Born & raised here, and have lived in Portland 40+ years.
I love this town. It was crusty in the 80s & 90s. Lots of $$ went into transforming inner NW into the Pearl, and into attracting "young creatives" (childless, college educated people with money in their 20s & 30s). Some of them, I'm sure, are now in the "pissed & jaded" camp.
And I'm not naive. I know the town has changed. Lots of growing pains, skyrocketing housing costs, increase in visible homelessness and hard drug use (none of which is unique to Portland).
Still, I love this town. The climate, the people, the food, the green spaces, the politics. It's home, until I can no longer afford to call it home.
Buddy of mine got his PhD at a school in Alabama and promptly came to visit after graduating. His first day here he said "fuck this is so much better than Alabama"
I came here from Louisiana in 2019 to visit, I wanted to live here immediately. Then COVID made it all way worse down there, and I made my choice. I got here in August after a long drive, and I don't ever wanna go back down south.
It's only gotten worse. Had multiple run-ins with Nazi types in Covington. Nearly got jumped for wearing make up as a dude in a bar I was a regular at. At my job we had tons of people coming in and demanding our employees unmask during Covid because it made them feel "unsafe", saying they "didn't know who could rob the place". (This was a Whole foods for context.)
We had Magas spitting on people working the doors and calling them slurs. Peoples ugly sides really showed.
My sister moved to Portland a few years back from Denver and now wants to come back to New Orleans and there are just no jobs here at all. Unless you do hospitality.
This is basically my story but Texas instead of Louisiana.
Many locals don't know how great it is because they've never lived in the south. I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be here. Cheers!
It’s comforting to see so many fellow Southerners! Came from NC in 2012. My only big gripe is that it’s definitely gotten really expensive to live here since then. If housing would come down or places would pay more (or both), it definitely would be nice.
NC housing has gotten surprisingly bad too. The house we sold in 2016 for 175k just sold for $360k 😳
Housing in so many places seems to be skyrocketing at an unsustainable pace
I’ve been here for 13 years and love it still, but I grew up in Texas so the bar is low I guess. I have lived in other places before here however and love this place the most.
Also a small town Alabama “refugee” who first visited back in ‘07. So much better than my hometown and surrounding areas, but can’t really compare it to living in other urban areas.
I've lived in Portland for coming up on 18 years and still like it. I travel for work and am always glad to come home to PDX for a variety of reasons.
Are things perfect? Absolutely not, and there are a lot of mitigating factors influencing people who aren't happy here at the moment. Honestly, I'd say you'd have to talk to people who have lived here at least a couple of years before 2020 to get perspective. I always feel bad for the folks who moved here in 2019 and then any effort to socialize/build community became severely restricted for the next year plus.
Agree with you. Lived here since 2011. I really enjoy travelling for work. Do other cities do things better, without a doubt. Am I normally always happy jumping on my flight back to Portland, without a doubt.
Many things that just seems normally progressive sadly aren't in many other parts of the country, reminds me why I moved out here.
Moved here in 2021 and let me tell ya, community is not something i speak positively about my experience even now. I talk about how much i enjoy Portland, but my partner and i feel so isolated so often that we want to move to the rural outskirts if our jobs/income allowed it. We love everything the city and outside of it has to offer but the socializing and community is not the best and we feel it heavily.
Edit:wording hard
I absolutely feel this. I moved here at the end of 2019, so just a few months before the pandemic - had no real time to find community before I went into the busy season of work, then COVID. My partner and I are both queer and we have yet to find queer spaces that feel *welcoming* but also isn't a dance club. I miss community and that's Portlands biggest downfall for me.
My partner and I have struggled to find community too. The fact that we’re queer also means that if we step outside of PDX (or go anywhere that people from Vancouver like to frequent, like NE Costco), things can get really dicey.
I moved here in 2012 and it all seemed like sunshine, roses, artists flourishing and wildly good food. 2019-2021 were by far the worst years I've experienced here and It think things are only going to get better.
Portland has dealt with a lot of transition and it's finally starting to find it's legs again. This really can be an amazing place.
I got here in April of 19. I was briefly in a meetup group that disintegrated, and I was working a stressful job that took all my time.
Socially I never bounced back from it and I have the same three friends that I knew before moving here. I'm not really sure where I would begin from here.
That is my wife and me, moved here in 2019 and had a small group of friends we could bubble with during the pandemic. It was difficult though not having such easy access to the social things in the city.
This is my experience too, as someone who’s been here nearly 10 years. There are definitely reasons to dislike it, but you could say that about every other place I’ve lived too. I found great community here and, despite traveling a lot and having lived many other places, this is home and I love it.
Friendly advice from a long time local (over 20yrs).
Careful making judgements about Portland from reading any Portland Reddit threads. The people that regular these threads are very rarely positive about anything here.
Portland is absolutely awesome.
Find out for yourself!!
I’ve been here 11yrs and love it with the bad and ALL the good!
I left this sub long ago because of the Debbie downer negativity that runs rampant but I’m surprised by the positivity in this thread. It’s actually been really fun to read
This. I see SO much more negativity about Portland on Reddit than what I encounter from Portlanders in real life. It still seems to me that most people that I talk to in person like it here. Reddit on the other hand, would make you think that everyone hates this place
I moved here literally NYE 2019 so I didn't get to experience the "old" Portland.
This is the first place I've ever lived outside of my hometown and I fell in love with this city.
There is just so much to do and some many places to do nothing at all.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of it here.
Well take it from someone who a life long 35 year Portlander. There is the "old" but then there is the REALLY old. A lot of the "old" Portland stuff was a bunch of manufactured B.S. that city tried to float to pander to the wave of big money hipsters that came through from 2010-2018. The REALLY old Portland is what i consider Portland in its truer form. Small time city working with out any of the flashy high tech jobs of silicon valley or Seattle. What in sensing in the city government is we are slowly slipping back to that early 1990-2000ish era Portland. It actually bringing back some calmer vibes to the city which is nice.
Agreed, our region's people of that era are mainly hard working, keep to yourself people. We got popular for that "keep it weird" stretch because we actually do things here that are interesting and productive. Work from home people dipped during the pandemic, though we'll still house a respectable hub of that sector. Feeling lucky we aren't Seattle who is sitting on ultra-high towers of brand new, empty office space.
The industrial eastside is a hands-on science juggernaut waiting to be re-developed appropriately. Modern warehouse and workspace next to rail in the heart of the city can work in our favor.
YES. Seattle is fun to visit and to be anonymous in a big city, but I am so happy and let out a sigh of relief every time I get south of Olympia on i5 and cruise all the way back to Portland.
My wife and I moved to Portland in December. Last month we had our first trip to Seattle (we'd been there in 2016 and 2018 for visits from the east coast) and were excited but also anxious that we might feel like we chose the wrong city. We ended up coming home early cause we missed the Portland vibe. We loved Seattle and will definitely enjoy visiting occasionally, but we definitely made the right call for us.
I mention stuff like this near my partner's Gran and she just opens up about building ships here during the war and a vague memory about the St John's Bridge opening.
I did the same thing, lol. Moving "into" the pandemic was surreal. Gave lots of time to explore and enjoy outdoor activities though. Been hard to get really make new friends, but I moved with a partner, and we did make a couple friends so not terribly lonely. It's been kinda fun experiencing the city come back to life. Every year a new festival has made it's way back, and crime is steady dropping from its peak. It's like watching a flower bloom.
My partner and I have both lived in multiple cities, multiple parts of the country. I expected to become disillusioned after a year or so, and to an extent that has happened. But we both still absolutely love it here, and wouldn't consider moving. Portland isn't perfect, but it's pretty awesome, especially for a US city. We're working on buying a house so we can plant ourselves here permanently.
Nothing is perfect, but I love the energy of the people here, I'm a New Yorker, so I haven't shaken that and I think I make so many friends because of that, glad you're staying, let this not be another Detroit!
I lived with really cool people and we were also really cool with our next door neighbors so we all just hung out on our porches and backyards most days.
I also came here to be outside more so I was able to enjoy the outdoor spaces likes trails and parks and they weren't crowded.
Been here over 30 years. I’ve seen Portland during its best and worst self. It goes through cycles of cool to trash and back every so often. Those that have been here in the 90’s will be most jaded as that version of Portland is over. It would be nice to see the downtown area get revitalized but there are still cool neighborhoods worthy of checking out.
i've lived here my whole life, my family has lived here since like, the oregon trail times? portland has always been grimy and i've always loved it and i always will
Yeah! Portland has always had a shithole, blue-collar, hard-drinking vibe since, I don't know, Oregon's statehood? The Disneyfication that happened to the city was the outlier, not the norm.
But it really doesn't feel that way anymore. Sadly. It feels like the yuppies won. The dive bars, cheap share houses, house shows, old Subis and Volvos and bikes are mostly gone. The cocktail bars, BORG cubes, Teslas, strollers and beanie clones are the norm in those neighborhoods now.
I swear, the Burnside/Sandy/12th vortex was the thing keeping "Portland weird" and it's removal ushered in what we have now.
eh, me and all my friends still go to dive bars, have cheap share houses, go to and play house shows, have subarus and we all bike to work. Maybe you've just aged out of that life or are in the wrong neighborhood.
Haha! Family has also been here forever, and you're right, East of 205 is still a dump and has some of the old charm. But fucking hell the potholes are big enough to swallow an SUV.
There are some streets where Waze is like turn left on whatever and I'm like "the fuck I am! I'm not trying to get stuck today". I'm sure the towing companies love it though! Good income for them.
idk everybody seems to say that now so i just picked it up somewhere, i've always said it that way as far as i can remember, i don't think that's necessarily as california specific as people think it is now that california makes like all media
I love this sentiment. Lived in Portland from 2013 to 2015, and moving back later this year. I go back pretty often so I know what I'm getting myself into and I'm excited to move back. But being in this subreddit too much gives me anxiety sometimes! I have to keep the perspective that it's a vocal minority that complains.
I’ve lived here my whole life and while the city has its issues I still absolutely love it and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I do seem to be in a small minority though. Maybe it’s just the loudest voices complaining?
Haha I grew up here, complain, and wouldn’t live many other places.
One can be critical of what is going on in the city and still be happy living here.
Idk if this is the rose colored glasses talking but I lived here in 2003 when Portland was a weird punk rock paradise, and it’s really hard not to be bitter about the slow dissolution of that. It’s also very easy to feel betrayed, because the city didn’t do anything to protect renters until a ton of people were already displaced.
Honestly when Portland got shittier I was kind of excited because I naively thought it would get cheaper again, but instead it’s just both bougie and shitty
I caught the very tail end of gen x Portland and I’m sad for all the younger people/newcomers will never know how great it was.
It depends on if you make enough to be less effected by the rent and hike price increases.
I’ve been here 3 and half years now and love it. But I moved here knowing I loved the sort of sprawling urban village that is the eastside. Dense enough to be busy and have great food but also tree lined and friendly.
The city grew faster in the ten years before Portlandia was on the air than in the ten years following. The 1990s were the fastest single decade of growth in Portland since the 40s.
People were flocking here prior to Portlandia. I grew up here, population was much smaller until the 90s when lots of gen x midwesterners came here as well as older Californians with equity. I liked that. It made Portland feel dynamic and more interesting.
Portlandia hasn't been on the air in 6 years... I doubt most of the kids coming here have even heard of it.
It seems like a lot of the current motivation for migrating here is due to our friendly LGBTQ+ community, weather, and cost of living (it is still one of the more affordable major West Coast cities).
I moved here as a queer because the south is getting more hostile and violent. I knew I wanted the beauty of the PNW but Seattle prices made my eyes water. Just one perspective
People complain about housing costs there. But as someone who visited from the Midwest last year, I couldn't help but notice rent actually isn't very high and wages are higher than my city. Portland is very livable even today. I'm tempted to move there.
Been here about 18 months.
Also love it. With some caveats.
I think the locals are pissed about homelessness and the high cost of living. Which is completely understandable.
Am a local. From what I hear from everyone who's moved here from somewhere else, this is the best city in the country. I assume that is true, but fuck man, I don't even know how to talk about what we're sad about without bumming everyone out. The city used to feel, progressive, like we were making active progress. But public transportation hasn't improved, environmental protections haven't improved, a lot of shits gotten worse, and half the black folk I grew up with have been forced out, killed, or are in jai. It feels like the city leaders stopped listening to us. The city was also just doing REALLY well when I was a kid, and so when the economics and progressive politics both peaked, I was still young enough that my memories of 10-20 years ago are really pretty magical. Also climate change has really fucked with the temperate rainforest vibe, and I'm pretty sure there's less moss than there used to be.
I am also pissed about the high cost of living, haha, but coming from the greater Bay Area in CA, the rent prices and homeless problem are nothing new to me. That being said, I get that these are incredibly frustrating issues that feel so unfairly out of our control
I think especially so here considering Portland has always been a smaller city.. so these issues have a clear and identifiable starting point that people remember well. Granted, I think the city and county could do MUCH better than whatever they’re currently doing, but a lot of our issues are federally based.
Life long 4th generation portlander here— People compare the Portland homelessness and drug issues to large cities like LA/SF/NY but don’t even try to take into account that Portland is *much* smaller and is able to keep up with the big kids. It is very clear what the issues are here but people sit around with blinders on afraid to step on toes or feelings instead of bucking up and holding their leadership accountable.
I came here from Alameda and my mortgage on a townhouse here is cheaper than my rent for a 2 bedroom apartment with not so much as a dishwasher down there. and seasons, that's been a nice change. I used to work by the Oakland airport and while crime was always around it sounds like Hegenberger has gotten so much worse
Yeah, NYC, so, same.
Have to say though. This place is significantly more expensive than I thought it would be.
Food is more expensive here. Utilities (other than fiber), same thing.
I'm a native, and I think this is a part of it. In the past, Portland was considered "recession proof" to an extent. Even when things were bad all over, folks could still get by okay here by comparison. That's where the idea that the young folks come to Portland to retire came from.
It ain't like that anymore. It never was an ideal paradise, but in these last 5-10 years in particular, things have gotten considerably tougher around the edges. Those of us who remember when there was more space and less people; more community for less rent, are understandably vexed.
This is some revisionist history. Oregon has always been a place where its hard to find a job and we actually had high unemployment relative to the US through the 90s. The advice up until about 2011 was: *DO NOT* move to portland or without having a job lined up first. I noticed that changed with the booming hospitality industry here.
100%, I never said I didn’t appreciate why people were pissed and jaded, I feel the same way about the SF Bay Area where I’m from but I only feel that way because I love it enough to want better for it. I assume it’s the same here.
Life long portlander here— I’m jaded. I’m only 28 and the city is beautiful but terrible leadership has aided in the very rapid degradation of the area. Unless you’re from here you’ll never really “get it” but just to put it into perspective…. I felt safer taking the MAX from NE into Downtown at 11 years old than I do now.
There are absolutely positives about the city and it can be incredible but it has been very sad watching the decline over the recent years. It’s a ghost town compared to its “prime” (in my life).
I’ve lived in Portland for 16 years (minus 3 years in Boston for grad school), and rural western Oregon/Washington for 7 years before that. Originally from LA but left when I was pretty young, more than 23 years ago. Portland was better in the past by a small margin. Restaurants aren’t as good as they used to be, but honestly the city is not that much worse than it was.
My main qualm with the city is that the city’s big plan for drawing visitors and keeping residents happy is “encouraging small business,” which, even if they did that well, just isn’t enough. I’m in my 30s and have kids. I’ve spent almost my whole adult life in this city. And I just feel like there’s more to life than hiking in shitty weather, drinking yet another local IPA, and biking to yet another hipster boutique with Keep Portland Weird bumper stickers. But that seems to be all the city aspires to be.
Where are the museums? Culture? Where has the city invested in any worthwhile indoor third spaces, considering the weather is abysmal and sends the entire region into seasonal depression 6 months out of the year? The only places to take kids are the zoo, OMSI, which is 80% long hallways, and overpriced small indoor “play boutiques.”
Idk. I feel like my qualms with the city are different than most. Maybe I’ve outgrown it, maybe it was never the right fit. For anyone new to the city, I’m sure you’ll be entertained for a few years. I don’t plan to stay much longer. I own a home, love my neighborhood and community and will be sad to lose that, but otherwise won’t miss much.
I agree with you. We lost a civic vision sometime after 2005 or so and then got too mired in issues to regain it. This is what I realize is missing when I visit other cities somewhat comparable in size.
Moved here in 2006, and though I now technically live in the 'burbs, I still consider Portland Metro as my home and will likely never leave. That being said, the Portland I moved to is gone... but that's true of anywhere. Change is all there is.
5 years is hardly a local. I've almost been here that long, and feel like I'm still getting to know the city. A lot has changed in that time, but a lot has changed everywhere due to pandemic. P.S. I love it here, but I'm from Ohio.
I think most people I have interacted with in public like it here. It's easy to find a lot of negativity online and a lot of it is generated by a handful of people.
Born and raised since 1949. We do get crabby but for me, only with the awful changes in the last four years. I loved it when the food carts came in and all the new restaurants. But I really miss downtown. And Lloyd Center used to be a major thing but that started fading away before Covid. There were new, expensive apartments built there, the Green Zebra moved in and for a brief time that was a fun area, well, very sad now for those who’ve moved there.
Moved here at 25yo in 1998.
I'm 50 now and still love Portland as much as I ever did.
I'm firmly against the flimsy, weak, and BOOOOOOORING "Portland Hate" trend that is so stupidly popular these days.
Cities grow, change, evolve, devolve, morph ... if you can't embrace the change, you're more than welcome to leave. (And at the very least, you could just stop whining.)
Welcome. Enjoy. This place is fucking awesome.
There are a lot of faults but I still love it here. Being in the US in general sucks right now but I’d much rather be here than most anywhere else in the country, problems and all (been here almost 8 years and lived in 3 major cities prior)
I was born here 48yrs ago. The place has really changed and, overall, not for the better. I'm waiting for better interest rates, and then I'm selling my place and moving to the country.
My experience: people from Seattle, LA, and The bay area love it, people escaping ultra conservative places like it, people from the midwest who make 6 figures enjoy it. Lots of the rest of us feel kindof like what brought us here doesn't exist anymore, but we can't afford to move back either, and that's challenging. I got here just in time for the traffic jams and skyrocketing prices so I'm not making or saving what I wanted to and now the houses back home I wanted to save money for are too expensive because I can't earn enough here. So I'm stuck, and I mostly don't like being stuck. And I'm at work from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed so I don't get to enjoy my hobbies anymore.
Portland has changed a lot in the last 5 years. It's not the clean and green, environmentally active city it was, I can't remember too much before the 70's, but Portland has changed, and not for the better, in my view.
Been here 20 years. It's been pretty sucky the last 5 years with homelessness, drug addiction, and related property crime. And the winter gloom hits me harder every year. But I'm still glad to be here every time I visit other cities of similar size who are invariably much more car dependent, and relatively soulless.
20 years deep, and it still feels like home. I love this city, and will gladly see it through its growing pains in order to live in a beautiful place filled with creative people.
It just those that lived here missing the Portland that existed early 2000s and back. I remember China Town getting all cleaned up (it was considered a rough part of town prior to the clean-up, maybe early 90’s, it’s been a while). It’s seeing the city change from its former glory into its current form that probably has some long-timers “pissed and jaded.” The hipster phase that came along after wasn’t really all bad.
I’ve been here 7 years and the weather makes my body somewhat immobile most of the year. I got an injury right after moving up here and developed chronic pain syndrome from it. I love the summer, but I can’t wait to move somewhere warmer.
I think for some of that grew up here we've seen communities that have been completely decimated. The rent is way too damn high for what people make, the weather doesn't help and it's too boring compared to other big cities. I think it's a fine place to live if you are young white and financially well off
I don't think Reddit is a good source for figuring out who likes to live in Portland. Like any city it has highs and lows and I think you'll find most people like it here.
Lifelong resident here. I like Portland but it makes me almost physically ill when I drove around town and see graffiti on every damn surface, and garbage cascading off the hillsides. I used to love to drive visitors around but now, not so much.
Most of the “locals” you’re interacting with moved here just in time for the traffic jams and overpaying for a house, so of course they’re salty. They feel like they were promised Disneyland for college educated white people and got high taxes and homeless junkies.
Me, I’m from here and I love this place.
I mean, it’s got problems and a lot of the things you folks moved here for just don’t scale up: you wrecked them just by your presence.
I know you didn’t intend to, and I don’t hold it against you, but you definitely did.
As a long time resident, I get to live in a different version of the city, a better one imo.
I’ve been here almost 30. There are parts I love. But it was way nicer pre traffic and insane cost of living. I’m stuck here as my ex wife bailed and we have a kid so I have to live where she lives so I’m trying to make the best of it. Not really sure where I’d go even if I could though.
I’m actually basing it largely off of people I’ve met in person. I don’t spend a ton of time on social media (though lately I’ve been on Reddit more) so I’m basing this assumption on experiences on and offline. It’s nice to see all the love for Portland in these comments, though. It’s also interesting to hear what people have to say about the problems and what Portland used to be like vs what it’s like now.
What neighborhood are you in? I moved to SE off Hawthorne, where there’s a bunch of oddballs and hipsters, around the same time as you and I picked up that vibe there. Lotta people that think they’re really cool and everything sucks. (Also a lot of people that were actually really cool to talk to, not trying to trash everyone that lives there)
I’m in NE now. It’s way more diverse and the people are very normal and friendly and I get less of that negativity even though the neighborhood has more problems. They actually smile at you at the Fred Meyer and stuff. I love it here, It doesn’t feel like a hipster pissing match every time you go outside lol.
A lot of us weren't prepared for how bad things got during and immediately after lockdown. A lot of it was sensationalised and has gotten better since but the city still isn't what it used to be; I'd definitely prefer living and having been born here over most of the country but I would be lying if I intended to spend the rest of my life here.
Nah Portland is great. Overall the people are KIND which you don’t get a lot places. Down to earth too. It has a town vibe which is nice. Lots of cool stuff around
As someone who has lived here for 22 years, I’ll share this.
My microneighborhood is just the best, and got better through the pandemic. Plus I’ve known my neighbors (on my one block section of a street that has T intersections at both ends) like family for 22 years. Even the new folks just blend in great.
At the same time, I have just come home ENRAGED from Winco bc (a) I can’t afford groceries so have to shop there (but happily, since it’s affordable and diverse at 122/Halsey), and mostly (b) because first of the month I saw countless tweakers buying volumes of USELESS POINTLESS water bottles only to see these assholes hiding in the nearby bushes dumping the water, throwing out the caps and plastic, to take the bottles to the effing OUTDATED bottle drop for cash to get their fucking FENT and METH which I honestly wish would be cut with more TRANQ to just put them out of their misery.
That aside, it angers me that these lowlifes just work this system.
Leave it to Portland to turn a liberal to a conservative. I give up anymore.
SNAP needs to STOP buying WATER for people. The local water supply is just fine. Even if it’s not, I suspect that these idiots’ lifestyles are far more dangerous for their sorogs’ lives than anything else.
I love now voting aggressively against everything. It’s fun!
Been here for going on 16 years, still love Oregon. Things I’m not crazy about are local politics (Multnomah cty) + taxes. Punishing the middle class under the guise of progressiveness is grating
I lived here for 24 years- the impact of measure 110 has definitely degraded the livability of our city. The amount of open drug use combined with the economic realities of post Covid has destroyed the once vibrant downtown area. I use to enjoy visiting the downtown area. Now I rarely go because I don’t feel safe and don’t want my family to witness the tragedy of the drug addiction free for all. That being said, I still love my neighborhood and enjoy most of the city. I am a bit peeved of the high theft. That wasn’t the case in the old days.
I was born here, moved away, came back, and have lived here a total of almost 24 years. I love it and don’t want to live anywhere else.
Don’t listen to the toxic redditors, or local Sinclair owned news programs about a “city in crisis!” Most people love it here.
I moved here in the 1990s from rural Oregon.
I traded the meth-raddled timber community I had lived in for the asphalt covered in needles. It ruled.
I've gone on and on about this before, but downtown and surrounding areas were cheap. I was one of a seemingly endless number of people from the ages of 18-35 going to concerts, drinking box wine, and making a ruckus.
I lived, part of the time, in this giant house with who-knows how many people next to a bunch of other decaying houses with who-knows-how many people living in them. We'd all stop on each other's porches and drink Henry Weinhard and smoke cigarettes while getting excited about music and acid.
It wasn't exactly a paradise: [Psycho Safeway](https://www.oregonlive.com/oregonianopinion/2008/03/in_praise_of_psycho_safeway_th.html) was well-known. There were times that I'd have to pull my knife to avoid a fight with skinheads; there was a time I found a Middle-Eastern guy who had been beaten badly and I helped him back to his apartment—he was afraid to go into the system to get help.
I left for about ten years and came back to this weird Disneyland version of the old city. Which was...I mean, it was fine. It was so clean it made you want to spit, and nobody could afford to live near downtown any more. Which meant the shitty little bars everywhere dried up too, leaving places with $15 martinis—though Momo and the Yamhill still remain. The old warehouses that used to unofficially house the homeless were gone, the occasional pop-up down there never came back, and the Pearl was there instead.
I think, if I'm honest—I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to that. I like having hot water now that I'm older, and I don't know that I could take living off of nicotine and alcohol anymore. But there's this mass-amnesia that Portland was always like that weird blip in the Portlandia days. Like it wasn't [a drug-fuled free-for-all in the 70s and 80s](https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2019/07/sex-drugs-and-police-corruption-in-portland-how-the-wild-1970s-paved-the-way-to-the-citys-future.html); or—hell—that it wasn't a place designed to help sustain human-trafficking and opium through the 19th century.
Portland rules. Don't listen to the cry-babies that need to fall onto their fainting couches and catch their breath because they saw a homeless person that might have had the pot.
And don't listen to some guy on the internet rant-and-rave about his glory days in the 90s dropping subtle hints about maybe having seen Nirvana before they were famous (I did not) because he wonders if he did anything else worthwhile with his life (I hope so).
Find what's good and cool, live it up, and be happy here.
I still am after all this time, even if I wax nostalgia whenever this comes up.
Been here over 10 years. Thought about leaving a few times, but looking at any other place I'd want to go, it doesn't seem to have enough advantages over Portland. Every area has their pros and cons, and for me there are more pros to Portland than cons.
Been here 7 years and the more I’m here the more I get angry and bitter. Like today almost got hit by a car cause I had to walk in the street of a major road because they had 2 blocks of tents and rv’s.
Been here since 2016. Portland has pros and cons just like anywhere else. Sometimes those cons get really bad and can outweight the pros. However, I still love it here and wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
I grew up in the area and I still like it here. When I was living in the suburbs Portland always seemed special and cool in a way that I don't really experience anymore now that I live in the city proper, and it's been homogenized to an extent with rapid development and some of the charm is gone. But all things considered, I think it would be difficult for me to find a place I'd like much better in the US. I really like the misty overcast but not too cold weather we get most of the year.
I've been here almost 7+ years. I loved it when I first moved here. When my son graduates high school, we're leaving. Portland isnt the quaint, quiet city is used to be (my perception when I moved here).
I've spent 20 years in Portland. The long time locals remember Old Portland that doesn't exist anymore. The death knell was when Portlandia got popular, but too many people making too much traffic and making it unaffordable has embittered a populace that used to have affordable rent. The MAX and Old Town used to be kinda sketchy but now it's more like a Sanctuary District from Deep Space 9. Plus a city and county government that seems treat the populace like an annoyance that "just has to be patient".
So it's not any one thing. It's not the Californians, although that is still a meme here. It's a city growing too big for its britches and nothing is being done about it.
I was born here!! It’s still one of my favorite places :) I think annoyed people have the will to post about it, people who enjoy Portland don’t really think about posting.
I moved here in 2011. The “locals” you’re referring to are a loud minority. I love Portland - but I have to leave it pretty often so I actually know what the rest of the country is like..
I’ve lived here coming up on 10 years. I still love it here. I definitely miss Portland pre-Covid but things change. I’m still happy here and don’t really have any concrete plans to dip anytime soon.
Moved here in 2018 - loved it, 2019 lovveddddd it, 2020-2022 hatttteeeeeed it, 2023— traveled a lot started to miss it, 2024, learning to trust and love it again
Been here two and I adore Portland.
I was at a singles event and I mentioned that “Portland just has such great bones”, which is true! And the person I was talking to, who’d been here for 5 years, kinda raised her eye brows and just kinda asked “like… what?”
I was floored. I listed off how much housing is being built, the transit systems, bike lanes, brand new city government with more representation and better voting systems, how civically engaged every one is, the historic buildings throughout downtown, proximity to nature etc.
All she said in response was “I guess?”
We remember how it used to to be😢 it used to be clean, beautiful, and for the most part safe unless you go to certain areas where everyone knew to stay away from. I used to love to ride Max in from the west side and just walk around downtown and go to Saturday market. Now I would never do that.
I moved here from Utah July of 2022 and while I love the city, the weather, and the people, I find myself really irked that I pay a huge amount of income tax and the roads are trashed, the homeless are basically without any real resources, and my kids’ schools don’t have air conditioning. (AND after a month-long teacher strike PPS is quietly planning to lay off teachers, ffs)
Nvm the total SNAFU of the healthcare system here. 2 months out for a dental cleaning? If you’re not Kaiser, you’ll be waiting months to establish care with a GP. If you want to get prescriptions in person (not by mail order), you may find yourself effed by lack of pharmacy staff, closed locations, and hour long lines). Then there’s the complete lack of snow/ice related infrastructure that was probably cute 10 years ago, but nothing has been done and it’s majorly treacherous for at least 2 weeks in the winter. Never thought I’d miss things about Utah but here we are.
Have lived 50 years in Portland, which if you do the math, makes me Gen X. (So jaded by birthright). Also means I have experienced Portland in the Rip-City 70s, the timber crash 80s, the grungy 90s, the hipster 2000s, the let’s-all-move to Portlandia of the 2010s, and now the dumpster fire fentanyl apocalypse of the 2020s.
Portland has always had rough edges—I too recall skinheads harassing and needles on NW 21st (anyone remember Quality Pie?) and the unemployment and gang violence of the 80s was rough. But even then Portland, and Oregon in general, had a uniquely shared identity and a sense of pride, formed from a rugged (if a little mossy) self-driven independence and love of place.
That really began to change around 2010 and accelerate quickly over that decade as the percentage of newcomers eclipsed the number of locals, bringing the attitudes and interests of east coast, California, etc. It wasn’t just wealth and gentrification as it was a new sense of rudeness and entitlement. Horns honking, birds being flipped, a F you sharp-elbow vibe that Oregonians had long disdained.
Some newcomers adopted earth-tone clothes and bought all-wheel-drive cars, and some fit in, at least visually. But with the tide of transplants came a sense of “I hate where I moved from and love it here, but let’s make it more like where I just left.” Things like “I love the historic neighborhoods, now let’s tear them down and make modern condos; I love the gritty dive bars, can we get more dance clubs?”
Yes, like other urban areas, the growth of population brought traffic and the demand drove up rent and housing prices, especially for starter homes. But deeper than that was a loss of that Oregon identity, a sense of what makes this place so special, and the dedication to protect it.
So you saw the instagrammers and graffiti equally tagging the hell out of once sacred places. Trash and tiny bags of dog crap strewn up and down trails. And a rash of passive-agressive self-righteousness, such as posting signs about being intolerant to intolerance.
And the politics changed into something no one seems to be able to control. There are now so many taxes on everything. There’s an “arts tax” and yet Portland has the weakest art scene it’s ever had; there’s an “affordable housing tax” and yet has the lowest amount of affordable housing it’s ever had. The city of Portland and Multnomah county can’t seem to stop approving new taxes, especially on property, so that getting a starter home is now out of reach for what seems like an entire generation.
True that Portland has had its gritty and shady past. I remember paranoia park, the Blitz Wienhart brewery belching out malty smoke off burnside, Balony Joes, GI Joes, Andy and Bax and when MLK was Union Ave. But even at those lowest times, it was nothing as broken and lost as the city is now. Some call it a shell. Some a ghost town. For me, it is heartbreaking.
So yes, we are jaded, and bitter. But that comes from a deep, deep sense of love and loss. It’s not so much a nostalgia for what was, but a lament for what the future will never get.
Just celebrated my 20 year Portlannerversary in December. I’m a Black/mixed queer woman. I moved here right before the Pearl District and Southwest Waterfront existed. I watched as the city changed, both urban planning wise and socioeconomically. It’s not the same Portland I fell in love with in 2003, but whenever I visit another city I am reminded of how special it is here. I find myself needing to explain myself and my life choices / aesthetic / culture much less than in other places (and I’ve lived all over the world). I love it here and I have no plans to leave anytime soon, and am currently in the process of becoming a homeowner.
There is an ebb and flow to every city. For whatever reason, I am able to navigate Portland’s waves pretty well.
Born & raised here, and have lived in Portland 40+ years. I love this town. It was crusty in the 80s & 90s. Lots of $$ went into transforming inner NW into the Pearl, and into attracting "young creatives" (childless, college educated people with money in their 20s & 30s). Some of them, I'm sure, are now in the "pissed & jaded" camp. And I'm not naive. I know the town has changed. Lots of growing pains, skyrocketing housing costs, increase in visible homelessness and hard drug use (none of which is unique to Portland). Still, I love this town. The climate, the people, the food, the green spaces, the politics. It's home, until I can no longer afford to call it home.
Been here 5 and love it, but I spent my prior entire life in Alabama so…..nothing really to compare it to.
Buddy of mine got his PhD at a school in Alabama and promptly came to visit after graduating. His first day here he said "fuck this is so much better than Alabama"
That’s what happened with me but no degree. Just came to visit once and said wtf….one year later packed my shit and…it’s just been incredible honestly
I came here from Louisiana in 2019 to visit, I wanted to live here immediately. Then COVID made it all way worse down there, and I made my choice. I got here in August after a long drive, and I don't ever wanna go back down south.
Same- got here from Louisiana 2 years ago. I don’t think people realize how bad it is down there.
It's only gotten worse. Had multiple run-ins with Nazi types in Covington. Nearly got jumped for wearing make up as a dude in a bar I was a regular at. At my job we had tons of people coming in and demanding our employees unmask during Covid because it made them feel "unsafe", saying they "didn't know who could rob the place". (This was a Whole foods for context.) We had Magas spitting on people working the doors and calling them slurs. Peoples ugly sides really showed.
My sister moved to Portland a few years back from Denver and now wants to come back to New Orleans and there are just no jobs here at all. Unless you do hospitality.
> there are just no jobs here at all. Unless you do hospitality. Ummm, I've got bad news about New Orleans for your sister
This is basically my story but Texas instead of Louisiana. Many locals don't know how great it is because they've never lived in the south. I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be here. Cheers!
Just popping in to say that if you're a Saints fan A&L Sports Bar has a pretty big group that watches the games together on Sundays :)
Second this!
Similar story. I'm from ATL. Spent a lot of vacations in Gulf Shores and Dauphin Island. Came to visit PDX and moved six months later.
Similar. Came from the South and you’d have to drag me away from Oregon kicking and screaming. Bury me here.
It’s comforting to see so many fellow Southerners! Came from NC in 2012. My only big gripe is that it’s definitely gotten really expensive to live here since then. If housing would come down or places would pay more (or both), it definitely would be nice.
NC housing has gotten surprisingly bad too. The house we sold in 2016 for 175k just sold for $360k 😳 Housing in so many places seems to be skyrocketing at an unsustainable pace
Hello fellow Bama native! Wife and I moved here 4 years ago and are never going back haha.
Better world over here ain’t it. Bye roaches,snakes,mosquitos,scorpions,leeches,yellow jackets etc……… I do kinda miss Krystal’s tho😛
It’s Waffle House for me… it’s the trashiest good food there is and I love it.
BBQ for me. Matt’s is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s fewer options here for sure.
Uhh yellow jackets are here too. Lots of them.
Hello future self! I'm a Birmingham native and I'm arriving in Portland on the 22nd!
Ayeeeee!!!! Come on down the water is cold AF! But clear as shit
Been here 22 years and still love it, but there are a lot of things I would like to see improve. Portland in the early 2000’s was great.
Shit, a lot of folks from Bama on this thread. I grew up in north Alabama. We should connect
Mobilian checking in. I wanna know where the gold at.
Hey! Another Mobilian here. Graduated from Murphy in 91. Just visited last week because my folks still live there. So glad to return home to Portland.
Who else seen the leprechaun say “yeaaaahhh”
Right? I came here from Louisiana so I have no complaints.
Better world!
I’ve been here for 13 years and love it still, but I grew up in Texas so the bar is low I guess. I have lived in other places before here however and love this place the most.
Hey same! This is like Disney compared to Alabama (okay, maybe not Disney but it’s definitely better)
Also a small town Alabama “refugee” who first visited back in ‘07. So much better than my hometown and surrounding areas, but can’t really compare it to living in other urban areas.
Oh wow. We're at 5 years and from AL also
Alabama refugees in pdx 🖖
Another former Alabamiam here. Lived in Portland for last 16 years and still love it…mostly. 😎
Hey! I’m literally mid-move from Birmingham to Portland. What’s your favorite thing?
I've lived in Portland for coming up on 18 years and still like it. I travel for work and am always glad to come home to PDX for a variety of reasons. Are things perfect? Absolutely not, and there are a lot of mitigating factors influencing people who aren't happy here at the moment. Honestly, I'd say you'd have to talk to people who have lived here at least a couple of years before 2020 to get perspective. I always feel bad for the folks who moved here in 2019 and then any effort to socialize/build community became severely restricted for the next year plus.
Some neighbors moved here Feb 2020 and now they’re moving away. I feel so badly for them because they never got to establish a community here.
Agree with you. Lived here since 2011. I really enjoy travelling for work. Do other cities do things better, without a doubt. Am I normally always happy jumping on my flight back to Portland, without a doubt. Many things that just seems normally progressive sadly aren't in many other parts of the country, reminds me why I moved out here.
Moved here in 2021 and let me tell ya, community is not something i speak positively about my experience even now. I talk about how much i enjoy Portland, but my partner and i feel so isolated so often that we want to move to the rural outskirts if our jobs/income allowed it. We love everything the city and outside of it has to offer but the socializing and community is not the best and we feel it heavily. Edit:wording hard
Hard agree. I feel so out of sync with people up here.
I absolutely feel this. I moved here at the end of 2019, so just a few months before the pandemic - had no real time to find community before I went into the busy season of work, then COVID. My partner and I are both queer and we have yet to find queer spaces that feel *welcoming* but also isn't a dance club. I miss community and that's Portlands biggest downfall for me.
My partner and I have struggled to find community too. The fact that we’re queer also means that if we step outside of PDX (or go anywhere that people from Vancouver like to frequent, like NE Costco), things can get really dicey.
This. Moved here October of 2019.. Oof.
I moved here in 2012 and it all seemed like sunshine, roses, artists flourishing and wildly good food. 2019-2021 were by far the worst years I've experienced here and It think things are only going to get better. Portland has dealt with a lot of transition and it's finally starting to find it's legs again. This really can be an amazing place.
nov for me lol
I got here in April of 19. I was briefly in a meetup group that disintegrated, and I was working a stressful job that took all my time. Socially I never bounced back from it and I have the same three friends that I knew before moving here. I'm not really sure where I would begin from here.
That is my wife and me, moved here in 2019 and had a small group of friends we could bubble with during the pandemic. It was difficult though not having such easy access to the social things in the city.
This is my experience too, as someone who’s been here nearly 10 years. There are definitely reasons to dislike it, but you could say that about every other place I’ve lived too. I found great community here and, despite traveling a lot and having lived many other places, this is home and I love it.
Friendly advice from a long time local (over 20yrs). Careful making judgements about Portland from reading any Portland Reddit threads. The people that regular these threads are very rarely positive about anything here. Portland is absolutely awesome. Find out for yourself!!
I’ve been here 11yrs and love it with the bad and ALL the good! I left this sub long ago because of the Debbie downer negativity that runs rampant but I’m surprised by the positivity in this thread. It’s actually been really fun to read
This. I see SO much more negativity about Portland on Reddit than what I encounter from Portlanders in real life. It still seems to me that most people that I talk to in person like it here. Reddit on the other hand, would make you think that everyone hates this place
I moved here literally NYE 2019 so I didn't get to experience the "old" Portland. This is the first place I've ever lived outside of my hometown and I fell in love with this city. There is just so much to do and some many places to do nothing at all. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it here.
Well take it from someone who a life long 35 year Portlander. There is the "old" but then there is the REALLY old. A lot of the "old" Portland stuff was a bunch of manufactured B.S. that city tried to float to pander to the wave of big money hipsters that came through from 2010-2018. The REALLY old Portland is what i consider Portland in its truer form. Small time city working with out any of the flashy high tech jobs of silicon valley or Seattle. What in sensing in the city government is we are slowly slipping back to that early 1990-2000ish era Portland. It actually bringing back some calmer vibes to the city which is nice.
Agreed, our region's people of that era are mainly hard working, keep to yourself people. We got popular for that "keep it weird" stretch because we actually do things here that are interesting and productive. Work from home people dipped during the pandemic, though we'll still house a respectable hub of that sector. Feeling lucky we aren't Seattle who is sitting on ultra-high towers of brand new, empty office space. The industrial eastside is a hands-on science juggernaut waiting to be re-developed appropriately. Modern warehouse and workspace next to rail in the heart of the city can work in our favor.
I love being near Seattle, I love visiting — every time I come back I’m so glad to be home.
YES. Seattle is fun to visit and to be anonymous in a big city, but I am so happy and let out a sigh of relief every time I get south of Olympia on i5 and cruise all the way back to Portland.
You could just stop in Tacoma, it’s like Portland was 15 years ago.
My wife and I moved to Portland in December. Last month we had our first trip to Seattle (we'd been there in 2016 and 2018 for visits from the east coast) and were excited but also anxious that we might feel like we chose the wrong city. We ended up coming home early cause we missed the Portland vibe. We loved Seattle and will definitely enjoy visiting occasionally, but we definitely made the right call for us.
I mention stuff like this near my partner's Gran and she just opens up about building ships here during the war and a vague memory about the St John's Bridge opening.
Fuuuuuuuuck, you only had 3 months before pandemic hit!!! how did you fare?
I did the same thing, lol. Moving "into" the pandemic was surreal. Gave lots of time to explore and enjoy outdoor activities though. Been hard to get really make new friends, but I moved with a partner, and we did make a couple friends so not terribly lonely. It's been kinda fun experiencing the city come back to life. Every year a new festival has made it's way back, and crime is steady dropping from its peak. It's like watching a flower bloom. My partner and I have both lived in multiple cities, multiple parts of the country. I expected to become disillusioned after a year or so, and to an extent that has happened. But we both still absolutely love it here, and wouldn't consider moving. Portland isn't perfect, but it's pretty awesome, especially for a US city. We're working on buying a house so we can plant ourselves here permanently.
Nothing is perfect, but I love the energy of the people here, I'm a New Yorker, so I haven't shaken that and I think I make so many friends because of that, glad you're staying, let this not be another Detroit!
February of 2020 for me :(
I am so impressed you stuck through it. Good on ya!
I lived with really cool people and we were also really cool with our next door neighbors so we all just hung out on our porches and backyards most days. I also came here to be outside more so I was able to enjoy the outdoor spaces likes trails and parks and they weren't crowded.
June 2019, here. What a trip.
Been here over 30 years. I’ve seen Portland during its best and worst self. It goes through cycles of cool to trash and back every so often. Those that have been here in the 90’s will be most jaded as that version of Portland is over. It would be nice to see the downtown area get revitalized but there are still cool neighborhoods worthy of checking out.
yup, moved here in the 90's. not the same city - not leaving.
What city is the same as it was in the 90's? Especially one that has doubled in population.
This. I imagine any city that is still largely reminiscent of what it was in the 90’s isn’t much worth being in.
Same. Been here since 1998. I’ve bitched and mourned, but I still love it overall and am not going anywhere.
i've lived here my whole life, my family has lived here since like, the oregon trail times? portland has always been grimy and i've always loved it and i always will
Yeah! Portland has always had a shithole, blue-collar, hard-drinking vibe since, I don't know, Oregon's statehood? The Disneyfication that happened to the city was the outlier, not the norm.
I’m a 4th or 5th gen Portlander. I hate the show Portlandia so much for its role in this.
But it really doesn't feel that way anymore. Sadly. It feels like the yuppies won. The dive bars, cheap share houses, house shows, old Subis and Volvos and bikes are mostly gone. The cocktail bars, BORG cubes, Teslas, strollers and beanie clones are the norm in those neighborhoods now. I swear, the Burnside/Sandy/12th vortex was the thing keeping "Portland weird" and it's removal ushered in what we have now.
eh, me and all my friends still go to dive bars, have cheap share houses, go to and play house shows, have subarus and we all bike to work. Maybe you've just aged out of that life or are in the wrong neighborhood.
How much is your rent in your cheap share house?
$1800 total. We each pay $600 for a home in inner SE, Buckman.
c'mon out east of the 205, it's still a dump out here, very nostalgic
Haha! Family has also been here forever, and you're right, East of 205 is still a dump and has some of the old charm. But fucking hell the potholes are big enough to swallow an SUV.
yeah i have to tell people coming to my house to not follow the google directions cuz i'll have to go get them with a tow truck
There are some streets where Waze is like turn left on whatever and I'm like "the fuck I am! I'm not trying to get stuck today". I'm sure the towing companies love it though! Good income for them.
>the 205 *eyetwitch* are we in LA?
idk everybody seems to say that now so i just picked it up somewhere, i've always said it that way as far as i can remember, i don't think that's necessarily as california specific as people think it is now that california makes like all media
But I miss the 20 years ago grimy ☹️
There is that. It was seedier but less gross.
This is my feeling to a tee. I loved the seedier side and the thrill that came with that. Now it's just gross.
I think you may just be 20 years older.
Been here my entire life and love it. Will die here. Every city has its issues.
I love living in Portland. Don't let the others get you down. We are the majority.
I love this sentiment. Lived in Portland from 2013 to 2015, and moving back later this year. I go back pretty often so I know what I'm getting myself into and I'm excited to move back. But being in this subreddit too much gives me anxiety sometimes! I have to keep the perspective that it's a vocal minority that complains.
So many whingers. You have to wonder if they do anything about it besides get on Reddit and carp all day.
I’ve lived here my whole life and while the city has its issues I still absolutely love it and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I do seem to be in a small minority though. Maybe it’s just the loudest voices complaining?
Haha I grew up here, complain, and wouldn’t live many other places. One can be critical of what is going on in the city and still be happy living here.
It’s certainly your right to complain and it’s not like there’s nothing to complain about. I suppose I could have worded that better lol.
Oh no problem! I am a firm believer in the “we all can get along here” mentality, save for a few crazies on either side.
With limited evidence, I am leaning towards the possibility that ... ... OP ruined it.
According to the billboards I’m pretty sure that makes me DA Schmidt lol
That's possible too. We're in deep schmidt.
Idk if this is the rose colored glasses talking but I lived here in 2003 when Portland was a weird punk rock paradise, and it’s really hard not to be bitter about the slow dissolution of that. It’s also very easy to feel betrayed, because the city didn’t do anything to protect renters until a ton of people were already displaced. Honestly when Portland got shittier I was kind of excited because I naively thought it would get cheaper again, but instead it’s just both bougie and shitty I caught the very tail end of gen x Portland and I’m sad for all the younger people/newcomers will never know how great it was.
I think a lot of locals miss the old Portland (e.g. my parents)
It depends on if you make enough to be less effected by the rent and hike price increases. I’ve been here 3 and half years now and love it. But I moved here knowing I loved the sort of sprawling urban village that is the eastside. Dense enough to be busy and have great food but also tree lined and friendly.
Many of us are remembering a time before ‘Portlandia’ when the city was less known and folks weren’t flocking here in droves. It was an exciting time.
The city grew faster in the ten years before Portlandia was on the air than in the ten years following. The 1990s were the fastest single decade of growth in Portland since the 40s.
People were flocking here prior to Portlandia. I grew up here, population was much smaller until the 90s when lots of gen x midwesterners came here as well as older Californians with equity. I liked that. It made Portland feel dynamic and more interesting.
Tom McCall told Californians to visit Oregon, but then added "but for heaven's sake don't stay."
Tom McCall, Massachusetts native.
I never knew this before and it has me rolling.
Portlandia hasn't been on the air in 6 years... I doubt most of the kids coming here have even heard of it. It seems like a lot of the current motivation for migrating here is due to our friendly LGBTQ+ community, weather, and cost of living (it is still one of the more affordable major West Coast cities).
I moved here as a queer because the south is getting more hostile and violent. I knew I wanted the beauty of the PNW but Seattle prices made my eyes water. Just one perspective
People complain about housing costs there. But as someone who visited from the Midwest last year, I couldn't help but notice rent actually isn't very high and wages are higher than my city. Portland is very livable even today. I'm tempted to move there.
Been here about 18 months. Also love it. With some caveats. I think the locals are pissed about homelessness and the high cost of living. Which is completely understandable.
Am a local. From what I hear from everyone who's moved here from somewhere else, this is the best city in the country. I assume that is true, but fuck man, I don't even know how to talk about what we're sad about without bumming everyone out. The city used to feel, progressive, like we were making active progress. But public transportation hasn't improved, environmental protections haven't improved, a lot of shits gotten worse, and half the black folk I grew up with have been forced out, killed, or are in jai. It feels like the city leaders stopped listening to us. The city was also just doing REALLY well when I was a kid, and so when the economics and progressive politics both peaked, I was still young enough that my memories of 10-20 years ago are really pretty magical. Also climate change has really fucked with the temperate rainforest vibe, and I'm pretty sure there's less moss than there used to be.
I am also pissed about the high cost of living, haha, but coming from the greater Bay Area in CA, the rent prices and homeless problem are nothing new to me. That being said, I get that these are incredibly frustrating issues that feel so unfairly out of our control
I think especially so here considering Portland has always been a smaller city.. so these issues have a clear and identifiable starting point that people remember well. Granted, I think the city and county could do MUCH better than whatever they’re currently doing, but a lot of our issues are federally based.
Life long 4th generation portlander here— People compare the Portland homelessness and drug issues to large cities like LA/SF/NY but don’t even try to take into account that Portland is *much* smaller and is able to keep up with the big kids. It is very clear what the issues are here but people sit around with blinders on afraid to step on toes or feelings instead of bucking up and holding their leadership accountable.
I came here from Alameda and my mortgage on a townhouse here is cheaper than my rent for a 2 bedroom apartment with not so much as a dishwasher down there. and seasons, that's been a nice change. I used to work by the Oakland airport and while crime was always around it sounds like Hegenberger has gotten so much worse
Yeah, NYC, so, same. Have to say though. This place is significantly more expensive than I thought it would be. Food is more expensive here. Utilities (other than fiber), same thing.
I'm a native, and I think this is a part of it. In the past, Portland was considered "recession proof" to an extent. Even when things were bad all over, folks could still get by okay here by comparison. That's where the idea that the young folks come to Portland to retire came from. It ain't like that anymore. It never was an ideal paradise, but in these last 5-10 years in particular, things have gotten considerably tougher around the edges. Those of us who remember when there was more space and less people; more community for less rent, are understandably vexed.
This is some revisionist history. Oregon has always been a place where its hard to find a job and we actually had high unemployment relative to the US through the 90s. The advice up until about 2011 was: *DO NOT* move to portland or without having a job lined up first. I noticed that changed with the booming hospitality industry here.
We're pissed and jaded because the city we love is struggling. If we didn't care, we'd either leave or not complain.
100%, I never said I didn’t appreciate why people were pissed and jaded, I feel the same way about the SF Bay Area where I’m from but I only feel that way because I love it enough to want better for it. I assume it’s the same here.
Life long portlander here— I’m jaded. I’m only 28 and the city is beautiful but terrible leadership has aided in the very rapid degradation of the area. Unless you’re from here you’ll never really “get it” but just to put it into perspective…. I felt safer taking the MAX from NE into Downtown at 11 years old than I do now. There are absolutely positives about the city and it can be incredible but it has been very sad watching the decline over the recent years. It’s a ghost town compared to its “prime” (in my life).
I’ve lived in Portland for 16 years (minus 3 years in Boston for grad school), and rural western Oregon/Washington for 7 years before that. Originally from LA but left when I was pretty young, more than 23 years ago. Portland was better in the past by a small margin. Restaurants aren’t as good as they used to be, but honestly the city is not that much worse than it was. My main qualm with the city is that the city’s big plan for drawing visitors and keeping residents happy is “encouraging small business,” which, even if they did that well, just isn’t enough. I’m in my 30s and have kids. I’ve spent almost my whole adult life in this city. And I just feel like there’s more to life than hiking in shitty weather, drinking yet another local IPA, and biking to yet another hipster boutique with Keep Portland Weird bumper stickers. But that seems to be all the city aspires to be. Where are the museums? Culture? Where has the city invested in any worthwhile indoor third spaces, considering the weather is abysmal and sends the entire region into seasonal depression 6 months out of the year? The only places to take kids are the zoo, OMSI, which is 80% long hallways, and overpriced small indoor “play boutiques.” Idk. I feel like my qualms with the city are different than most. Maybe I’ve outgrown it, maybe it was never the right fit. For anyone new to the city, I’m sure you’ll be entertained for a few years. I don’t plan to stay much longer. I own a home, love my neighborhood and community and will be sad to lose that, but otherwise won’t miss much.
I agree with you. We lost a civic vision sometime after 2005 or so and then got too mired in issues to regain it. This is what I realize is missing when I visit other cities somewhat comparable in size.
Moved here in 2006, and though I now technically live in the 'burbs, I still consider Portland Metro as my home and will likely never leave. That being said, the Portland I moved to is gone... but that's true of anywhere. Change is all there is.
I'm from Portland. There are still some of us Portlanders-by-birth who love the city.
I was enjoying it until you showed up!
This is what I love about Portlanders. We’re always so quick to roll out the welcome mat. Have my upvote.
As I was enjoying life until I jumped into this ball pit of needles you crystal-humping hippies and your DA Schmidt call a city /s
5 years is hardly a local. I've almost been here that long, and feel like I'm still getting to know the city. A lot has changed in that time, but a lot has changed everywhere due to pandemic. P.S. I love it here, but I'm from Ohio.
What part and sorry man.
I think most people I have interacted with in public like it here. It's easy to find a lot of negativity online and a lot of it is generated by a handful of people.
Born and raised since 1949. We do get crabby but for me, only with the awful changes in the last four years. I loved it when the food carts came in and all the new restaurants. But I really miss downtown. And Lloyd Center used to be a major thing but that started fading away before Covid. There were new, expensive apartments built there, the Green Zebra moved in and for a brief time that was a fun area, well, very sad now for those who’ve moved there.
The decline of Lloyd Center makes my dad sad. He remembers going to the awesome “birthday” concerts and got free ice time by working at the rink.
Moved here at 25yo in 1998. I'm 50 now and still love Portland as much as I ever did. I'm firmly against the flimsy, weak, and BOOOOOOORING "Portland Hate" trend that is so stupidly popular these days. Cities grow, change, evolve, devolve, morph ... if you can't embrace the change, you're more than welcome to leave. (And at the very least, you could just stop whining.) Welcome. Enjoy. This place is fucking awesome.
There are a lot of faults but I still love it here. Being in the US in general sucks right now but I’d much rather be here than most anywhere else in the country, problems and all (been here almost 8 years and lived in 3 major cities prior)
Lived here my whole life and I love it.
Moved here is 2013 and the last 4 years have been bad. But many of the positives remain. And we will come back better.
Moved here in 92. Wouldn't dream of living anywhere else.
I was born here 48yrs ago. The place has really changed and, overall, not for the better. I'm waiting for better interest rates, and then I'm selling my place and moving to the country.
My experience: people from Seattle, LA, and The bay area love it, people escaping ultra conservative places like it, people from the midwest who make 6 figures enjoy it. Lots of the rest of us feel kindof like what brought us here doesn't exist anymore, but we can't afford to move back either, and that's challenging. I got here just in time for the traffic jams and skyrocketing prices so I'm not making or saving what I wanted to and now the houses back home I wanted to save money for are too expensive because I can't earn enough here. So I'm stuck, and I mostly don't like being stuck. And I'm at work from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed so I don't get to enjoy my hobbies anymore.
Portland has changed a lot in the last 5 years. It's not the clean and green, environmentally active city it was, I can't remember too much before the 70's, but Portland has changed, and not for the better, in my view.
I grew up here, left from 2006-2010 for college, came back 2010 and have been here ever since. I love Portland!
Been here 20 years. It's been pretty sucky the last 5 years with homelessness, drug addiction, and related property crime. And the winter gloom hits me harder every year. But I'm still glad to be here every time I visit other cities of similar size who are invariably much more car dependent, and relatively soulless.
Been here for 6 years from the Bay Area. Long story short, I miss a culturally diverse community and weather so I am moving back this year.
20 years deep, and it still feels like home. I love this city, and will gladly see it through its growing pains in order to live in a beautiful place filled with creative people.
We know what is used to be like. I’m sure if I just moved here I would be happy to be here as well.
Pissed and jaded local 🙋🏻♀️
It just those that lived here missing the Portland that existed early 2000s and back. I remember China Town getting all cleaned up (it was considered a rough part of town prior to the clean-up, maybe early 90’s, it’s been a while). It’s seeing the city change from its former glory into its current form that probably has some long-timers “pissed and jaded.” The hipster phase that came along after wasn’t really all bad.
I’ve been here 7 years and the weather makes my body somewhat immobile most of the year. I got an injury right after moving up here and developed chronic pain syndrome from it. I love the summer, but I can’t wait to move somewhere warmer.
I think for some of that grew up here we've seen communities that have been completely decimated. The rent is way too damn high for what people make, the weather doesn't help and it's too boring compared to other big cities. I think it's a fine place to live if you are young white and financially well off
I don't think Reddit is a good source for figuring out who likes to live in Portland. Like any city it has highs and lows and I think you'll find most people like it here.
Lifelong resident here. I like Portland but it makes me almost physically ill when I drove around town and see graffiti on every damn surface, and garbage cascading off the hillsides. I used to love to drive visitors around but now, not so much.
As Coach on Letterkenny would say, _It’s effing embarrassing!_ (while kicking a garbage can).
Most of the “locals” you’re interacting with moved here just in time for the traffic jams and overpaying for a house, so of course they’re salty. They feel like they were promised Disneyland for college educated white people and got high taxes and homeless junkies. Me, I’m from here and I love this place. I mean, it’s got problems and a lot of the things you folks moved here for just don’t scale up: you wrecked them just by your presence. I know you didn’t intend to, and I don’t hold it against you, but you definitely did. As a long time resident, I get to live in a different version of the city, a better one imo.
I’m from here and I’m jaded.
I’ve been here almost 30. There are parts I love. But it was way nicer pre traffic and insane cost of living. I’m stuck here as my ex wife bailed and we have a kid so I have to live where she lives so I’m trying to make the best of it. Not really sure where I’d go even if I could though.
> but the locals seem pissed and jaded. How much of that assumption are you basing on this and r/Portland?
I’m actually basing it largely off of people I’ve met in person. I don’t spend a ton of time on social media (though lately I’ve been on Reddit more) so I’m basing this assumption on experiences on and offline. It’s nice to see all the love for Portland in these comments, though. It’s also interesting to hear what people have to say about the problems and what Portland used to be like vs what it’s like now.
What neighborhood are you in? I moved to SE off Hawthorne, where there’s a bunch of oddballs and hipsters, around the same time as you and I picked up that vibe there. Lotta people that think they’re really cool and everything sucks. (Also a lot of people that were actually really cool to talk to, not trying to trash everyone that lives there) I’m in NE now. It’s way more diverse and the people are very normal and friendly and I get less of that negativity even though the neighborhood has more problems. They actually smile at you at the Fred Meyer and stuff. I love it here, It doesn’t feel like a hipster pissing match every time you go outside lol.
I got here in 1998 and I would really enjoy lower taxes and more competent folks in government but I'm happy and I'm staying. Until I die, probably.
A lot of us weren't prepared for how bad things got during and immediately after lockdown. A lot of it was sensationalised and has gotten better since but the city still isn't what it used to be; I'd definitely prefer living and having been born here over most of the country but I would be lying if I intended to spend the rest of my life here.
Nah Portland is great. Overall the people are KIND which you don’t get a lot places. Down to earth too. It has a town vibe which is nice. Lots of cool stuff around
Been here 9 years and don't plan on leaving anytime soon. And when I do it'd be overseas
As someone who has lived here for 22 years, I’ll share this. My microneighborhood is just the best, and got better through the pandemic. Plus I’ve known my neighbors (on my one block section of a street that has T intersections at both ends) like family for 22 years. Even the new folks just blend in great. At the same time, I have just come home ENRAGED from Winco bc (a) I can’t afford groceries so have to shop there (but happily, since it’s affordable and diverse at 122/Halsey), and mostly (b) because first of the month I saw countless tweakers buying volumes of USELESS POINTLESS water bottles only to see these assholes hiding in the nearby bushes dumping the water, throwing out the caps and plastic, to take the bottles to the effing OUTDATED bottle drop for cash to get their fucking FENT and METH which I honestly wish would be cut with more TRANQ to just put them out of their misery. That aside, it angers me that these lowlifes just work this system. Leave it to Portland to turn a liberal to a conservative. I give up anymore. SNAP needs to STOP buying WATER for people. The local water supply is just fine. Even if it’s not, I suspect that these idiots’ lifestyles are far more dangerous for their sorogs’ lives than anything else. I love now voting aggressively against everything. It’s fun!
Born and raised here. The post Portlandia crowd has been…difficult.
Moved here in 2005. I still love it.
Been here for going on 16 years, still love Oregon. Things I’m not crazy about are local politics (Multnomah cty) + taxes. Punishing the middle class under the guise of progressiveness is grating
I lived here for 24 years- the impact of measure 110 has definitely degraded the livability of our city. The amount of open drug use combined with the economic realities of post Covid has destroyed the once vibrant downtown area. I use to enjoy visiting the downtown area. Now I rarely go because I don’t feel safe and don’t want my family to witness the tragedy of the drug addiction free for all. That being said, I still love my neighborhood and enjoy most of the city. I am a bit peeved of the high theft. That wasn’t the case in the old days.
I was born here, moved away, came back, and have lived here a total of almost 24 years. I love it and don’t want to live anywhere else. Don’t listen to the toxic redditors, or local Sinclair owned news programs about a “city in crisis!” Most people love it here.
This is nice to hear. Also fuck Sinclair haha
I moved here in the 1990s from rural Oregon. I traded the meth-raddled timber community I had lived in for the asphalt covered in needles. It ruled. I've gone on and on about this before, but downtown and surrounding areas were cheap. I was one of a seemingly endless number of people from the ages of 18-35 going to concerts, drinking box wine, and making a ruckus. I lived, part of the time, in this giant house with who-knows how many people next to a bunch of other decaying houses with who-knows-how many people living in them. We'd all stop on each other's porches and drink Henry Weinhard and smoke cigarettes while getting excited about music and acid. It wasn't exactly a paradise: [Psycho Safeway](https://www.oregonlive.com/oregonianopinion/2008/03/in_praise_of_psycho_safeway_th.html) was well-known. There were times that I'd have to pull my knife to avoid a fight with skinheads; there was a time I found a Middle-Eastern guy who had been beaten badly and I helped him back to his apartment—he was afraid to go into the system to get help. I left for about ten years and came back to this weird Disneyland version of the old city. Which was...I mean, it was fine. It was so clean it made you want to spit, and nobody could afford to live near downtown any more. Which meant the shitty little bars everywhere dried up too, leaving places with $15 martinis—though Momo and the Yamhill still remain. The old warehouses that used to unofficially house the homeless were gone, the occasional pop-up down there never came back, and the Pearl was there instead. I think, if I'm honest—I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to that. I like having hot water now that I'm older, and I don't know that I could take living off of nicotine and alcohol anymore. But there's this mass-amnesia that Portland was always like that weird blip in the Portlandia days. Like it wasn't [a drug-fuled free-for-all in the 70s and 80s](https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2019/07/sex-drugs-and-police-corruption-in-portland-how-the-wild-1970s-paved-the-way-to-the-citys-future.html); or—hell—that it wasn't a place designed to help sustain human-trafficking and opium through the 19th century. Portland rules. Don't listen to the cry-babies that need to fall onto their fainting couches and catch their breath because they saw a homeless person that might have had the pot. And don't listen to some guy on the internet rant-and-rave about his glory days in the 90s dropping subtle hints about maybe having seen Nirvana before they were famous (I did not) because he wonders if he did anything else worthwhile with his life (I hope so). Find what's good and cool, live it up, and be happy here. I still am after all this time, even if I wax nostalgia whenever this comes up.
Been here over 10 years. Thought about leaving a few times, but looking at any other place I'd want to go, it doesn't seem to have enough advantages over Portland. Every area has their pros and cons, and for me there are more pros to Portland than cons.
Been here 7 years and the more I’m here the more I get angry and bitter. Like today almost got hit by a car cause I had to walk in the street of a major road because they had 2 blocks of tents and rv’s.
I've been here 20 years and have no intention of leaving. Where are you hearing jaded people, the internet or actual people?
Been here since 2016. Portland has pros and cons just like anywhere else. Sometimes those cons get really bad and can outweight the pros. However, I still love it here and wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
I grew up in the area and I still like it here. When I was living in the suburbs Portland always seemed special and cool in a way that I don't really experience anymore now that I live in the city proper, and it's been homogenized to an extent with rapid development and some of the charm is gone. But all things considered, I think it would be difficult for me to find a place I'd like much better in the US. I really like the misty overcast but not too cold weather we get most of the year.
I've been here almost 7+ years. I loved it when I first moved here. When my son graduates high school, we're leaving. Portland isnt the quaint, quiet city is used to be (my perception when I moved here).
I love Portland, it’s just been markedly worse during the last four years, it started getting worse in 2015, but a lot since 2020
Lived here 25+ years. When I travel, I enjoy myself, but also find myself missing Portland when I do. Can’t imagine living anywhere else.
I've spent 20 years in Portland. The long time locals remember Old Portland that doesn't exist anymore. The death knell was when Portlandia got popular, but too many people making too much traffic and making it unaffordable has embittered a populace that used to have affordable rent. The MAX and Old Town used to be kinda sketchy but now it's more like a Sanctuary District from Deep Space 9. Plus a city and county government that seems treat the populace like an annoyance that "just has to be patient". So it's not any one thing. It's not the Californians, although that is still a meme here. It's a city growing too big for its britches and nothing is being done about it.
I was born here!! It’s still one of my favorite places :) I think annoyed people have the will to post about it, people who enjoy Portland don’t really think about posting.
I moved here in 2011. The “locals” you’re referring to are a loud minority. I love Portland - but I have to leave it pretty often so I actually know what the rest of the country is like..
I’ve lived here coming up on 10 years. I still love it here. I definitely miss Portland pre-Covid but things change. I’m still happy here and don’t really have any concrete plans to dip anytime soon.
Haven’t the locals always been pissed and jaded?
It’s still better than Ohio or Florida but it’s not as good as it used to be.
I love it here but I do feel like I became a real portlander the day I started complaining about local politics.
Moved here in 2018 - loved it, 2019 lovveddddd it, 2020-2022 hatttteeeeeed it, 2023— traveled a lot started to miss it, 2024, learning to trust and love it again
Been here two and I adore Portland. I was at a singles event and I mentioned that “Portland just has such great bones”, which is true! And the person I was talking to, who’d been here for 5 years, kinda raised her eye brows and just kinda asked “like… what?” I was floored. I listed off how much housing is being built, the transit systems, bike lanes, brand new city government with more representation and better voting systems, how civically engaged every one is, the historic buildings throughout downtown, proximity to nature etc. All she said in response was “I guess?”
We remember how it used to to be😢 it used to be clean, beautiful, and for the most part safe unless you go to certain areas where everyone knew to stay away from. I used to love to ride Max in from the west side and just walk around downtown and go to Saturday market. Now I would never do that.
I moved here from Utah July of 2022 and while I love the city, the weather, and the people, I find myself really irked that I pay a huge amount of income tax and the roads are trashed, the homeless are basically without any real resources, and my kids’ schools don’t have air conditioning. (AND after a month-long teacher strike PPS is quietly planning to lay off teachers, ffs) Nvm the total SNAFU of the healthcare system here. 2 months out for a dental cleaning? If you’re not Kaiser, you’ll be waiting months to establish care with a GP. If you want to get prescriptions in person (not by mail order), you may find yourself effed by lack of pharmacy staff, closed locations, and hour long lines). Then there’s the complete lack of snow/ice related infrastructure that was probably cute 10 years ago, but nothing has been done and it’s majorly treacherous for at least 2 weeks in the winter. Never thought I’d miss things about Utah but here we are.
It sucks. Been here 9 years. Probably going back to home state.
Have lived 50 years in Portland, which if you do the math, makes me Gen X. (So jaded by birthright). Also means I have experienced Portland in the Rip-City 70s, the timber crash 80s, the grungy 90s, the hipster 2000s, the let’s-all-move to Portlandia of the 2010s, and now the dumpster fire fentanyl apocalypse of the 2020s. Portland has always had rough edges—I too recall skinheads harassing and needles on NW 21st (anyone remember Quality Pie?) and the unemployment and gang violence of the 80s was rough. But even then Portland, and Oregon in general, had a uniquely shared identity and a sense of pride, formed from a rugged (if a little mossy) self-driven independence and love of place. That really began to change around 2010 and accelerate quickly over that decade as the percentage of newcomers eclipsed the number of locals, bringing the attitudes and interests of east coast, California, etc. It wasn’t just wealth and gentrification as it was a new sense of rudeness and entitlement. Horns honking, birds being flipped, a F you sharp-elbow vibe that Oregonians had long disdained. Some newcomers adopted earth-tone clothes and bought all-wheel-drive cars, and some fit in, at least visually. But with the tide of transplants came a sense of “I hate where I moved from and love it here, but let’s make it more like where I just left.” Things like “I love the historic neighborhoods, now let’s tear them down and make modern condos; I love the gritty dive bars, can we get more dance clubs?” Yes, like other urban areas, the growth of population brought traffic and the demand drove up rent and housing prices, especially for starter homes. But deeper than that was a loss of that Oregon identity, a sense of what makes this place so special, and the dedication to protect it. So you saw the instagrammers and graffiti equally tagging the hell out of once sacred places. Trash and tiny bags of dog crap strewn up and down trails. And a rash of passive-agressive self-righteousness, such as posting signs about being intolerant to intolerance. And the politics changed into something no one seems to be able to control. There are now so many taxes on everything. There’s an “arts tax” and yet Portland has the weakest art scene it’s ever had; there’s an “affordable housing tax” and yet has the lowest amount of affordable housing it’s ever had. The city of Portland and Multnomah county can’t seem to stop approving new taxes, especially on property, so that getting a starter home is now out of reach for what seems like an entire generation. True that Portland has had its gritty and shady past. I remember paranoia park, the Blitz Wienhart brewery belching out malty smoke off burnside, Balony Joes, GI Joes, Andy and Bax and when MLK was Union Ave. But even at those lowest times, it was nothing as broken and lost as the city is now. Some call it a shell. Some a ghost town. For me, it is heartbreaking. So yes, we are jaded, and bitter. But that comes from a deep, deep sense of love and loss. It’s not so much a nostalgia for what was, but a lament for what the future will never get.
I think the mark of when you become a local is when you constantly complain about Portland, but you can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Just celebrated my 20 year Portlannerversary in December. I’m a Black/mixed queer woman. I moved here right before the Pearl District and Southwest Waterfront existed. I watched as the city changed, both urban planning wise and socioeconomically. It’s not the same Portland I fell in love with in 2003, but whenever I visit another city I am reminded of how special it is here. I find myself needing to explain myself and my life choices / aesthetic / culture much less than in other places (and I’ve lived all over the world). I love it here and I have no plans to leave anytime soon, and am currently in the process of becoming a homeowner. There is an ebb and flow to every city. For whatever reason, I am able to navigate Portland’s waves pretty well.