Anyone else who has moved to Portland find it vastly overrated? (transfer, neighborhoods)

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Minervah

Portland was hoping for forward thinking leaders way back in 1978 when I moved there. They're still hoping.

BTW, MAX wasn't wanted by most people when it first was imposed back in the 80's. It's a mixed blessing. It eliminated much of the great bus service Portland used to have with graduated fares. Bye, bye Fareless Square. But it brought with it big fat government grants from the Feds so that was a nice incentive to have it.

But it does get some people some places some of the time.

This I have to disagree with you, the MAX was a great step forward for Portland. Without it, I don't think Portland would be where it is today, it would probably be struggling to make itself relevant.

[CanuckInPortland]

Originally Posted by SyraBrian

According to the Bureau of Labor Stats, from October 2014 to October 2015, the average hourly wage in Portland metro went from $24.99 to $26.74. That's a shocking increase.

Part of the reason may be that workers no longer love Portland enough to live and work there without getting raises.

A lot of the new software and tech firms that hat set up offices locally can't just rely on anyone with a bachelor's degree and some basic skills--they have to pay for people with certain skill-sets that are high in demand all over the country. That's what I'm seeing anyhow.

Also during the recession, companies didn't want to increase pay or higher that many more workers, but now that they have more positions to fill it's a different market.

[redguard57]

I just did a C-D title search for "overrated" and it brought up posts just in 2015 for cities like

Los Angeles (a lot)
Houston
Chicago
Washington D.C.
San Jose
Las Vegas (a lot)
Seattle
Orlando
Austin (a lot)
Boston (a lot)
New York City (a lot)
Charlotte
Raleigh
Miami

Portland comes up but less than a lot of those. When it comes to "overrated" it seems that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, and Austin get the most mentions. Having lived in Austin, I definitely understand the feeling so it's not unique to Portland. There is a very similar conversation there -- rapidly rising real estate prices and rents, jobs that are not as plentiful as popularly thought, increasingly difficult traffic and overburdened infrastructure.

I understand that C-D is about cities, relocation and living, so it makes sense. However, there seem to be a lot of people that dream about a place and then get very dejected when it is not what everything they dreamed it would be.

My mom always said living in a place was like being in a relationship. I guess this just proves it even more true.

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by redguard57

I just did a C-D title search for "overrated" and it brought up posts just in 2015 for cities like

Los Angeles (a lot)
Houston
Chicago
Washington D.C.
San Jose
Las Vegas (a lot)
Seattle
Orlando
Austin (a lot)
Boston (a lot)
New York City (a lot)
Charlotte
Raleigh
Miami

Portland comes up but less than a lot of those. When it comes to "overrated" it seems that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, and Austin get the most mentions. Having lived in Austin, I definitely understand the feeling so it's not unique to Portland. There is a very similar conversation there -- rapidly rising real estate prices and rents, jobs that are not as plentiful as popularly thought, increasingly difficult traffic and overburdened infrastructure.

I understand that C-D is about cities, relocation and living, so it makes sense. However, there seem to be a lot of people that dream about a place and then get very dejected when it is not what everything they dreamed it would be.

My mom always said living in a place was like being in a relationship. I guess this just proves it even more true.

I wonder if it's a generational issue as my friends(most of them) and I are gen-xers and have lived in several U.S. cities without a great deal of expectation. Maybe it is because we left our home towns and cities way before the rise of the Internet and forums/ social media being the norm to access info about a place. I just remember all of my friends from my hometown, SF, leaving to go to another city and if it worked out for a while... great. If not... wasn't the end of the world. Overthinking can be paralyzing and making new friends can become more difficult because residents know this kind of newcomer will be too high maintenance and then leave anyways.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Yankeemama

I wonder if it's a generational issue as my friends(most of them) and I are gen-xers and have lived in several U.S. cities without a great deal of expectation. Maybe it is because we left our home towns and cities way before the rise of the Internet and forums/ social media being the norm to access info about a place. I just remember all of my friends from my hometown, SF, leaving to go to another city and if it worked out for a while... great. If not... wasn't the end of the world. Overthinking can be paralyzing and making new friends can become more difficult because residents know this kind of newcomer will be too high maintenance and then leave anyways.

That is a possibility. When my family moved back to the Northwest, my only expectation I had was that I wanted to move to Seattle, not because it was a hip grunge mecca of the late 90s, early 2000s, but because it was the big city in the Northwest and I wanted to live in a big city. I had never heard about Portland at that time and only feel in love with this city after visiting it. At the time, there was the internet, but it was nothing like what it is today, nor was the hype of Portland.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

This I have to disagree with you, the MAX was a great step forward for Portland. Without it, I don't think Portland would be where it is today, it would probably be struggling to make itself relevant.

I'm sorry, but I have disagree with you!

I would rather have a modern, technologically up to date, comprehensive bus system that gets people anywhere they want to go cheaply and quickly.
Bus routes could be easily shifted to accommodate changing travel patterns.
I believe that having such a bus system would have made Portland even more relevant than having MAX.

And, I don't think MAX is what made Portland so "relevant" and popular back in the eighties when everyone decided that it was the city to move to, and the great influx started.
Portland would have become "relevant" even if MAX had stopped with the first line.

MAX is nice, but it's already at full capacity during rush hours, is unreliable during bad weather, and it's hard to expand without having to spend billions of dollars no matter where those dollars come from.
But I guess it's a form of some kind of "GROWTH", so it must be good no matter what.


BTW, some interesting light rail facts:

http://www.debunkingportland.com/sometransitfacts01.htm



The main site which is full of great information (about Portland) for those with open minds, who like to gather information from many sources, whether they agree with them or not:

http://www.debunkingportland.com/index.html

[norman_w]

Florida, same thing. Nobody can get a job. They're hiring but they're not hiring you.
The Oregon weather doesn't bother them. Lot of Russians in Portland. They think 70d is too hot. They like the no sun for most of the year. Didn't you see Twilight?
The constant expense of upkeeping the bridges.
The main problem is all the 20yrolds still want to move there. You're gonna be sleeping in a sleeping bag on Burnside.

[norman_w]

Fareless Sq was eliminated for the same reason Seattles was eliminated and why Tempes will be eliminated. The homeless panhandling, dogs, nodding off, dropping their bottles, all their stuff, arguing freaks out the tourists. If they'd stop panhandling they probably wouldn't have eliminated it. Lloyd Center needed the fareless sq

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

I'm sorry, but I have disagree with you!

I would rather have a modern, technologically up to date, comprehensive bus system that gets people anywhere they want to go cheaply and quickly.
Bus routes could be easily shifted to accommodate changing travel patterns.
I believe that having such a bus system would have made Portland even more relevant than having MAX.

And, I don't think MAX is what made Portland so "relevant" and popular back in the eighties when everyone decided that it was the city to move to, and the great influx started.
Portland would have become "relevant" even if MAX had stopped with the first line.

MAX is nice, but it's already at full capacity during rush hours, is unreliable during bad weather, and it's hard to expand without having to spend billions of dollars no matter where those dollars come from.
But I guess it's a form of some kind of "GROWTH", so it must be good no matter what.


BTW, some interesting light rail facts:

Some Transit Facts



The main site which is full of great information (about Portland) for those with open minds, who like to gather information from many sources, whether they agree with them or not:

Home

That's fine, you can disagree. I have always felt buses have a ceiling in this country and can't go as far as what light rail can do, but I am sure you will disagree with this.

[gray horse]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Even though it's none of your business, I wasn't in a sorority (but I did go to OSU ) and I'm quite grown up despite your gratuitous insults. Adults don't expect every location and every situation to correspond to what they think they should be, and it's beyond me why anyone thought that Portland was going to be like living in Cal. Fortunately, I'm in a position where it's not necessary for me to hire on at Portland tech. companies so I wouldn't know about them going around the table announcing what schools they went to, but it just doesn't strike me as something to cry about. Little weird, maybe, but oh well.

Coming from SV, I would have expected Portland to be a bit more provincial; it's only common sense. The university/football thing seems silly to me, but not "shocking;" even the most casual observation shows that Portland and the SV are quite different. You were also complaining about the weather in the PNW. Didn't you research that before you moved? Anyway, you've provided a pretty good example of the type of transplant that many Oregonians find annoying. You seem unhappy and angry because things aren't like where you came from.

I hope you find what you're looking for. You sound a little bitter about your experience in Portland and keep comparing it to Cal.; perhaps that's where you belong.

I'm not bitter...just trying to give folks a heads up. I NEVER expected PDX to be like Silicon Valley, as I dislike Silicon Valley and moved here to have large acreage. I knew about the weather, that can be tolerated if the area has a dynamic economy with opportunities.


You are the one that admitted that you probably got your job because you went to an Oregon University. I simply expected there to be more of a tech sector here with a global outlook. There are a small percentage of tech folks that "get it" here, and they are the transplants. Overall, considering PDX is located between Silicon Valley / SF and Seattle...it's a very immature technology market. It should eventually bloom. For some reason it is lagging behind what it could be. I find that people here are happy with the "status quo" of their existence, not looking for improving their level of employment etc., that keeps an area from blooming.


Got to go now...I have to jump on a web meeting with a client in Japan.