I lived in Portland until about 9 months ago. I’ll share what I know, forgive me if this sounds like stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
Portland is reaching critical mass with regards to the influx of hipsters. Housing prices have risen exponentially in the past few years and even a small 1-bedroom apartment downtown will put you back a couple thousand a month. Good luck finding a “modest home” in the center of the city… most have been converted to apartments. A family member of mine lived in the Alphabet District (near Trader Joe’s on Glisan) and sold their house in late 2014. It had been converted to two apartments, one on each floor with a single-car garage at street level for the lower apartment. Each apartment had one bedroom with a tiny closet, a kitchen, a bath and there was a shared back yard maybe 20’ x 30’. A beautiful home but certainly not large by any means. Your average double-wide mobile home has more square footage than their house had.
They sold it for $795K. It would go for well over $1MM today.
Housing wise, Gresham will be cheaper but generally the east suburbs are more expensive than the west suburbs, but I think part of that is Gresham is connected to the city by a network of roads, city streets, and the freeways in a way that the other suburbs aren’t—this means there’s more shopping and restaurants and the like near the divide between the two. Hillsboro and Beaverton are much more affordable than the city itself and as Chefguy notes MAX has rail services to both suburbs. If you have big dogs then I’ll assume you want a big yard… think about the suburbs over the city itself, as you’ll have more choices of housing with adequate space (which is not to say there isn’t any—the historical houses in the Alphabet District downtown are spectacularly beautiful and many have decent back yards, but again the prices will be exorbitant and you’re likely getting an apartment and not the whole house). Some suburbs like Oregon City and West Linn have become trendy so even though they’re a considerable driving commute into the city—no MAX service but I think they have TriMet bus service—the housing prices are high.
Some of the suburbs like Cornelius and Forest Grove are outside MAX service and aren’t trendy (yet) so are considerably cheaper, but it means not only a driving commute to the nearest Park & Ride but then a train commute into the city itself. If you’re working a 9-5 M-F that may be a pain in the ass (or not, depending on you) but it certainly would save on housing costs.
The weather can suck if you don’t like rain. Portland’s proximity to the Columbia River Gorge means that it gets a lot more cooler, wetter weather than many other places west of the Cascades, and that’s really saying something. Expect to wear rainproof jackets and a hat pretty much from November thru April or May. The plus side is it doesn’t get cold—certainly not like the northeast. Snow on the ground is rare, but when it does the city comes to a standstill.
The influx of hipsters means that while Portland is “trendy” it also caters to a wide range of tastes, be it food or entertainment or lifestyle. The food carts that scatter the city produce some of the best food I’ve ever had (I hear people rave about Olive Garden or Red Robin and I just laugh… a Portland roach coach produces better food than they do). This also means that many of the restaurants in the city are competing with cheap but excellent street food and thus they are relatively inexpensive and out-of-this-world good. Even the chains like Pizzacato pizza or the Laughing Planet cafes are outstanding.
There’s all manner of entertainment available, from plays and operas (many free) to street performances. The city also hosts big events like the Waterfront Blues festival and numerous big-name acts of the Rose Garden (well, Moda Center now).
Outdoor recreation is huge, but people tend to flock to the gorge to do day hikes or see Multnomah Falls (highly overrated IMO). If you’re the outdoorsy type there’s lots of skiing on Mt. Hood, camping pretty much anywhere in the state, lots of coastal beaches—the entire coast is public—and some wonderful weekend trips to places like Malheur Wildlife Refuge or Crater Lake.
Portland is very liberal, the rest of the state save Eugene is very, very, conservative.
Oregon has no sales tax and you don’t get to pump your own gas. Some people from out of state take offense at this; I’ve lived with it my whole life and find no reason for outrage. When it’s pouring rain it’s nice to have one less reason to get out of the car.
Portland is a pretty safe city, at least downtown where I lived. Walking home from a restaurant late at night was no problem. Cars get broken into if they’re parked on the street overnight with stuff inside, but assaults and the like seem less common than in other big cities. I’m a large bear of a man and maybe people just don’t want to fuck with me. But I never heard from any of my friends that they felt unsafe or were victims of a crime.
People who bitch that the city is expensive are likely hipsters who buy designer flannel shirts and shop at Whole Foods. I shopped at the downtown Safeway and City Target and paid no more for groceries and everyday junk like TP and shampoo than I do here at the K Mart in my little jerkwater town I live in now. There are (and I suspect this is true of every major city) also various shops that sell or repair almost anything you can think of. I had an old beside clock / alarm from the 60’s, the kind with the mechanical numbers that flipped over. It needed some sort of repair and sure enough there was a repair shop in Tigard, I think, that repaired those old clocks. For someone coming from a major metropolitan area that might not be anything special, but I found it very convenient.
The economic base is stronger than anything between the Bay area and Seattle. I was there for school and ended up finding work 3 hours away, so I can’t speak with too much authority on that aspect other than to say everything I’ve heard is good.
There are several farmers’ markets around the city; each is well worth spending an hour or two wandering through. The increased demand for organic foods has driven farmers to meet that demand, so the result is outstanding produce and homemade goods (preserves, freshly butchered meats, homemade cheeses, stuff like that) available fairly inexpensively.
There are more microwbrews than you can count (and you probably shouldn’t because there’ll be more established tomorrow) if you’re into that sort of thing. Oregon wines are also getting national recognition lately, with the Willamette and Umpqua valleys producing some outstanding vintages.
People bitch about the traffic but I lived and thus parked my car downtown and never had a problem with it, even at rush hour (although the freeways can get clogged up pretty bad). It’s certainly nothing like Seattle or other truly big cities. Portland has become a very “bike-friendly” city and so the idiot bike nazis that fill the streets are by far more aggravating—and dangerous—than the vehicle traffic. Downtown parking can be an issue and I learned quickly that buying a folding shopping cart using MAX or the streetcar was easier than finding a parking spot. There are, however, public parking lots & garages scattered around downtown and for a few bucks you can utilize one of those in a pinch. Whenever I went over to the east side for dinner parking wasn’t usually an issue.
Perhaps it’s because I moved there from a small town and thus don’t have much experience with other large metropolitan centers, but I loved it. The wide range of good food available and things to do meant I was never bored. The people are usually friendly. I’d move back in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose.
And yeah, it’s PDX, which also the airport code for Portland International, and it’s pronounced OR-ee-gun.
