Moving to PDX...

cozzyd said:
(to those confused by Matthew's comment):
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/01/24/coin-toss-portland-called-boston/

anyway, imo Seattle > PDX
Click to expand...

They aren't really comparable. Neither are particularly urban. Seattle feels like a massive suburb with a Manhattanized downtown. Portland feels like a massive "small town", with a downtown of endless charming main streets. Both have a bunch of apartment buildings but the majority of the housing is taken up by single family bungalows, starting in neighborhoods directly adjacent to the downtowns. Transit sucks in Seattle and the hills and size make biking difficult. It's a very car oriented place, even in the central city. Portland is more compact and mostly flat so cycling is massively popular.

Seattle has a much better economy and more things going on in the arts. Portland has more of a blue collar hipsterish feel, if that makes any sense. Outdoors activity is massively popular in both areas - everybody hikes and you only need to look around to see why. The natural landscape is stunning. The weather is also a thousand times better than the northeast, though some complain about lack of sun in the winter months.

Socially, both cities have a reputation for being closed (google the "seattle freeze"), similar to the northeast. Everybody is polite but making close friends can be challenging. Getting a job is impossible if you don't know somebody. It's really not that different from Boston in a lot of ways only instead of pretentious people are flaky. Seems to be a west coast thing and if you are not used to it you might be driven insane. My personal feeling is that how one experiences a city socially depends mostly on the individual. Many people will have a hard time anywhere - unless you already have connections it's very difficult to move somewhere new and integrate socially all of a sudden.
 
In LA it's "let's do something / sorry, traffic lolz!"
 
Shit, just as soon as I thought I was far enough away from the armpits of might, I am also moving to Chicago in a few weeks. Hyde Park, Chicago > Hyde Park, Boston ?
 
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