Will Portland Always Be a Retirement Community for the Young? (Bend: find a job, construction)

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by VTHokieFan

It's simply astonishing to me that Portland has so much coverage, yet the rest of Oregon remains undiscovered.

I don't know if it's exactly undiscovered(places like Bend and Ashland attract a lot of transplants and seasonal tourists), but yeah, a lot of the cool places in Oregon don't seem that well known outside the state. A lot of interesting natural spots in Eastern Oregon aren't even very well known or visited by those west of the Cascades. I mean there's a huge number of people in Portland who just go to the Coast or Mt Hood, they've never been to the Wallowas or Strawberry Mountains.

[pdwpdx]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

Actually Portland metro does attract a creative skill set, not quite at the level of the Silicon Valley but creative never-the-less. Keep in mind the fact that ground breaking creative products/software are more often developed by those between the ages of 18-35 than those who are older. We need to encourage creative thinkers who can't afford the living costs of San Jose to congregate here, forming start-ups with like minded developers.

And yes, it seems to me that every 3rd college student wants to be an Architect (much to my dismay). The only saving grace is that NIKE hires some of them to design footwear.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. One of the main reasons the Bay Area, along with Seattle, Austin, Boulder, and more and more Portland, have gotten so much more expensive is precisely due to all of the tech business and money that have been concentrated in those areas. Do we really want to repeat that here? There are lots of professionals outside of tech that do important work but do not make the exorbitant salaries, and they have just as essential a place, if not more so, in society than tech people. How about working toward a more diverse economy with decent jobs and reasonable housing costs for a variety workers in multiple fields, and not just tech? Luring Silicon Valley up here will only serve to drive up the cost of living for all except the wealthy tech workers. Take a look at where San Francisco is now. There are other broader social and cultural issues related to tech that are problematic as well, but I won't bring those up here. Let's just say that there is a lot or there should be a lot more to life than the latest app.

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by Deezus

I'm old enough to remember back in the 90s when Baby Boomers chided Generation X as being a bunch of depressed "slackers" and grunge rock as just being a rehash of 60s and 70s hard rock(a Rolling Stone reviewer famously gave Nirvana's Nevermind 3 Stars out of 5 and called Smells Like Teen Spirit a ripoff of Boston's More Than A Feeling).

As far as unemployed 35-year old skateboarders, I'm not sure how that is the sole representative of my age group, even in Portland. Everyone I know works more than enough(often 50 hours a week) even those with kids(I don't know many stay at home moms). Even the musician and artist types work or hustle a ton to be able to survive and have time for their passions/hobbies. But I'm judging this on people I actually know in reality, I'm not just sitting at home reading the NY Times. But people are only interested in the stereotypes of Portland--and while they're true for a subsection of the population, it's not the entirety.

Also, I'm not really an art scene type, but there seems to be revolving door between Portland and other bigger cities as far as people moving back and forth. At the same time though the way things are going the real artists are being priced out of expensive yuppie cities like New York, San Francisco, and eventually Seattle and Portland.

The NY Times called Portland a creative city. I was questioning whether it is in regards to actual creative fields such as food, fashion and art. My answer is no, since I actually worked in a creative field for decades mostly in NYC. I have worked in many states, however. My husband still works in a very creative field and so that is also where I form my opinion. BTW, you probably will meet more stay at home moms when you have kids as they usually congregate at schools, not at an office building or a place of employment. In Portland, they are usually the ones that raise 100s of thousands of dollars for school foundations so the "good schools" can remain "good schools". In my case, with two kids with disabilities, it would much more expensive to pay a nanny to watch my kids than doing it myself. Not all kids can go to group type day cares. I have always appreciated your posts. I thought your stay at hone mom comment was a little off center or possibly a dig but I will assume you didn't mean to be snarky. Have a great day! BTW, I still love Pearl Jam!

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by Yankeemama

The NY Times called Portland a creative city. I was questioning whether it is in regards to actual creative fields such as food, fashion and art. My answer is no, since I actually worked in a creative field for decades mostly in NYC. I have worked in many states, however. My husband still works in a very creative field and so that is also where I form my opinion. BTW, you probably will meet more stay at home moms when you have kids as they usually congregate at schools, not at an office building or a place of employment. In Portland, they are usually the ones that raise 100s of thousands of dollars for school foundations so the "good schools" can remain "good schools". In my case, with two kids with disabilities, it would much more expensive to pay a nanny to watch my kids than doing it myself. Not all kids can go to group type day cares. I have always appreciated your posts. I thought your stay at hone mom comment was a little off center or possibly a dig but I will assume you didn't mean to be snarky. Have a great day! BTW, I still love Pearl Jam!

It wasn't meant to be snark directed at anyone who is a stay-at-home mom, it was more so just what I'm used to in my age range in Portland...everyone I know here works a lot to afford a mortgage or pay off student loans or support other family members and so on. A lot of households have to get creative with child care options(working at home part of the week or relying on relatives in addition to daycare), because they need two incomes.

I think that Portland's "creative" community might get a bit too much press, but I didn't see much in that article that was trying to argue that a medium-sized city like Portland was being compared to a massive global city New York in terms of size of the arts or music scene. The article barely mentioned the arts, it was more so just making the case that Portland has more professionals and college graduates than the job market can handle. As far as things like how creative the fashion scene in Portland is I have no idea, but I'll say that one can eat very well here and I frequently entertain people from other parts of the country and they're impressed with the quality of places here(if one knows where to go).

[topaz420]

Originally Posted by pdwpdx

Let's just say that there is a lot or there should be a lot more to life than the latest app.

*slow clap*

[PDXNative2Houston]

You must decide what you want out of life. The Portland area has a lot of great things about it, but job security, career advancement and wages relative to cost of living are not those things. Move if you feel these things are a priority for you in your life, stay if the other aspects of Portland are more important to you. It's that simple.

There's way too many dreamers, idealists and utopia chasers believing that there is one place in the world that is going to be the best in everything for everybody.

[Nell Plotts]

Ya, just like Steve Jobs (who attended Reed and lived in Portland for a few years).

[PNW-type-gal]

It's not a new thing in the area - back in the late 80's, I remember Tektronix did a wage survey and discovered that not only was their pay structure for engineers low compared to other engineering companies, the relative standard of living for engineers in the community was low compared to other communities (so not only was the actual pay low, it was low compared to the area's cost-of-living). They'd announced that they were doing the survey with a lot of fanfare and then tried to quietly bury the results by talking about the "off paycheck" benefits of Portland (although the company was in Beaverton and Vancouver, WA at the time).

The relationship between the NYT and Portland (not Oregon, but specifically Portland) is a fascinating one and it says more about the yearnings of NYT writers for a "bucolic" yet citified life than it says about what Portland is actually like.

[topaz420]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

The relationship between the NYT and Portland (not Oregon, but specifically Portland) is a fascinating one and it says more about the yearnings of NYT writers for a "bucolic" yet citified life than it says about what Portland is actually like.

While no place is perfect for everyone, I have yet to find a city that offers the beautiful mix of Portland: a dense, walkable downtown with a "citified life", a river running right through town, an eclectic mix of surrounding neighborhoods, mild climate, small footprint, relatively safe compared to other US urban centers, beautiful mountain on one side/beautiful coast on the other, and all hugged by the stunning natural beauty of Oregon itself.

[almostjay]

I've been in town since the beginning of the month. I've been actively searching for jobs, had a few interviews, and actually received my first job offer yesterday. The job offer is an an entirely different industry than my degree/work experience, which is mechanical engineering for those that are interested.

The offer represented a 60% pay cut from my current job. That's just too much (too little?) for me to swallow, so I will be continuing my search.

I am in the fortunate position to have been allowed to continue tele-working my current job part time while I am here. The door is also completely open to me if I decide to return after a few months. If the above represents the best that I can do here, I am afraid that I'll have to return home.

For what it's worth, I absolutely, 100% LOVE it here. This place is exactly where I want to be, from the people, to the natural beauty, to the food and drink. But, I don't think it's reasonable to go from a comfortable living to scraping by paycheck to paycheck just to be in a place as awesome as this, so I'm really holding out hope that my job search will yield something more reasonable over the next few weeks.

That said, I can absolutely see how someone a bit less "responsibility oriented" than myself could justify hardship and underemployment to be here. It really does seem worth it if you can talk yourself out of near term responsibility and long-term goal setting.