Portland Is Cloudy and Gloomy and I Like It

My fifth (sixth, if you count Asheville) city I auditioned was Portland, Oregon, where I spent six nights last week.  I feel like I've gotten a pretty good system down for inspecting cities now.  I covered a lot of territory in Portland and did it pretty efficiently too (good thing, as I caught another cold -- sigh -- and just stayed in for one full day).  I did vary my routine a bit by not starting with the public library,* but instead started with a walking tour of Portland, which gave me a feel for the downtown area and for the sensibilities of the city generally.  I'll touch on some of those during my review.

The "Downtown" downtown.

In Portland, unlike some other cities I've auditioned, I did not stay with or meet up with any locals.  (Had I remembered conversations with various friends back east, I might have gotten in touch with some friend-of-friends, but of course I didn't think of that until too late.  This entire trip is flying by; I can barely keep up with the people I'm supposed to stay with two nights from now, let alone remember who all knows various people in what cities!)  I do, however, have a friend from college who lives there -- Kristian -- and who, via email, has nothing but good things to say about the city.  And knowing Kristian, I suspect that the things he likes are the things I would like too.  But anyway, most of what I know about Portland I learned on my own...

The world's smallest park.  Seriously.

Portland has some law that says something like, any building project must also devote a certain amount of money to public art.  So there is art everywhere.

Portlandia, a piece of public art whose creator still owns the copyright, so you've probably never seen her before.

Even items that are not typically beautiful to look at have been made pretty.

Portland is very clean, both as in, not a lot of litter lying around and in its very progressive attitude to a healthy environment.

Public transportation is very good, to the point where driving is also easy (i.e., enough people are out of their cars that the people still in their cars can drive and park easily in most neighborhoods).  Something like 4% of Portland's residents bike to work.  My tour guide does.

Portland's bus system.

And there are a lot of neighborhoods that have a healthy mix of residential and commercial.  The Pearl District is probably the most famous of these neighborhoods is probably The Pearl District, which I consider to be the northern half of "downtown."  The southern half is actually called "downtown" but they are right next to each other.  Anyway, The Pearl, and many other neighborhoods that I drove and walked through, have great mixes of places to live and shops, restaurants, bars, galleries, etc.  There are coffee shops everywhere (which makes me think people substitute caffeine for sunlight).  And there's apparently a lot to do.

North

Southeast

The Pearl District

Southeast

And speaking of driving around... Portland is the only city of any size I've been to that did not have miles and miles of Rockville Pike-like roads and strip malls all over the place.  I encountered one mild example of this urban design that I hate so much, way out on the west side of town, but it is noteworthy how much of the city I drove through without having to deal with that crap.  (If you're wondering, Des Moines had just a few of such urban roadway monstrosities, and Asheville didn't really have any that I came across.)

Finally, while I'm sure there are other great bookstores in other cities, Portland is home to Powell's Books, the largest new-and-used bookstore in the country.  I've ordered books online from that store, not realizing all of the books are actually there, in a giant store on the street that divides "Downtown" from the Pearl District.  So if I did move to Portland, my dad would have a place to spend his days.  :)  Now, the existence of a great bookstore shouldn't be the reason I move somewhere, but it's a definite plus!

Just one of many large rooms in Powell's.

So what didn't I like about Portland?  Well, this isn't so much a dislike as something missing...  I didn't get a sense of the people, really.  Compared to, say, Denver, where the people were so overtly friendly and advocates of their city, the people in Portland were rather subdued.  Having said that, everyone I did talk to about possibly moving there said I "totally should" and most said that one of the reasons it was so great was because of the people.  Kristian agrees, and elaborates that:

My experience in Portland is that people are incredibly open and friendly.
 There are certainly stuck-up self-important snobs, but they tend to be
snuck up about whatever weird subculture they're really into (bikes,
tattooing, ice climbing) and not about, say, their job with the State
Department.  It's irritating, but mostly ignorable.

So I'm picturing a town full of Comic Book Guys, from The Simpsons.  (Heh, did you know that character has a name?  I didn't until just now.)

Now for more concrete things:  First, a note on the weather.  I'm a fan of cloudy and gloomy, and apparently, Portland is a good city for that.  I'm told it doesn't rain that much in Portland; it tends to drizzle and be cloudy but not pour.  But it doesn't snow much, either, and I'd like that.  Plus, if it's cloudy and gloomy I'm going for, (plus snow!) I might as well stick to Cleveland.

And Portland is even farther from most of my loved ones than Denver.  Somehow, though, it didn't feel as far away.  Maybe because when I was in Portland, I felt encompassed by the city.  And in Denver, it felt like a city at the edge of the world, what with the huge mountains on one side and the Great Plains rolling off in all other directions (it's uncanny, the way that Denver just pops up out of the earth like that!).  If it comes down to deciding between Portland and Denver, though, I'll most likely always have to fly back east, so in practice, one will be as far away as the other.

There were a lot of homeless people, which I'm sort of used to, having lived in Washington, DC, which has its share.  But the homeless in Portland felt more, I dunno... assertive?  Aggressive?  Young and healthy and totally capable of finding a job?  Compared to those in DC, that is.  I didn't like it.

*  Kristian assures me "the public library is excellent" but he also says "The tap water is the best I've found."  The tap water at my motel was quite drinkable, but was ever so slightly brown, so I have to wonder at this.  (Brown water doesn't scare me!)

Well, to sum up... my liking for Portland is very high.  I'd say on par with Denver, but for totally different reasons.  If anything, I'd say Portland has the edge because it has a lot of objective things in its favor:  Size, weather, a bit of quirkiness, ease of getting around.  It didn't feel as exciting as Denver, nor were the people as obviously enthusiastic.  That's where Denver shines.  I'll have to think long and hard about this potential move of mine, and I still have a few places to visit still!