Would you prefer to live in Vancouver, Seattle or Portland

Following up on the previous thread but on a non-doughnut theme.

My son, who telecommutes, wants to try the Northwest. I told him to try Portland. Vancouver and Seattle may be more scenic but that Portland offers the same amenities and somewhat better weather at cheaper price.

Good or bad advice?

 

Vancouver - 75% of the homes in the metro area are $1,000,000 or greater (CAD)

 

I haven't been to Vancouver in years and couldn't speak to what it would be like to live there.

The weather in Portland isn't any better than Seattle. The average rainfall is about the same. I lived in Portland for a year and literally went weeks without seeing the sun.

The cost of living is cheaper in Portland but it's still pretty bad. (We sold a house in a Phoenix suburb when we moved there. 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2100 sq feet, pool, in a cul de sac next to a park. Really nice place. That money would have bought us a 1000 sq foot shithole in east Portland with chain link fence and a car rusting in the front yard. Not exaggerating.)

Traffic is bad in both, but worse in Seattle.

Biggest issue we had in Portland: HATED the people. Pretentious, humorless, nasty people. "Portlandia" is pretty much a documentary. We only lasted a year before moving back to Phoenix (and my wife is an Oregon native).

Having said that, I've had friends who have moved to Portland and loved it. It's all relative.

Of those choices I'd probably go Seattle... but if I were moving back to the northwest, it'd probably be to Eugene.

 

How liberal is your son? Portland is, hands down, the most *liberal* city I've ever spent a lot of time in. I lived in Vancouver (Wash.) for two years many years ago.

PC was right about the rainy weather, but the view of Mount Hood and St. Helens when it's clear made up for it for me. I didn't mind the rain.

 

A friend of mine lives on one of the islands in Puget Sound, and it looks like an awesome life.

Unless you have to leave the island for something.

 

I was in Vancouver (Canada) for a conference a few springs ago. Of course it was beautiful, of course it was great fun ... but the whole time I was there, I felt (at bit) as if I was in this completely fabricated playground for 25- to 35-year-olds. It was kind of like going to a somewhat-grown-ups' Disneyworld ... as an old fart, I think I'd grow weary of that rather quickly.

 

No.

 

Yes, which gets back to ...

This was the biggest song of the first season. "Where young people go to retire!"

 

I have an aunt who bought a two bedroom house in Seattle in a rundown neighborhood north of downtown for $7,000 in 1965. When I visited we would walk down to a take out fish place and sat on a hill and and look at Puget Sound and the sunset. God, it was great. But my impression is that to get a view of the water in Seattle or Vancouver you need big money. I liked Portland in my visit because it seemed that you could see the rivers and the mountains from almost anywhere.

 

You need a million for the worst possible crack shack in Vancouver, it's ridiculous.

 

Some of the strangest conversations I have ever overheard were on public transport in Portland.

 

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?