Portland, ME smokes your hometown, kmp1284

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Patrick

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I wish we had more rowhouses! The ones we have are beautiful though. :) Nice shots. It's been kind of foggy this week cause of the warmth.
 
aw man nobody has noticed, i have flipped some of my pics, to see if anyone is paying attention.

anyway, I too wish we had more row houses. like in bayside, why dont we build nice brick row houses like we have in the west end. the west end is truly a magnificent place to stroll around in, i love the architecture and vibe it gives off.

went to bowdoin college today to take my sister on a tour. turns out they have a skyscraper dorm tower as tall as our franklin towers, and better looking. shazbat actually took a pic and posted in on emporis.com for brunswick.
 
Zoning requirements effectively forbid new rowhouses, with minimum setback requirements in most neighborhoods and the 2 parking spaces per residence stipulation. (in reality, census data shows that the average West End household owns less than one car).

Kevin Donoghue on the Council is working to reduce parking requirements on the peninsula, and inclusionary zoning is already in effect, so we'll see.
 
Those pictures hardly portray Portland as an enticing place to live, perhaps retire, but I prefer to live in a city of some standing outside of its home state.
 
kmp1284 said:
Those pictures hardly portray Portland as an enticing place to live, perhaps retire, but I prefer to live in a city of some standing outside of its home state.
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Yeah apparently so does most of the world.

I heard recently that most of the world now lives in major urban places.

However, I said ONE of the best places to live, not THE best place.

portland is consistently ranked one of the best places to live in the country. sorry, you dont need hundreds of thousands of people for that.

If you compare Portland with the majority of cities and towns across the country, I think it fares quite well.

Comparing it to Boston, we see that Portland easily has half off the ammenities of Boston, with ten times less population, and also ten times less hassle. So, if you understand math, you will see that the standard of living is higher here for more people than it is in a place like Boston, easily. OF course if you are a millionaire and money is not an issue, I say go for Boston. Even if you are broke, go for boston. it truly is a wonderful city. But how about Nashua, NH? Lowell? Lawrence? Lynn? and all of the other armpits in the world?

In portland you get two square miles of extremely urban life, minus "real" skyscrapers. You get world class restaurants, diversity, immigrants from all over the world, millions in tourist-traffic, and vibrant culture. the largest sudanese refugee population is now living a mile from my house, in downtown portland. That is interesting to me. It brings life not commonly found in medium sized cities like portland.

you also get cheap housing outside of the urban core, with the countryside nearby. for a 22 minute commute from buxton, you could be working as an executive in downtown on the 13th floor running New York Life, pulling 6 figures a year easily, and living in a sprawling house with acres of land for only about $300,000. name another place like that. And Boston is under two hours of a drive if you feel the uncontrollable need to look up at 50 stories of steel and glass (i often do!!). In my opinion, and in many others' it cannot be beat easily as a city or place to live. It was recently named one of the top five surprising travel destinations in the country by Frommer's magazine.

and in terms of having standing outside of this state alone, consider the following facts:

Bank North is a portland company; portland's sea port handles more tonnage than boston, in fact it handles the second highest tonnage on the eastern sea board; it is the primary entry point for montreal's oil supplies; it has neighborhoods with greater density than anything in providence, RI, which is several times larger; it at one time had the tallest steel framed building in new england, taller than boston too; it had the first commercial hip hop station in new england outside of boston; it is the largest metro area in northern new england; and it is the 9th largest metro area in new england. It also has more lawyers per capita than anywhere but D.C. and more restaurants per capita than anywhere but San Fran. Ever strolled around the west end? ever seen the old port? ever observed the culture displayed in the arts district? then clearly your post is nonsense. portland is easily one of the best places to live, any way you choose to spin it. For our size, we put up better numbers than anywhere else in the country. oh yeah, crime and rush hour are virtually non-existent. beat that.

lastly, if we had the same square mileage as boston, our population would jump to around 130,000 people, and during the daytime even conservative estimates put our population in city at close to 150,000 people. and this being in around 15 square miles after you account for how much of our size is pure water, and how much of it consists of uninhabited islands that dot the coastline (which by the way add to our remarkable beauty in the summer months). The list of things enviable about portland only gets longer the deeper you look. I challenege you, or anyone, to find more than two similar cities. It cannot be done.
 
Slick work Patrick. I see a career in politics getting stronger for you.
 
Bizzaaannnngggggg!!! as an added bonus to why we suck so much, and only should be a retirement community, I have decided to add this picture.

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maybe when kmp128439834934958 retires he can request a top floor unit. until then he will no doubt be enjoying the world-class standing of Boston, too bad that city is so far away from us. Would be nice if we could get there by car in, i dont know, 1.5 hours or were connected by train or something silly like that.

You know, someone should look into getting us a minor league baseball team, and perhaps even have them affiliated with the Red Sox, maybe we could even get one of the biggest stadiums in our league...yeah yeah we could locate it next to the hospital, which unfortunately is only run by a bunch of old retired ex-bostonian MDs and not in the top 2% of all hospitals in the nation :roll:

and you know that whare-house district, the one down by commercial street? someone should look into revitalizing those six blocks, i bet it could draw tourists from all over the country. I can see it now, world-class restaurants and such a heavy draw that we would need to build a new cruise ship terminal to accommodate luxury ships.

:roll:

oh the outcry that would cause. then we might have to raise the cost of housing from a dollar a house to $215,000 on average. but at least we wouldnt be paying $900k for a wellesley suburban colonial. Probably will never happen, what with all of the old timers and retirees voting against change but hey we can dream, eh?
 
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