are you trying to decide where to live, where to work, or both?

Right now there is basically only one way in and out of Oregon City because the Arch Bridge is closed for repairs, leaving Abernethy Bridge on I205 the only way to get across the river. This is bottlenecking traffic and adding time during rush hour.

I live in West Linn and on average it takes about 20-30 minutes to get to downtown Portland without heavy traffic.

[eling]

I'm deciding whether to live in Happy Valley or Damascus and work in/around Lents, Gilbert, Powellhurst, Gresham, Sunnyside or Clackamas.

[hamellr]

So you don't have a job lined up yet?

[eling]

Not yet, but I'm interested in the area vs. SE Eugene.

[hamellr]

Note that I'm generalizing a bit here, but not to much. Here is what I see your problem is going to be;

Lents Neighborhood is mostly residential, houses that span 1920's all the way too 2000's, middle class and areas of "at or below" poverty line residents. Gilbert and Powellhurst are mostly 1960's/70's houses, middle class. Jobs in all three areas are going to be mostly service jobs at restaurants and other businesses that cater to residents of the neighborhoods.

Gresham is a pretty large city in itself that consists of residential neighborhoods, light industrial, commercial, and some professional service businesses that employ 10-50 employees. But few (if any) large companies with hundreds of employees and a multi-national presence.

Oregon City is pretty much the same as Gresham, but much less so as it's a smaller city and tends to be forgotten as an actual Portland Suburb.

Clackamas and Sunnyside are effectively the same, strip malls, the Hospital, repair shops, car lots, etc, with residential sprinkled in among them.

What I'm trying to get at is that if you limit your self to these neighborhoods are going to be even more limited in your job opportunities. Considering Portland is notorious for hiring via word of mouth, coupled with a unemployment rate that is going to lag 12-18 months behind the nations, you shouldn't limit yourself.

A better question for you to be asking is "I have these types of skills. Where should I be looking for jobs? And based on that, where should I be looking for rental apartments with a short commute time?"

This is an important question because for instance if you live in Lents and work in Gresham, you're going to have a 30-45 minute commute, longer if you need to rely on public transportation.

If you live in Oregon City and commute to Gilbert, you can pretty much see 30 minute commute every day, but Public Transportation options are going to be more limited.

But Oregon City to Sunnyside is a snap, 20 minutes or so up 205 even if the traffic is bad.

Again, these are generalizations, but I hope they illustrate why you're not getting very good answers. We need some more information about what you're looking for.

[eling]

My aim is to live in Happy Valley or Damascus. My field is in IT/Management.

[eling]

My field is in IT/Web Development/Programming/Database Management. So far I like the area of Happy Valley or Damascus and commuting from there based on what little I know.