Don’t know about dirt, but I wouldn’t live in the northern part near the river unless you really like wind. That’s also an approach corridor for PDX, although noise abatement procedures apply. I have a friend who lives in Gresham and who likes it a lot. You won’t see a lot of the quaint Craftsman/Victorian architecture in outlying areas. Most of the housing is mid-century modern or later.
I don’t mind more modern - as a handyman, houses built right around 1960 are a joy for being both fully modern AND the last era built with craftsmanship and good materials.
I do love Craftsman houses, though, and I’ve always wanted one. I watch Flash as much to look at the house interior as anything else. 
Maybe if I move on up in the PDX world in a few years.
Anyway, Gresham is a decent place to live? Not a crapped out suburb or land o’rentals?
I really don’t know. My friend lives in a decent neighborhood in a cul-de-sac, and has a nice yard. I remember seeing mom and pop stores, along with chain stores, but I was headed to the Ford dealer and didn’t pay much attention. It’s more diverse than Portland, and there are both rural and city neighborhoods. My wife says there is a sizable Hispanic population. Hopefully someone will come along who is more familiar with it.
This link will show current crime. Enter a street address and city. Just a street name. I never enter a house number.
I really like the map feature. It helps me better understand clusters of break-ins near me.
It certainly would be useful buying a home. I’d want to know if a particular neighborhood was experiencing a high rate of break-ins or other crime.
That doesn’t necessarily reflect on the targeted neighborhood. Mine typically gets less break-ins than more upscale neighborhoods in the trendy part of the city. No one wants my 1996 Sony TV.
Ignore the pop up requesting an email. I’ve never given them one.
Thanks, both of you. As much as I’d love to live in a photogenic, Trump-voter free, stylish, hip, upscale, sustainable-groceries kind of place, I’m just not that picky.
Clean, safe, livable, affordable, and not New England goes along way against a few cartooni-malls, chain stores, fast food rows and lack of an opera house. 
Be careful about the Gresham area. If you go too far west, you get into some bad areas.
A rule of thumb: if the housing prices seem comparatively good, there’s a reason.
There’s a major MAX light rail station in Gresham, being near that is good but there’s increased costs and other issues (see link above).
The traffic situation in Portland cannot be skipped over. It’s been rapidly growing worse and worse. Sure, if you live within biking distance of work and shops and you never, ever go anywhere else you won’t notice it. But if you regularly have to travel to Gresham, Hillsboro, Woodburn, or Vancouver, it’s going to be a major headache.
Craftsman homes? You mean the ones they are tearing down by the hundreds to replace with two (or more!) really cheapo homes on the same lot? (And the trees on those lots just have to go, you know.)
The region really messed up their planning. The ignored the possibility that the growth they are experiencing was going to happen. A great plan for nearly insignificant growth. A terrible plan for anything faster. But they still pretend they have a great plan. Reality disagrees.
Looks like Gresham itself is pretty low-crime. Good.
I grew up in Sacramento, which has had successive planning failures due to the immense power of the builder/developers since the war. Used to the fallout.
So… Gresham to downtown Portland as a commute is bad? On a scale of 0 (work at home) to 10 (getting across the river), how is it most of the time? Having a MAX station is a nice option, though, especially for my daughter.
Yeah, the destruction of nice homes to make a buck is epidemic, and the city doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it. Even worse are the multistory rental places going up without any requirement for parking. Portland’s streets are already nearly maxed out and there are a lot of pissed off people living around these places. I can count at least ten new apartment buildings in our sleepy neighborhood, which has suddenly become a “destination” in the last three years. My tiny bungalow property has gone up by $200,000 since we bought it seven years ago.
Next question: How good is the Oregon Health Plan? For a mid-50s man and a mid-20s woman? We will have CT-state based insurance through the time we move, but the out of area benefits are minimal, so we’ll need coverage pretty quickly.
The biggest downside to Gresham might turn out to be that you grow fond of the Oregon coast, which means you would have to go through Portland to get there – going through Portland is teh suck. If you think you might prefer the mountain and/or the high desert more, Gresham is good, but if you think the coast will appeal, you would probably want to be on the west side. On the other hand, the west side has all the character of a Starbucks inside a Target. South (Clackamas area) could be the best of both worlds, but I believe it is also pretty expensive.
I can’t answer directly, but Mrs. L.A. says it’s very good. (Or it was for her.)
I’ve been living in Oregon for almost 29 years and all but 6 of them have been in Gresham. The G-Town population is growing and with it are all the growing pains. Relative to Portland home owning is still affordable, but the Portland growth is slowly starting to affect home prices in G. There are lots of apartment complexes out here. I mention this because some of these places are where the crime happens the most. For home owning stay away from the Rockwood neighborhood. Lots ‘o crime over here. I know a realtor who is G born and raised. He can certainly help with the entire Portland metro area, but he really knows east Multnomah County. If you want his name let me know.
There a few good restaurants in G. A couple of Italian, Mexican, Thai joints. The biggest, best, and baddest place to go is McMenamin’s Edgefield in Troutdale. It’s a playground for alcoholics, partyers, and music lovers. And it’s kid friendly. They have a fine dining restaurant and a pub. The pub grub is OK, nothing stellar but it’ll absorb the booze. If you move out to Oregon you will come to know the McMenamin’s empire. Edgefield Hotel - McMenamins. Not only do they have local musicians performing throughout the Edge property (warm weather months mostly), they have an outdoor amphitheater that showcases big name acts. Small sampling from this summer’s lineup, Moody Blues, John Mellencamp, Ziggy Marley, Willie Nelson.
If you’re into wind surfing, G has quick access to I-84 to get you to Hood River. Also has quick access to Hwy 26 to get you to Mt. Hood for skiing or snowboarding. Each is about an hour drive. The coast is about 2 hours away. Depending on time of day for traffic thickness, getting to most parts of downtown Portland or any of the quadrants (NE, SE, NW & SW) is about 30-45 minutes from G. If you really want to open up the offerings of things to do, places to eat, etc. you’ll definitely want to get to know Portland.
My personal favorite time of the year is June for Pedalpalooza, http://shift2bikes.org/. There are all sorts of fun bikey rides, if you ride. Some rides are as small as a few people and some are huge, a thousand or more. The month culminates in World Naked Bike Ride. If you go to WNBR you’ll be riding with close to 10K people, most of whom will be completely naked. But you can keep your clothes on if you like. If you have reservations about getting naked don’t worry they won’t even pay attention to you….they’ll all be snickering and pointing at me. Ha!
As for weather plan on 8-9 months of cloudy, wet, cool to cold weather. Usually late Sept. to May. Temps for fall start dipping to 40’s-50’s. Winter temps are 30’s-40’s. I’ve been here since the late 80’s and the first couple of decades out here it was always wet & cold and that was it. But the weather patterns are changing ….this past winter we had a couple of different snow storms with some really cold teens & 20’s temps and lots of snow. Also, be prepared for some gnarly east winds from the Columbia River Gorge from time to time, especially during the cold weather months. Besides Gresham, surrounding townships include Corbett, Troutdale, Wood Village, and Fairview…they all get their asses kicked by the gorge winds.
Summers are awesome out here, usually sunny and dry, temps in the 70’s-80’s with upticks into the 90’s and the occasional 100….mid June to mid Sept. for this. In recent years I’ve noticed the humidity is increasing, but nowhere near the muggy ugliness that you see back East.
To start getting a flavor for Portland check out the local free rags Portland Mercury and Willamette Week. Don’t remember which one, but maybe a month or two ago the cover article was telling all the newbies to the area what to expect. By all means avoid Dr. Know in WW. Blatant ripoff (and poorly written IMHO) of Cecil.
There is so much more to talk about regarding the sovereign nation of Gresham and it’s suburb of Portland, but I may have bored you already. I hope this helps.
“From time to time”? It stops? I never remember it stopping. After I moved, I stopped having earaches.
Tons. This is the on-the-ground kind of of stuff I am looking for, the stuff that’s nearly impossible to find out until you’re standing there, with or without neighbors finally telling you about the gritty (windy) details.
My biggest problem is that I have to make a HELL of a jump - me, 2 or 3 cars, modest amount of home and shop stuff, employment AND a place to live with two big dogs all kind of in the same leap. Yes, there are ways to stage it but I have to get to a living point (at least some income, safe house with/for the dogs, don’t necessarily want to buy a place blind first thing…) I hope to find a first job and a decent lease/rental and then be able to complete the move, but without firm timing it’s going to be a real joy.
I hope to be finished with the divorce by the statutory limit of early August, but. Haven’t really gotten to the key issues yet.
I should have mentioned to check out rmls.com for available real estate and to start getting a feel for home prices. Gresham zips are 97030 & 97080. Troutdale is 97060Sandy (about 10 miles SE of G) is 97055.
Good luck with the divorce and settling your affairs. I’ve been there and it is not easy. My wallet is still on life support.
eschereal, yes, you’re absolutely right, the wind (or as many Chicagoans call it, The Hawk) seemingly is always in your face. Ugh