tell me good things about portland.

hi. i am moving soon, and need to decide whether i am heading for portland or brooklyn. i know ten thousand good things about NYC, but i know next to nothing about the northwest. so any insights you could offer would be greatly appreciated. also, recommendations about neighborhoods would be welcome, too. thanks kids.

Portland's pretty bad ass (not quite as cool as Seattle, but wuddya going to do)

best thing about Portland? Mt. Hood is real close, sweet snow, you can ride at Timberline all year..

if you go to portland, you'd better have a job pre-hooked up from what i hear

I'm pretty sure the people here in Portland are in general a bit nicer, more personable, than in NYC. Portland kicks ass too, It's an hour drive either to the coast or to Mt. Hood, with the Columbia river gorge near by. It may be gray and soggy from October to April, but from May to September it's nice.

the best thing about the pnw for me is the music scene. not sure what you are into but for me there are like tons and tons of great bands to go see. modest mouse, sleater-kinney, pedro the lion, pretty girls make graves, the epoxies, etc...

if you are in portland you are concert going distance from olympia and seattle and to a lesser extent to vancouver. every known artist comes to one of those places and there are literally 3 shows a week i want to go to when i'm home in seattle.

plus sg is close by and there are loads of neet sg members to hang with :-)

oh and nyc is a festering pile of crap :-) (expectin' to get yelled at by sgny'ers right soon)

portland is beautiful-but you liking it kinda depends on what you're into. like marla said-there are the great art communities and awesome clubs. if you like beer-this is the place to be. i love it cause it's a city-but it's probably the smallest city. there is plenty to do and see here-but it isn't icky and overcrowded like most cities, it's quite green and beautiful. but not a good place to be at all if you don't like rain. also-you have a pretty good chance of running into sg's around town.

I read somewhere that Portland has the highest per capita number of Sex shops of any city in North America or was it strip clubs? i forget.

i think it's just sex-industry businesses period. i could be wrong. let us know if you come here though-so we can organize some kinda member outing soon after.

Portland is beautiful, I assume its better if you're over 21, but its really nice. Most of the homeless are nice too. Its clean and the public transporttaion isn't scary like some other places. There are lots of cute places and so on. I like it alot. Its really beautiful. Its November and the grass is still green!

good food. lots of record stores. lots of trees. beautiful women. i left san diego for a week in the pnw and i liked portland even better than seattle.
wtf? people in pdx are sooo nice! even the hipsters are nice. lots of assholes 'round here. (too cool for this town i guess)... the blackbird is there! i found that the cool area for the younger crowd to chill was southeast portland. (hawthorne ave./st. i believe)
oh...the coast is gorgeous too!

i really like portland. i haven't spent a great deal of time there, but when i have been there i've really enjoyed it. it seems pretty safe, i was wandering there by myself the other day, trying to make my way from point a to point b, and i wasn't scared, despite not knowing portland really at all. lots of people will ask you for cigarettes.
and the hugging hobo WAS scary.

actually, growing up in ny the cleanliness and greenery freaked me out a bit. i need dirt and asshole drunk smelly people in my city, dammit!

i mean, it's not as much fun waiting for public transportation if you can't go subway rat counting while you wait for your train. so cute!

and thats why i love ya!!!

As a recent transplant from the East Coast, I can say they are two different worlds. Portland is nice and hilly and green, where as Brooklyn is flat and grey. Downtown PDX is kinda small but there are quite a few bars/clubs in close proximity to each other, which means not alot of crawling to the next one. In Brooklyn or NYC, you can close a bar at 4 am and still take the subway home. In PDX if you close a bar (at 2-2:30) be prepared to walk or take a cab because the busses stop at around 1-1:30. But the cabbies here are super cool. And you have to call ahead of time, which is kinda nice. That mean no waving and flaining around like a lunatic trying to hail a cab. Oh and most Manhattan cabbies WON'T drive you to Brooklyn. Umm, what else... oh yeah, here I wait for the bus across the street from an all organic cooperative grocery store, which as Pheadra said, isn't as fun as counting rats waiting for a subway train. Portland has some REALLY good authentic mexican joints. NYC has bad ass pies (pizza). Rocco's has the worst pizza in the world. Ray's Pizzza has the best (all 35 of em, hehehehe)

I dunno, thas just my opinion. Oh, and yes, the people here are generally friendly. Oh and did i mention its green? And how about cheaper?

Portland. Rain 4 seasons a year.
Brooklyn. All 4 seasons are what you expect. Rain in spring, hot in summer, chilly in fall, and snow in winter.

Portland. The homeless are street kids, Punks you would be friends with.
Brooklyn. The homeless are deranged alcoholics that smell awful.

Portland. Ten 8 story buildings and one 12 story building.
Brooklyn. A view of the magnificent Manhattan skyline.

Portland. The Sub Pop and Riot Grrl era has passed.
Brooklyn. The next big scene is happening right now in Williamsburg.

Portland. Hot girls that are easy to talk to everywhere.
Brooklyn. Can you even afford to get your self drunk at 6 dollars a drink much less buy a girl a beer?

Portland. Mostly white.
Brooklyn. All the colors under the rainbow. It would help if you know Spainish.

Portland. Buses that stop running at 1:30am. The Max.
Brooklyn. Buses, Subways, and Taxis 24 hours a day. You will not need a car.

Portland. Clean
Brooklyn. Very dirty.

Portland. Strip clubs on every corner.
Brooklyn. Look through your neighbors window for free.

I personally would get bored in Portland after three weeks, although if you are into the west coast vibe it is a great city. Brooklyn would be my choice.

um..they ahve some pritty damn good resturants here like the montage...adn great clothing stores..and also the peopl here are great

Why not do both?

Brooklyn, Portland, Oregon

Moving from the Bay Area to Portland would be a change for sure.

Portland pretends to be cosmopolitan but is quite provincial at the core. So if it's bright lights and hub bub you seek, Go East.

As you've been to Brooklyn several times, you've probably picked up on the eastern seaboard vernacular habit of wisecracking condescension as the way the locals actually acknowledge familiarity and acceptance, even between people who've never met.

When I tried that here, even locals I had known for awhile took offense until I explained the cultural context described above. Oregonians take you at your word, which in most circumstances makes living here much more relaxed. So if you do come here, my advice is to let the local open the door for the wisecracking, or listen for an eastern accent.

The reason Portland has so many strip clubs is that Oregon's constitutional protection of free speech is more broadly defined and vigorously defended than in almost any other state. Voters twice rejected ballot measures that sought to constrain those protections, even though periodic polling consistently confirms that a majority of Porltanders are concerned about sex businesses in their neighborhoods.

Portland has been named Most Bike Friendly City several times since 1990. I commute by bike, even through the rainy season. It's healthier being exposed to the cold rain in the fresh air than it is being confined on a public bus or train while a virus is running its course.

Portland has the biggest forest within city limits in the country, and it's a public park.

Oregon has no sales tax.


[Edited on Nov 23, 2002 by graysius]

Having spent most of my life in Portland, I woudl go with Brooklyn. Maybe I'm just a negative bastard though.

I've spent the vast majority of my life in Portland, and I love it. I now live in Boston but really miss it and am thinking of coming back. Be warned, Portland is really dull for the under 21 set, but there are cool coffeeshops and parks and things of that nature, so it's not totally desolate. Portland just has a nice, friendly vibe and there are tons of cool people in their twenties. There is a nice art and music scene, and some very cool bars and clubs. The economy is terrible right now, so be prepared to be unemployed for a while or have something set up.

Man, I miss it....

How much sun does Portland actually get? (what with all the rain)

Is it as rainy and overcast as Seattle? Are the summers warm?

I guess I'm just asking what the weather is like through the year.

The best time in PDX, weather wise, is June through September. These months are usually sunny and warm while only rarely getting super-hot or muggy (as my current home of Chicago is in the summer). October can be nice and fall-like, but sometime mid-November the rainy season sets in and doesn't let up until April. The winter is mild--only snowing once or twice--but relentlessly rainy, which can be really fucking depressing. There's a reason Portland is replete with mopey singer-songwriters. Basically you get rained on all winter and it's too nasty to do anything but sit around, drink and play your sad bastard music.

On the upside, all the rain means the trees and flowers are beautiful. Spring can be really stunning. Also, the grass never quite dies in winter--there's always a bit of green year-round.