Portland Oregon

Portland, OR

Mississippi of the West

[quote] Seems like a slept on city

I would live there, but then again, I'm in the midwest, so it seems like it would be an improvement...

The rain, the worry, the regret.

It's the last traditional blue collar economy in the states. Land of strippers: pole and prole sensibility. Sadly, its huge hypocrisy in pretending to virtue while Nike and Adidas practice slave labor overseas has a short shelf life.

It is the Pittsburgh of the west, built on shipbuilding, and then aluminum, and then planes.

We've done this before

Quite a number of times, in fact

^^ So, what?

That said, I've lived here for 16 years and the appeal has largely worn off. Homelessness is a huge problem (as is trash, everywhere), despite the new apartment buildings going up everywhere; prices are getting significantly higher and traffic is getting significantly worse.

Don't know what R6 is talking about but it's not Portland.

Beau Breedlove disappeared from twitter after he married Greg Shaw. Is he still big on the local scene?

His body is amazing.

I fell in love with the Pearl District on my last visit to the city.

Sounds like I know Portland (and Pittsburgh) better than you. .

Out of shape gay guys, humorlessnes, incoherent SJWs everywhere, a substantial portion of gay guyswill self identify as non binary, hobos everywhere,...

I'm from Portland. Yes, we have many homeless people who seem to be drawn to our fair city. Just to clarify, It is not a blue collar town, but rather one that has a lot of character (or characters). We do have the world's oldest drag queen by the name of Darcelle XV. Does that count? Phil Knight (a local guy with a very large company) has worked with OHSU (hospital, research, medical school) to build a cancer research center, probably the world's largest. The Pacific Ocean is less than a couple hours away by car and our snow-capped mountains about the same distance away to the east. Yes, it does rain but with so many fine restaurants, you hardly notice. I should mention that this summer has probably been the driest on record. Though because of the rain we get large areas of green and can claim the largest wilderness park within a city's boundaries with many hiking trails. No, I don't work for the Chamber of Commerce.

Visited once for a few days. Liked it. I love that Japanese garden.

I love to visit Portland but moving from where I live now is not in the plans. It's a fun place to visit, along with the Oregon coast.

Homeless city. No thanks.

I've live here for 27 years and I love it. The homeless problem is out of control and the traffic is getting bad.

Still, it's a wonderful small city with a lot to do. The surrounding area, including Washington state is fucking gorgeous.

Avoid it. It's going down hill very quickly.

Certainly the downtown and Pearl District areas seem to be going downhill fast when I visited last year, fantastic numbers of homeless on the streets, some of them verbally harassing passers-by.

The rest of the city seemed pleasant and low-key, and I could spend a month in Forest Park. But I have no desire to go back to the city center, until the streets are made a little more appealing.

It's horrible. One of my daughters became a streetwalker, fortunately I was able to replace her with a similar looking girl and my other daughter turned out to be a horror show.

I knew Portland only through Beverly Cleary's books so recent stories have been off-putting

The city has allowed all of the single room occupancy hotels and weekly rental places to close. Boutique hotels replace so fat midwesterners can take selfies by the Voodoo Donuts sign and shop at the Nike Outlet store. Rents are so high for the $ one makes in Portland. Gee, why so many homeless?

NY money to rent/sell to California money. Portland is not the same town it was a decade ago.

[quote]The city has allowed all of the single room occupancy hotels and weekly rental places to close.

Yes - this has made a big difference. There's no more sketchy/substandard housing available and those people are now on the streets.

One thing that I noticed about the Portland homeless is that an unusually high proportion of them were young, teens or twenties. As if they'd come to Portland hoping to fit in with the hipsters without realizing that the hipsters all have family money, or because they heard it was a great place to get drugs.

It almost sounds like ny when it comes to the homeless problem

So in other words, the pool for situational prostitution skews younger and firmer than in other cities?

We don’t live there but my bf is from there and he calls it the City of Perpetual Despair. He says nothing gives Portlanders more satisfaction than having something to be unhappy about.

Every major coastal city in the US now has a serious homeless problem, which is surprising, considering that Trump is always bragging about the incredible economy and how every single citizen is benefiting. I think it's a combination of high rents and lack of affordable housing, drug and alcohol issues related to mental health issues, lack of sufficient drug treatment centers, lack of mental health screening and follow through, and a huge number of iraq and afghan veterans not properly treated for their PTSD, and not re-socialized into American society, without job skills they can market. A very sad and intractable situation.

Portland is in a stunningly beautiful natural setting, but it definitely has a grittier vibe than most other west coast cities. It does however, have the largest and most incredible legal nude sunbathing and swimming area in the entire country just at the entrance to the Columbia Gorge, and the gays flock there on warm summer days. (Rooster Rock).

Friend recently visited and raved about Hawks PDX bathhouse.

The homeless problem has been big in Portland since I moved here in 1996, but it's really gone out of control in recent years. It is still not as bad as Los Angeles or San Francisco, however.

About fifteen years ago, Chuck Palahniuk (the author of "Fight Club," and probably the most famous writer here except Beverly cleary) wrote a book called "Fugitives and Refugees" about this city where he said what makes it unusual is that it's always been the cheapest of the major cities on the West Coast (including of course Seattle, SF, LA and Sand Diego), so since there is an American trend to move West when you want to re-invent yourself it had until then been the haven for people who are broke who want to change their entire lives. That's why it became such a magnet for hipsters--and also unlike the other major West Coast cities it retains more of a small city vibe (there are very few tall buildings downtown, and nothing as impossing as the ones in the other major West Coast cities).

The problem is that like all the West Coast cities (including Vancouver BC), it's become too expensive to live here. My condo is worth more than twice what the houses my siblings own in towns out in Minnesota and Montana, though it's only a third of the size. The twentysomethings who live here are miserable--they cannot afford the rent, they will never be afford to buy (unless the economy drastically changes), and a lot of them cannot afford health care.

It's a lovely city, though, although the part that the tourists see downtown is not nice right now. (I have to say--I keep laughing at those of you who keep talking about the Pearl District, which didn't even exist before 1999 or so--it's a completely made-up district with a name that means nothing (given it by developers), and other than for Powell's Bookstore and for Portland Center Stage Theater, both on the borders of it, no one who lives here ever goes there much except for tourists and for dumb Californian empty nesters who have cashed out and bought pricey retirement lofts here.)

Seems like a pleasant place.

And that's what concerns me about Oregon in general, R34.

Why cant you pump gas on your own there? And why do people just leave their cars in the highway? Who does that anywhere? Weird.

[quote] Why cant you pump gas on your own there? And why do people just leave their cars in the highway? Who does that anywhere? Weird.

People also can't pump their own gas in New Jersey.

And I've seen cars abandoned on the freeway in many other states.

r34/r35, I've lived here 22 years and I've never seen first-hand any battles between the alt.right and the antifidas even once. They just don't affect most people who live here.

I miss the hiking trails in the the Columbia River Gorge.

R33, REI is also in the Pearl. That's the only reason I go there.

R31 I am Rooster Rock now. Beautiful weather and beautiful setting.

There’s 10 guys that I would fuck here.

No black men....I’ve never been fucked by a black men outdoors. I’ll put that on my goals

[quote] Anyone live there?

No.

It’s completely empty

My friend and his husband moved to Portland about 12 years ago from Southern California and bought a mansion they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford in California. But my friend hates Oregon and visits LA/San Diego every chance he can get. But having a Big House is important to them.

Why does he hate it?

^ He said: Gloomy weather and lower class people.

How old is your friend r44?

We do have gloomy weather here a lot during the year. I would think it would be hard to be raised in Southern CA ten relocate to Oregon.

That being said, I wish they would move back. Too many people have been moving here.

Live outside of Portland - it's an amazing area. Husband and I moved there in 1992, and would never go back to California. It's green and beautiful. And we get less rain than Seattle. Hell, we haven't had any significant rain since like April, so we really needed it.

It rained torrents in portland within the last hour r47. The human piss and piles of human shit were washed away. Now maybe the homeless methed out traveler kids will return to So Cal for the winter.

[quote] How old is your friend [R44]?

Almost 60. Why?

Because he sounds like a prissy queen r49

However, I can’t find fault with his observations

He's not prissy, but very materialstic and status conscious. I believe they wanted a Big House to display all their antiques and expensive kitchen crap, but feel superior to the Portland demographic and so disappointed there's nobody in the vicinity they feel are worth impressing.

One good thing I'll say about Portland, despite being kind of fed up with it, is that Portlanders are not generally ambitious types and are much less status-conscious and materialistic than people elsewhere. So yes, they are less likely to be impressed by expensive kitchen crap (unless it's used on a regular basis, because Portlanders are very into good food and cooking.)