I’m not sure to what degree I can trust a magazine called Monocle. But for what it’s worth, my hometown of Portland has landed on Monocle’s annual list of the world’s most livable cities, and it’s the only American city the London magazine has deemed worthy of its attention. Mind you, Portland is number 23 on the list, so America still doesn’t rank very high when it comes to Brits with monocles.
But what’s much more interesting than this supposed honor–we’ve been on plenty of lists, both good and bad–is the reaction of my fellow townfolk to it. Our local weekly posted about the Monocle article on its Facebook page, and here’s just a sampling of the comments:
Put a muzzle on it for feck sake! It’s getting ridiculous around here. Most nights I can’t even park on my own street. We need immigration control in Oregon!
Can we find who is the monstrous PR machine pushing Portland as the fucking mecca and stop them??!! Please! Can we do something to stop all the greedy developers and landlords?? I can’t fucking afford anything now. Kindly fuck off and give it a break with moving here already.
JUST STOP IT FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!! I already don’t even recognize streets from 15 years ago… STOP MOVING HERE!!!!
I get the sense that Portlanders are not crazy about change. Maybe we love our town so much, we want to freeze it in time and keep it just the way we imagine it is or was in the past.
But I’d like to send a completely different message out to all the interesting people of the universe. What you’ve heard is true! Portland is awesome. Come on over, you’ll love it! Help make this place into the dynamic, thriving metropolis it deserves to be. It’s wonderful now, but it has the potential to be so much more. Yeah, I know prices will rise in the process, but if things work the way they usually do, we should be able to make more money too. And I trust that all of you new residents will help expand and improve the art scene and the nightlife, as well. Stagnation is never good, not even when it’s cutesy Portlandia stagnation.
So like the anti-Tom McCall, I’m here to say “Don’t just visit, stay!” I did, over 20 years ago, and I haven’t regretted it. The first rule of Portland, as far as I’m concerned: tell everyone how fantastic Portland is.
eurobrat 
07/31/2014 at 10:49 am
I just read about this guy ditching NYC for Portland:
http://eater.com/archives/2014/07/28/jim-meehan-pdt-portland-move.php
“New York City seems to Meehan challenging from a financial perspective. “I really had to look at my income and be very frank about it,” he says. “I can buy a house in Portland … and I can’t buy anything here.” ”
Portland – where young folks go to retire!!!!!! š
07/31/2014 at 7:33 pm
So true, and still people are complaining because things got a little more expensive here! Another one of the commenters sadly reminisced about how Portland used to be a place where you could “work for a little bit,” spend the rest of your time being artsy and gardening, and now you have to hustle to be able to pay your bills…I hate to say it, but hustling to pay your bills is how most of the world lives…that’s just reality!
08/09/2014 at 10:27 am
Sorry for the over-reacting tirade, but…
What we call “reality” is not carved in stone, but is something rockheads beat us with until we submit to their will.
Just because something is “real” doesn’t make it any better. Nor does it make it worthy of accepting. Half the world doesn’t get regular electricity, if any at all. Drinking water is in short supply and is of very sketchy quality. About a third of the world’s population is malnourished or outright starving. In most of the world, the status of women is on par (or below) that of a goat. There are more slaves alive today than at the peak of US slavery. War, famine, rape, robbery & exploitation are all just part of another day in the global office.
Are these “realities” something the rest of us should just accept when others try to impose them on us? What’s so ridiculous about lamenting the death of a positive exception to the rule? I know starving to death is a little more “complaint worthy” than having to work harder to buy food, but it’s part of the same continuum. It’s a slippery slope from one to the other. One need only take an honest look at where America, the “richest” nation on the planet is heading to see that.
It seems Portland may have had something exceptional in both senses of the word, rare and great. It sounds like a lifestyle the rest of us should be striving toward not something we should be belittling. Otherwise, we’ll all eventually be accepting the same “realities” faced by the rest of the world.
08/09/2014 at 3:07 pm
This is true–I don’t think that “reality” is necessarily a good thing, either. And I don’t think we should passively sit back and accept it.
But there’s another side of the coin to how I feel about Portland. Some aspects of Portland’s exceptional nature are great, but some really aren’t. There are ways in which Portland is wonderful, but there are ways in which it’s very limiting. There isn’t enough of an art scene and nightlife scene here, especially considering all the creative people who live in this town and their potential. (And having more business would help with that, because there’d be more people able to buy art.)
This is a beautiful place, but sometimes it still feels too much like a small town. I would like Portland to grow and become a bigger and more exciting city, not because it’s a reality I’m being forced to accept, but because I’d be happier if it was š
08/10/2014 at 2:59 pm
Not enough arts & not enough nightlife? Boo-hoo! You ARE a spoiled perfectionist! š
Me, I live in a city of spoiled, shallow, materialistic, imbeciles with NO arts, NO culture, NO sense of anything but their own selfish desires, and WAY too much nightlife. Every morning, I have to hose the designer-clothes-wearing drunks off my lawn who couldn’t make it home from the latest “in” place. Yet there’s still abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING remotely interesting going on here. Well, unless you’re into watching a city with a death wish collectively shoot itself in the balls every damn day! (In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a tad bitter and have a hard time holding it back.)
But back on topic; it sounds like the lack of a nightlife may be a conscious/subconscious choice of Portlandians. If Portand’s image (ie Portlandia the TV show ) of jaded hipsters, elitist snobs, & back-to-the-Earthers is even mildly accurate, maybe they think art has become “uninspiring, derivative & too commercial” or that they’re “beyond” having nightlives. I can certainly see their point. (Hmm, maybe I should move to Portland.)
Besides, nightlife is highly overrated anyway. Bars, clubs, etc look great on the surface, but in addition to self-important shallow people, an “exciting scene” requires drunks, drugs and all the inevitable negative aspects associated (noise, fights, crime, higher policing & addiction treatment costs) Less obviously, such places occupy locations that would otherwise have more productive uses, say, grocery stores. About 20 thousand people live in my downtown, but the only place to buy groceries is Apu’s Kwik-E-Mart. Other than a hockey rink and a couple office towers, my city has nothing BUT bars downtown. Outside of rush hour, the place is a ghost town until 11PM (complete with the undead homeless).
Also, the quest for a nightlife presumes one’s day life is -uh- less than satisfying. I often get the feeling some of these nightlife lovers are trying just a little too hard, if you know what I mean. Perhaps the folks in Portland are just satisfied with their day lives and don’t need as much nightlife to compensate for miserable day lives. If that’s the case, it would mean the lacklustre nightlife would be something to celebrate….ironically…and in an understated way. (Hmm, maybe I should move to Portland.)
But if an exciting nightlife is a high priority, may I suggest moving to Detroit? That city is a non-stop thrill ride after dark. Anyway, just a thought. š
(P.S. I’m thinking of posting a bloated Case Study on the effects of growth here. For your sake, I hope I run out of gas, or get distracted, first.)
08/11/2014 at 4:55 pm
Feel free to post all the case studies you want to, this is a place for people to express themselves š And yes, I am very much a spoiled perfectionist. There is a lot that I love about Portland, which is why despite my bitching, I haven’t moved away yet…it’s just that I’m fine with it growing some more. But I know there are case studies out there which would contradict me on this point.
If I did move, I most likely wouldn’t be aiming for Detroit. I guess I’d be looking for a place that rides the fine line between more nightlife but not much more gunfire. I wonder if it’s possible to have both an interesting daylife and nightlife? My daylife isn’t miserable, but it’s kind of average, so I’m not a good authority on the subject.
Sorry to hear about your hometown–it sounds bitterness-inducing. Can’t blame you for how you feel about city life. Hmmm, maybe you should move to Portland, as you say? Based on your comments and the things you value, you might like it.
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 21:59:16 +0000 To: missvixiev@hotmail.com
08/14/2014 at 7:00 pm
“Feel free to post all the case studies you want to, this is a place for people to express themselves”
That’s what you say now. But, remember, you asked for it.
08/14/2014 at 8:41 pm
Heh š
08/20/2014 at 3:58 pm
Well ok, I have to finally 100% disagree with you. Portland, the DIY capital of America, is morphing into a version of SanFranciso and it’s becoming tedious. Every little bit of grit is being scraped off, built out and tripled in price. Individual neighborhoods are becoming recognizable as such only by their historic names. Hipsterdom, which I’m all for, is gentrifying this city and its becoming both pointlessly expensive and uninteresting. I live in NE which has historically been the last bastion of the African-American community in PDX. It’s disappearing – and quickly. Bunk Bar bought all their homes and turned them into sandwich shops. Ah, just kidding, it was Salt and Straw. Which by the way has lines for years even during the winter as it has somehow convinced the general populace that a $9 pint of ice cream, which can only be so good, is worth the price. I believe they make $20k/day as was explained to me by a neighboring biz owner, and good for them, but it’s endemic of the thinking around here, that nice and shiny = the highest quality of life. Well I don’t think so. I think Portland’s becoming a nice place to visit, but it’s also losing its humanity. Normally I’d rant and make jokes but more so I’m seriously considering leaving and moving back east. If I wanted to live in SF I would, but I came here about a decade ago and a decade from now it’ll be completely unrecognizable if not disproportionately hipster white, grossly overpriced and traffic-stopping overpopulated. Then, ah ha, then it’s just another kind of gated California suburb. No. Thank. You.
08/20/2014 at 7:31 pm
Well, we don’t completely 100% disagree. I can see how it’s sad that the homey feel of some of Portland’s neighborhoods is getting lost in the growth. But I don’t know that Salt & Straw is a good example of the negative here? They’re doing great, and they’re opening a place in LA, which I think is pretty cool. For the love of God, is it so wrong to have *a little bit* of success in this town? I don’t think we have to worry about it becoming San Francisco–that’s a bit of an overly optimistic assessment.
Sorry to hear you are thinking about leaving, however. Ironically, I was considering leaving earlier this year for the opposite reason–that Portland was continuing to be Portland a bit too much. But I do have a weakness for this place, so I’m sticking around for now.
08/28/2014 at 10:19 pm
Yep, and enjoy yer $9 pints of Salt and Straw.
This is my last entry. I’m ditching most everything online. World’s ending and I’m buying a motorcycle and seeing it while I can.
Be well.
08/29/2014 at 7:19 am
Haven’t been to Salt & Straw yet, but I’d actually love to go there at some point. Looks tasty.
Wishing you a wonderful time on your pre-Apocalypse tour of the world. It was nice talking on here.
Sent from my iPhone
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