Portland, Oregon

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Here are some pros and cons of why you
should try to find a job/housing here in Portland.

Pros:

Traffic is OK, although buses/trains get crowded during rush hour

I am a resident of Portland

Very walkable/bikeable city, Portland is BIG on having a strong cycling community

Non-profits have outposts here in Portland, such as the Red Cross

The majority of people are nice and will help you,
depending on which neighborhood you're in

Portland is often called "Big City that feels like a Small Town"
and vice-versa...Portland has many parks where you can hang out at.

Clean and not dangerous

Pizza shops, such as Hot Lips, have really good pizza.

Cons:

It rains half the time.

Some people want to recall the current Mayor. {again}

Too many Starbucks within a 5-minute walk of each other

Job market is OK, but shop around

The hipsters have an attitude and will tell you
to leave any hipster-friendly business once you walk in.

Housing is OK, but shop around for an afforadble apartment

Which industries are prevalent in the Portland area? (for those trying to find a job)

High-tech, such as Intel, which has its headquaters about 15 miles west of Portland.

Non-profit

Education, especially post-secondary

Food/beverages

Real estate

IMO, the Portland job market sucks now, so these
are the ones I can think of...

I wouldn't mind living there or Seattle or Vancouver. Was going to move to Seattle at one point. It seems to be the current migrating place for hipsters. Does it have old architecture? That's something I like about St. Louis and Chicago.

Job market's nothing to get excited about. On the other hand, if you look hard enough you can find housing not too expensive, there are a lot of good thrift stores, and we have the original Free Geek.

http://www.freegeek.org/

And rain is good, it keeps us fresh and crispy so we don't wilt.

Seattle, yes, but it seems that Portland has more older buildings... that are cool!

How does Portland stack up against Seattle?

Just by analyzing sports...

Seattle has two professional sports teams in the three major leagues, with its former basketball team in far-flung Great Plains (ie Oklahoma). Now Seattle fans can only support... the Portland Trail Blazers?

And in population size, Portland has far lesser people than Seattle. But they look more hippie... than those grunge guys.

In colleges... you know where is the main campus of the University of Washington? Seattle, it is. One of the top 15 public colleges in America. Portland has... Portland Community College, Portland State University, and Oregon Health & Science University... But Portland is quite near to Oregon State University, the ONLY public university that are designated as land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant and sun-grant. And there is Reed College...

So Portland is unique, as it complements Seattle for what it doesn't have.

Portland is probably the 2nd best place to find a job in Oregon right now (second only to Corvallis, I think), but that still doesn't change the fact that Oregon is doing horribly right now. Also, Oregon is one of the only two states (the other being Vermont) with urban boundary lines. That makes housing more expensive.

If you want to find a job, then North Dakota, South Dakota, or Nebraska would be your best bet. Montana's not doing terribly either.

Portland is certainly awesome on several levels. I had not heard the word 'hipster' until I moved here a few years ago, it's overused and another wonderful label, typically used as a pejorative. I find it weird because it seems according to their definition of the word 'hipster' the person saying the word often (however begrudgingly) fits into their own definition. Alas, Portland is a terrific place.

Jobs are s**t. I mean real solid s**t. MOST of my friends have college degrees and MOST (~70%) work at restaurants/retail and the other 30% are unemployed, dry up, and move home or somewhere else. It's sad, and it pisses me off.

Biking is A+
Non-profit is great
Transit A+

Good luck finding a job, housing is not too bad, but I'm not very familiar with that particular market.

On a more positive note, Portland has a brilliant tech community, a passionate and swelling artist population, beautiful mountains, snow sports, water sports, gorge, and the ocean is ohhhh-so-close!

The rental market in Portland is not too bad. The actual housing market is horrendous.

And the job market right now is one of the very worst there is in the country. Unemployment is reported at around 10% but in reality it's closer to 25%.

I love Portland but it is seriously a horrible time to be moving there. And I imagine Seattle is not much better, although Washington as a whole is not in quite as bad a shape as Oregon.

I think you all forgot to mention just how god awful Oregons State Income Tax is. Sure no Sales Tax but Income Tax is out the roof. I live across the river in Vancouver, WA. Work/live here shop there win win.

Yea win-win aside from the fact that Vancouver kind of sucks

Naw you are absolutely right though. My sister has been looking for a cheap/starter house in Portland for well over a year without any luck and when she expressed her frustration my exact comment was "Um, why aren't you looking in Vancouver?" It's not like she works in Hillsboro or Wilsonville or something, she works in downtown Northeast! Vancouver is pretty much down the street.

The market is better (albeit probably not by a wide margin), the houses for the most part are cheaper, and like you said the tax differential is big time.