I know this probably belongs in the "off-topic" area but you guys are my target audience..so...my husband & I are considering a move to the Northwest (from Sacramento, CA). Our original thought was Portland, but we also like a big city which leads us to look toward Seattle. We're visiting both this summer.

What do you like/dislike about where you live? What is the community "vibe"? Does is really rain THAT much? We teach so we're off in the summers and are looking for more functional summers. Summer is the worst season in Sac (we've already hit 100 and are looking at 4 straight days of it in the next week - uggh!)

Any feedback is appreciated (I've already read the Owners Lounge city reviews)...

 

Howdy!

I was raised in Bend OR, but now live in Portland. I would definitely reccomend Portland over Seattle. You have ALL the big city needs and wants, without the crime and traffic. Seattle is QUICKLY turning into LA of the north due to it's HORRENDOUS traffic issues. Portland is an easy 1 hr trip to the coast, or 1.5 hours to the mountains. Nice juxtaposition. Whether it's fine dining, stroling the art district, enjoying any of a billion local parks (such as Forrest Heights which is the largest park inside a city limits of the US, pretty amazing!). We also have a wonderful light rail transit system that can take you all over the place and is always expanding.

As for living, the N and NE is predominantly older homes that are in the process of gentrification. There are some really great pockets of old homes in NE that have been lovingly cared for. The SE has the funky feeling. The hippie dippy granola and older homes. The NW is the elite area, up on the hill. The SW is a newer area, kinda suburb.

As for work, well here's the potential issue for you. As teachers, Oregon isn't looking good right now. Our schools rely on funding from the state (rediculous, yes we know) and that funding was capped with Measure 5 some years ago. The snowball of this measure is now leaving a HUGE budget crisis where anything that can be cut, has been cut. Local communities such as Portland and Beaverton (suburb of mostly upscale) have passed local initives to ensure funding for sports/music/art/ect but that's a bandaid at best. So if you are looking to go into public education, or have a child in public education this is something that should be heavily weighed in your determination.

I'm a wealth of education and OR matters. My mother was a junior high teacher and my father was the head of Education for the Salem-Keizer school before getting the let go this year due to funding problems (isn't that nice, they ax the education dept of the distric but keep things like facilities and finance, things that unlike education, can be outsourced!!!!).

Ryan

 

Hey Dixiep -

Davbret has it all correct, but I'll give you my .02 anyway.

My fiance grew up in Seattle while I grew up in Portland and while we both love Seattle and all the water it is almost an impossible place to live due to the fact it is so expensive. She moved to Portland and it reminds her of what Seattle used to be like before it was 'paved over'. Davbret is right about the traffic - it is ranked as one of the three worst traffic cites in the nation. We do kind of have the best of both world's though, with a cabin on the water of the Puget Sound looking at Mt. Rainier at our disposal. Seattle for us is now a weekend vacation spot.

I live in the hills of NW Portland, only a hundred yeards from an entrance to the largest inner-city park in the country (5300 acres of moutain biking/hiking/running). Out my front door I'm 1.5 hours away from year-round skiing (granted you have to be an expert to ski the glacier in the summer where the Olympic team trains), 2 hours away from the Oregon Coast and 3 hours away from Bend, which has kind of a high desert climate with some of the best skiing/climbing/hiking/camping in the country.

Being smaller than Seattle, Portland has a better community feeling, but it depends on where you live. The best bang for your buck in the housing market means you should look for a residence in the suburbs of SW (see Beaverton or Tigard), but that means commuting time. Living in the city is probably your best bet - be prepared to pay more for a house but you get alot more character (I am putting a house up for sale in SE Portland a few blocks from Reed College and expect it to go very quickly as the older neighborhoods are all developiong their own "village" type atmosphere).

I could go on and on so if you have any specific questions feel free to post them and I'm sure someone will get back to you, if not a few people.

For functional summers - this is the place.

..and yes, it does rain a bit, but I've met people from all over the world who say our springs and summers are some of the best they've ever had.

Nate

 

I grew up in New York City and Long Island. Moved out to Seattle in 1981 due to marriege. I lived there from 1981 till 1992 and loved it. A second marriege brought me back to the East Coast.
We go back to Seattle every couple of years, have a trip planed for this July in fact.
As part of moving back to the East Coast we had to sell our home during a period of time when the real estate was hotter than hatties. Our craftsman style home at the top of Queen Ann Hill was purchased in 1988 for $125,000.00 we sold it in 1992 for $235,000.00 and the sale never made it to the markeplace. Two hours after the agent put an open house sign on the property someone came by and put a cash deposit on it for the full asking price, no negotiations.
People from California were exiting their state, taking the cash from their home sales and buying up several houses at a pop in Seattle. Along with these real estate sales from California, followed the California style restaurants.
Now I am not bashing Seattle or California, I miss it at times very, very much, but the true northwest flavor is very difficult to get to or find anymore in Seattle.
BTW, New York City, on an annual bassis has more recorded rainfall than Seattle! Yup, that's correct. The rain in Seattle is not like rain anywhere's else, its the type of rain you don't even need an umbrella for. That's not to say it doesn't get a good soaking from time to time, but most of the time its a cleansing mist and the smell of the evergreens can be intoxicating. The real problem with the weather in Seattle is that the winters can be gray, from November till July very little if any sun. There is hardly any spring or Fall, but coming from CA you are used to only one or two seasons anyway. I didn't realize how much I missed four seasons till I moved back to the East Coast.
Summer really doesn't arrive in Seattle till around July 4th. Seattle is a wonderful city but in order to see if it fits you, you'll need to spend some time there as well as spending time in Portland. What your expectations are will make all the difference in the world. Good luck!

 

Thanks guys for the input - I'm glad I got so many different points of view.

Davbret (Ryan) - we have been following the school crisis in Oregon but haven't really grasped the magnitude. I read about schools losing funding for the band, etc. and here in CA, that stuff was gone 15 years ago - so I'm not sure if it really is worse that what we already have?? We have a 9-mo. old that still has a few years left to start school. What about living in Vancouver, WA? I read somehwere that Portlanders are jumping the border for the WA public school system?

If you live in WA, but work in OR, where do you file taxes? (it's not so simple as benefiting from no sales tax in OR and no income tax in WA is it?)

I've spent some time searching housing online and can definitely tell that Portland area is much more affordable compared to Seattle - but Seattle still seems way cheap to me compared to San Francisco (a comparable-sized city, right?) CA is among the most expensive housing markets in the nation so I might have a skewed idea of what is cheap/expensive. (I DO know that your $1.50/gal of gas is cheaper than our $1.90!)

You say the Seattle traffic is terrible, what about the air quality? It doesn't seem nearly as bad as Sacto when I look at the EPA's movies. Course Sacramento is a bowl between Tahoe and SF so it gets trapped here.

I'm excited for the visit this summer - the only thing we'll miss about Sacramento if we decide to relocate (other than the smog, expense, HEAT) will be the Kings! (We can root for the Blazers or the Sonics...just never the Lakers!)

 

Hi, Dix ... I'm a Seattle resident since '78 - moved to town durring a Boeing boom and have always lived in the city. I've seen a lot of changes since and most are not for the better: more cars, more people, more congestion ... but I still would rather live in Seattle, with all it has to offer, in spite of a lousy school board and criminally-twisted city government, than ,say, on the Eastside (the Valley of the North).
Yes, there are problems with I5 (also known as Main Street) being clogged all day in a 24-hour rush hour, but you don't have to drive on it once you learn your way around ... and housing prices are just stupid in several parts of the city, but there is a big turn-over - lots of people seem to be able to afford to buy ...
I Love Portland - it is a remarkably comfortable city - and I get there several times a year ... both Portland and Vancouver, BC are just 2-hour drives from Seattle. The Coast (about 2-hours west) and the Cascades (1-hour east) and the Puget Sound at your doorstep, make recreations of your choice easy.
Air quality is bad for about a week every year in the winter - the Sound is in kind of a bowl with the Mountains all around and the Inversions keep smog in ... but that also means spectacular sunsets 'til the rain washes it away ...
All-in-all, like most places, it is what you make of it - but the NW has enough options so you can make what ever you want ... visit both but i don't think you could go wrong with either Portland or Seattle ...
... oh ... and "Go, Mariners !"

 

When you say big city, do you mean you want to live in the downtown area?

 

Look at Bellingham, up north of Seatlle. Closer
to the San Juan Islands and less traffic!!

 

>>Look at Bellingham, ...

Now Cut That Out !! .... that's our little secret up here ... how am i gonna retire there if you tell every one to move there now ?! ... it's a very nice college town ...

 

Woah! That'd be a gnarly commute!

R

 

Another vote for Seattle, but when you come to visit, if you want to make it a little more affordable, and have a little more sense of community, be sure to come over the bridge to West Seattle...

Over hear we are just out of reach of the 'City' attitudes, and have a much more suburban feel. Still close enough to the city to make use of it, but far enough away that it's not all pervasive.

Much more Green than downtown as well, and you can party with your neighbors! :smile:

Let us all know when you'll be around, and maybe we can have a MINI Pizza meet or a Beach BBQ on Alki...

'03 BRG MC w/HK, 5-Stars, Sunroof

 

I second the notion for Bellingham, WA. It is one of the top rated cities in the US to work, live and retire. I think in second place comes up Sarasota, Florida.

 

Not sure if you have made up your mind, but I live in Yakima since 1981 after living in Seattle for 3 years and Houston before that. I love it here--a lot less hectic than Seattle and more affordable and much better weather.

 

dixiep asked

>>If you live in WA, but work in OR, where do you file taxes? (it's not so simple as benefiting from no sales tax in OR and no income tax in WA is it?)

Unfortunately if you work in Oregon you pay Oregon income tax regardless of the fact that you are living in Washington. Nevertheless, you may find housing prices much better on the other side of the river. You also face the commute across the river, which can be ugly.

Other suburban areas in Portland you may consider would be Wilsonville and Sherwood to the south, and Scappoose and St. Helens to the north.

I lived in Seattle in the 60's and loved it, but now I won't even visit there. Other posters have commented on how Portland now is like Seattle used to be. It is true. Unfortunately in another 15 years Portland will be as bad as Seattle is now.

 

I've lived in both Portland and Seattle and have settled in Spokane. If you serious about both go with portland but live in vancouver. There is no state income tax in WA, even tho they'll take it out of your check in PDX, you can get most of it back during tax season. I also think its much nicer in Vancouover although there are only two ways to get into Oregon from there and they are both bridges. Also live on the side of town where you work. Going East - West in PDX is as bad as Seattle anyday. Just my 2 bits.

 

BTW... the greatest secret in WA is Spoke. Everyone thinks its redneck (which it can be) but you have incredible access to the mountains of North Idaho, C'dA, and the Canadian Rockies... Alll for about 1/3 the cost of the coast! Its a bit slower paced but you can't beat the cost of living. Salaries aren't bad either depending on what you do. (I make close to the same amount as my friend does in seattle in the SW Dev field)