Thinking of moving to Portland, but would it be a good fit?

[the12ronin]

Yea, it's a tricky one to rebut..I know.

[sayulita]

Yes, nonsense is tricky to rebut. And a waste of time to try.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by the12ronin

This is most egregious a thing to say.


Think of a small town hickville set in its many backward and close-minded ways, only a city-sized scale.

And sorry Charlie, the correlation holds true irrespective of the Cole Haan loafers and the population density.


homogenous locale = single-minded, cloned populace = the city loses its ability to be objectively rational as the "one way" becomes the law, and those who would break the mold are held in contempt and dismissed as something less.

...as someone less.


...simply because they are different.



That's not a Utopia. Dystopia is more apt a definition.



One's personal growth stalls tremendously when one is not challenged by the varying and many times wiser perspectives of others who would be different, and think differently.



When one is moving to Portland, one needs to be prepared to be expected to assimilate into the collective or be figuratively stoned in the street.


And that's not a liberal city by any stretch of the imagination.


The very notion of conditional-liberalism is laughable and an oxymoron.



Class dismissed.

Often the most homogenous parts of Portland are where the young transplants from other parts of the US congregate and complain about how Portland isn't diverse and how there aren't any black people here. Usually though they're from some lily white upper middle class suburb back east and spent a few years in Brooklyn or Boston or Chicago(which counts as their urban experience) before moving to Portland to be with people from similar backgrounds. As the US grows more diverse and more Asians and Hispanics make up more of the middle class as time goes on, this group of more educated urban transplants becomes more diverse as well. Though it's basically a fairly well off(or comfortably middle-class) and liberal demographic. Nothing wrong with it--that's just who is attracted to Portland for the lifestyle here. I'm basically one step removed from that demographic myself.

The most ethnically diverse areas are often the least fashionable ones on the eastside of Portland or in suburbs like Beaverton. This is where people immigrate from various countries around the world or the US and just go about their lives working and running businesses to support a family alongside people whose roots go back several generations or more in the area. They aren't going to be the trendy places to move to for young urban professionals though or what is portrayed on Portlandia. It's just a smaller scale version of what basically goes on in most major US cities to some extent.

Statistically Portland isn't very diverse for a larger US city(though if it was in Europe or Asia it'd be much more diverse than many much larger cities). However one can live here and be around diverse groups of people. I don't really give a crap about overall statistics from wikipedia as I've got friends from all different backgrounds, plenty of who are from countries from Uruguay to Bosnia to Vietnam to Russia. Half the people on the bus I used to take to work were black kids going to school. Just down the street from where I live is basically the real Chinatown/Little Saigon of Portland--where they transformed what was a ghetto strip into a bunch of flourishing small businesses and down the other street is a bunch of East African halal markets. All the same though, no one cares about what's diverse or isn't diverse--we're all just going about our daily lives.

And at the same though I don't care if people want to move somewhere just to be with people who are close to the culture they're most familiar with. I've had several young black co-workers who wanted to move to Atlanta to be somewhere with a lot of other black professionals--they weren't moving to Atlanta because they were excited that Atlanta had Asian and Mexican communities there.

[Minervah]

The word "diverse" gets thrown around so much these days. So before I ever address the question as to whether or not I would say Portland is diverse, I ask the question. "What is diverse?" to the questioner.

Growing up in Chicago, there was ethnic and racial diversity all over in the neighborhoods where I lived. I have often found in Portland it means different things to different people.

[the12ronin]

Originally Posted by Deezus

Often the most homogenous parts of Portland are where the young transplants from other parts of the US congregate and complain about how Portland isn't diverse and how there aren't any black people here. Usually though they're from some lily white upper middle class suburb back east and spent a few years in Brooklyn or Boston or Chicago(which counts as their urban experience) before moving to Portland to be with people from similar backgrounds. As the US grows more diverse and more Asians and Hispanics make up more of the middle class as time goes on, this group of more educated urban transplants becomes more diverse as well. Though it's basically a fairly well off(or comfortably middle-class) and liberal demographic. Nothing wrong with it--that's just who is attracted to Portland for the lifestyle here. I'm basically one step removed from that demographic myself.

The most ethnically diverse areas are often the least fashionable ones on the eastside of Portland or in suburbs like Beaverton. This is where people immigrate from various countries around the world or the US and just go about their lives working and running businesses to support a family alongside people whose roots go back several generations or more in the area. They aren't going to be the trendy places to move to for young urban professionals though or what is portrayed on Portlandia. It's just a smaller scale version of what basically goes on in most major US cities to some extent.

Statistically Portland isn't very diverse for a larger US city(though if it was in Europe or Asia it'd be much more diverse than many much larger cities). However one can live here and be around diverse groups of people. I don't really give a crap about overall statistics from wikipedia as I've got friends from all different backgrounds, plenty of who are from countries from Uruguay to Bosnia to Vietnam to Russia. Half the people on the bus I used to take to work were black kids going to school. Just down the street from where I live is basically the real Chinatown/Little Saigon of Portland--where they transformed what was a ghetto strip into a bunch of flourishing small businesses and down the other street is a bunch of East African halal markets. All the same though, no one cares about what's diverse or isn't diverse--we're all just going about our daily lives.

And at the same though I don't care if people want to move somewhere just to be with people who are close to the culture they're most familiar with. I've had several young black co-workers who wanted to move to Atlanta to be somewhere with a lot of other black professionals--they weren't moving to Atlanta because they were excited that Atlanta had Asian and Mexican communities there.

One of the best posts I've seen in a long time on C-D and when classy, respectful, well put together responses like this come about, they certainly go a long way to break the many stigmas of Portland that even if somewhat founded in nature, definitely generalize and railroad the city into a certain unfair standing and perception.


+1 for deeze, but more importantly, +1 for PDX.

[NWGirl74]

Originally Posted by jmarie007

I'm currently working as a C.N.A and am going to school to be an RN and eventually a midwife. How is the job market for healthcare?

One of my friends finished nursing school about a year ago. She found a job pretty quickly working the graveyard shift as a labor and delivery nurse in Salem.

Originally Posted by jmarie007

Also I am 21 and so is my friend who will also be moving with me. How's the night life? Is it easy to meet others because we will know nobody there. Thanks.

There's a pretty active Meetup group for those in their 20's and 30's. They do a lot of happy hours, pub crawls, salsa dancing and board game events:

20 and 30 somethings in Portland - AWESOME Stuff (Portland, OR) - Meetup

One thing to note about Meetup in general though, as while it is a great way to meet new people, as a general rule of thumb, you can expect only about 50-75% of those who have RSVP'd for an event to actually show up for it.