Any Oregonians know of a good city to live in?

Question

I am moving to Oregon and am looking for any advice on the "good" and "bad" places to live.

Answer 1

If you are looking for a city, then I would recommend Eugene, or the Eugene area. An arts and cultural center, a bit counter-culture, laid back, beautiful, lots of parks, plenty of shopping, an independent arts theater, also has a ballet company, symphony, live theatre, and so muchmore. Home of the original "saturday market".
http://www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene,_Oregon
http://www.planeteugene.com/
http://www.wunderground.com/US/OR/Eugene.html
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/09/10/home.php
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/


If you want an upscale small city, try Bend, just east of the cascades. It's a growing city, with a lot less rain than the west side of the cascades.
http://www.visitbend.com/
http://www.el.com/to/sisters/

Not really anywhere I would say to stay away from, except certain areas in some of the cities. You might want to be aware that most of the coastal towns are poor and kind of dismal to live in. The two exceptions would be Coos Bay area and Brookings. And eastern oregon is pretty, well, sparse.

http://www.coosbay.org/
http://www.brookingsor.com/

Answer 2

I grew up in Corvallis, which is a small town (despite the previous answer), pretty liberal, has a university, nice place.

Albany is small, a little white-trashy in my opinion. There is a paper mill there and you can smell the paper being made, which is not pretty!

Eugene is great, I lived there for a bit too. Very liberal, tons of health food stores, major university, friendly, pretty.

Portland is the biggest city, artsy, laid back.

Salem is the capital- it's a city but not huge. I have always gotten the impression that it's a little more blue collar than some of the other cities.

Bend is great - growing fast! There wouldn't be a lot of other cities around though, but it has great weather, skiing in the winter, swimming in the summer type thing.

Ashland is pretty small; it would be good if you like to do outdoorsy type things. It also has a huge Shakespeare festival every year, so it gets a lot of tourists. It's a nice little artsy town.

It might be better to look in the western part of the state. Eastern Oregon is almost like a whole different state, it's not that pretty and it's a lot more conservative.

Answer 3

I'm an Oregonian. There is no such thing as a "bad" place in Oregon :-) As the other posters have pointed out, a lot depends on what lifestyle you want. Oregon has everything from upscale city living in Portland to beachcombing, mountain challets and ranches where you can be a cowboy.

One thing to keep in mind is the job market here has been tight since the early 1980's. That's probably more than your lifetime. During the 1980's, logging was curtailed and many of the mills closed down. It was a really bad recession. I'm a nurse and I got layed off from my job as a neuro nurse. It was just desperate for about 10 years. In the 90's things really improved, but it's still a tougher place to get a job than a lot of cities back east or in California.

Housing has been reasonable, compared to other places, but it's getting much higher in Portland and other cities. We don't have a sales tax but we do have high property taxes. The property taxes vary a great deal from county to county. If you hope to buy a home, that's an important thing to be aware of. For example, Lane County around Eugene has high taxes and mediocre county services, IMO. Just south of Lane county, in Douglas County, around Roseburg the taxes are much lower and county services are very good.

Should you fall on hard times, there isn't as much support in Oregon as you would find in some states. There isn't any welfare or medical help for a single adult. There aren't any county hospitals whose duty it is to see anyone regardless of ability to pay.

More than half of the land in the state is out of private hands. In other words, it belongs to the federal or state governments. This has an impact on how much growth there will be. Also, Oregon has always depended on the money from it's timber. That is running out and most Oregon counties are scratching to find the money to pay for public services like libraries, schools, police, fire department, etc.

The other posters did a great job of covering the cities in Oregon, but I thought someone should bring up these other issues which do matter in the quality of life you lead. Good luck.

Answer 4

I agree with what most have said here... but I'll had my two cents:

Obviously Portland is the largest city, so if you're a big city type then this is the place to be. There's lots to do and there's alot of big companies which many job opportunities. Nike's headquarters is here.

Salem, unlike what someone else mentioned, is NOT a blue collar town. All of the state's main government buildings are located here. If you're interested in politics, then Salem is your town. The Capitol is here, as are the main headquarters for all the state departments. If you're interested in college, Willamette University is here, which, by the way, is the oldest private college west of the Mississippi. Salem doesn't have as much to do as Eugene or Portland, but its decent.

Albany is really trashy in my opinion. It smells and looks dirty. I would advise NOT living here.

Stayton is a nice smaller sized community, its about 20 minutes east of Salem. Its a small town feel, but they've got all the basic necessities, and is growing.

Dallas which is about 20 miles west of Salem is similar to Stayton.

Monmouth is near Dallas and is nice too. Its also a college town, as Western Oregon University is located here. However, up until a couple years ago, the town was still "dry". Monmouth is a smidge on the conservative side.

Independence is located adjacent to Monmouth and is okay, but its a bit trashy.

The beach, contrary to what others say, is not all poor. It depends where you go on the beach. Astoria is okay, but it has really crappy weather all the time. Plus "The Goonies" was filmed there, so you can't go wrong with that. Tillamook is a farming town, so its more modest, but it floods often. Cannon Beach is really nice but expensive. Lincoln City is one of the main tourist attractions on the Oregon Coast. Its nice, but busy. Depoe Bay is nice too and is smaller and less crowded than Lincoln City. Newport is also nice, but is a big tourist town, so its crowded. Yachats is very small, but its nice. Florence is decent sized. Bandon is pretty good but VERY windy. Finally Brookings is good and is the warmest spot on the coast. Basically if you go to one of the bigger cities on the coast, they're much nicer than the smaller communities.

Eugene is the 3rd largest (population wise) city in Oregon, and is really fun. I would recommend it if you dont' want the big city life of Portland. Its a college town and a hippie town. There's a strong emphasis on organic and vegetarian foods here. In July, there's also a crazy hippie fair "The Oregon Country Fair" in nearby Veneta. Its quite interesting.

Further south, there's Medford and Grants Pass. These communities are okay, but they get very hot during the summertime. Finally, there's Ashland which is small. But if you like Shakespeare, Ashland is your place.

In regard to Eastern Oregon, if you like hot weather, the Oregon Trail, or farming, then its your ideal location. Its very boring though and there isn't much to do.

In central oregon, there's Bend which is one of the fastest growing communities in the nation. Its in a pretty area of Oregon and near the Sunriver community which is fun.

Finally, there is Southeastern Oregon... There's nothing there, don't bother.

Over 1/2 the population of the state lives in the Willamette Valley which encompasses the three largest cities in Oregon: Portland, Salem and Eugene. I'd recommend you stay within the valley if you want to be close to stores and things to do.

Answer 5

I've lived in Oregon my entire life.

Portland is the capital. It is big city (not like New York or anything but biggest city here). It is like any other big city.
If you like that type of atmosphere move there.

Eugene is the second biggest city in Oregon. It is very liberal. There are lots of hippies. It is a college town so lots of educated people and activism. It is a strong community with a ton of cultural events to participate in. It has a weekly craft and farmers market that is great.

The Oregon Coast is beautiful as well especially Newport and Waldport.

Ashland is a great place to live as well. It is a college town. It is very small, no malls etc.. But it is a very tight community. There is a lot of culture in Ashland. It is also home of the famous Shakespear festival. Everything in Ashland is pretty upscale so if you have good money it's a nice place to live.

There are some towns I would avoid. These towns are really small, have little to do for outside the home activities and are typically very conservative: ((so sorry to the people who live in these places...))
Klamath Falls, Corvallis, Florence, Lake Oswego, Roseburg

Personally, I would also avoid Salem. It isn't the best place to live in Oregon. It is growing and getting better but still isn't quite great.

Answer 6

What are you looking for? It really just depends. I really like Florence OR it is in the south small town on the ocean. I also like it because it is like 30-45 mins from Eugene which is a nice size city. So you can live in a small beach town but have a city near by! There are plenty of resturants here a couple grocery stores. Sits on the Pacific Highway which is also pretty cool. Nice little downtown (old town) area with a few good places to hang out. There is also a lot of state parks and outdoor activites really close. Plenty of actitivies on the sand dunes, and there is a lot of wildlife here you never know what you are going to see, whales seals ect......
I also like Portland, bigger city there is a lot to do, you can be to the beach or the mountains in no time! There are some sections of town that are very young. There is also a pretty good mix of culture in Portland, good theaters and performing arts copmanies. Also a lot of cutting edge resturants and some very nice bars/clubs to hang out in. There are a couple great galleries, and museums.
Here are a couple websites that I would check out. Remember if there is ANY town/city in Oregon that you think you might like to live in contanct their visitors center or their Chamber of Commerce they will send you relocation information with helpful numbers, maps, coupons, busisness information ect...this is a free great service that a lot of places offer...they want you to move to their town. At least by doing this you can see what the city has to offer and what other things are near by! Good luck on your move I hope you find what you are looking for!

www.florenceoregon.net
www.florencechamber.com
www.oregoncitylink.com/florence
www.portlandpro.com/feedback.html
www.portlandalliance.com
www.eastportlandchamberofcommerce.com
www.visitcentraloregon.com
www.guidetooregon.com/html/visit.html
www.eova.com
www.visitlanecounty.org

Answer 7

Depends really, where are you coming from?

Do you want more of a city or metro area to live in or smaller like country type? There is both and plenty to choose from.

Check online maps and it gives an idea of big city areas and gauge it from there.
Portland metro area is good if you like the busy city area life and there can be more options for jobs depending on what you are looking for.

Answer 8

i live in southern Oregon, about 30 miles from the California border, closest to the city of klamath falls, and i love it here, there's alot of wildlife and scenery ill never live anywhere else! by the way Salem, is the capital

Answer 9

I live in Gresham it is about 20 min away from Downtown Portland. I'm close to Mt.Hood to ski, two hours away from beach and camping is right down the street. Stay away from Rockwood area and 82nd area.-L

Answer 10

my brother lives in Eugene and loves it. It's near the ocean and the mountains, but it's still a fun college town.