General Sep 16, 2015 at 4:20 pm

A Guide for the Newcomers to Town

Comments

1
Thank you so much for this. I've felt the tension as a new comer. But I'm really hopeful and starry eyed about starting a new chapter in my life and bringing out the best parts of myself in this awesome city. Don't let me get cynical!
2
"that special "thing" longtime Portlanders possess that makes this city the kind of place where people love to move."

Ha. What a crock. SOME "longtime" portlanders possess a "special thing" that contributes to the city's attractiveness. Same can be said for any city. It can also be said that the vast majority of any city's population - including Portland - is wholly uninteresting and very apathetic.

Here is a challenge to all of the xenophobic, "fuck transplants" douches who are sure to comment on this and other related articles - please list exactly what it is that you do that makes your contribution to making Portland Portland any different than the average person / transplant.
3
This is what i do to add to portlands portlandness.
I tell it how it is, and i look for burritos.
trolled2trolled.wordpress.com
4
First thing to remember as a new Portland Mercury commenter: ignore the sad, miserable shitposters
5
Yes, burritos. Also, union member, protestor, camp ground clean-uper, Buy local, tree hugging, music lover... I think JTR might be one of those douche canoes that need dealing with.
6
Nice try stephanie. None of those things are unique to Portland, and can be found in abundance in many, many areas of the country. And most importantly, are practiced by hoards of transplants both new and from several years ago.

I have been here just over a decade, and I'm not from CA, in case you were wondering. I would love to know more about what ideas your hippy ass has for having me "dealt with" as well.....just saying! : )

Chunty - not sure if you were referencing me, but your comment helps prove my point. No substance whatsoever....
7
Don - do you have any idea how many food bloggers there are out there. I like them as much as the next person and appreciate the good ones, but not uniquely portland at all. There are also probably many transplants with food blogs...you know the god forsaken techie types from northern CA. Oh lawd!

You are also missing out on all of the best burrito places. Cozy up to a Burrito de Tripa from Taqueria Santo Domingo, and get back to us....
8
JTR - If Portland is so ordinary and has amenities that can be found "in abundance in many, many areas of the country", how come people are leaving those other parts of the country in droves and coming here? Also if that's the case, why don't you get your pompous ass out of here and go back to the shit berg you came from ten years ago? Clearly you're an arrogant POS and are clearly not wanted here.
9
Them are some tough words, for a d bag named Jiggles especially. I never said this town doesn't have great things about it that are unique, I said that 99% of the people who think they are somehow better than the "transplants" and bitch about them incessantly (like yourself it appears) are just normal, disgruntled folks who played no real role in making portland attractive to people, as the article states.

People move here because:
- New jobs: believe it or not, Portland has job growth in many sectors (new tech, apparel, creatives services, healthcare)
- Culture: restaurants, bars, beer / wine scene, live music scene. (This is where there are great do'ers and entrepreneurs in this town that make great things. They are in the vast minority, however...and that was my main point).
- Outdoors / natural beauty. Proximity to the coast, gorge, mountains
- Great, character-filled neighborhoods that are close-in. Good public transportation system, relatively
- "progressive" leaning: a lot of this is overblown, but you get the point. Green this and that, local this and that (btw this is a national movement, and always has been). Many transplants who move here are more progressive than most natives, good or bad.
- And finally...and I know this is going to piss you off...but we are STILL cheaper from a rental perspective than other comparable west coast cities (LA, SF, Seattle) and MUCH more affordable from a house purchase perspective

I find it funny that I am called the pompous one....by people who are blatantly saying "fuck you" to a whole group of people (transplants). Pretty damn funny....!
11
This really has been interesting. The lack of usual comments on the topic kind of proves that this whole "fuck transplants" thing is more similar to white supremacy than I thought.....in that it is really ironic that the most vocal and ignorant supremacists are almost always the last people on earth who should be claiming to be supreme (e.g. low iq, inbred losers from whatever Southern state you want to pick).
12
Fuck. This. Shit.
13
DEY TOOK ARE JOBS!
14
Thank you for this article. My boyfriend and I moved here from Chicago two months ago - we are hard-working professionals, are involved in improving our community, shop local, recycle our asses off, and volunteer. We're not dickholes. We appreciate what this city has to offer and would love to feel more welcome. I will say that it is nice that strangers say hi as they walk by (in my opinion the majority of Chicagoans will either ask what you want or give you a dirty look). But we are tired of the "feel" that we get from people when they learn we are outsiders. We all have to end up somewhere, and last I checked none of us are getting out of here alive so we might as well be accepting.
15
Portland is the answer.
16
(Pro tip: Wm. Steven Humphrey is not your friend. He isn't anybody's friend. He's a fictional character created by Ann Romano.)
17
Other than having simply grown up enough to be inured to puerile fixation on the visceral and the immaterial, is this sort of self-obsession is why I stopped plucking this rag out of the boxes to read on those lonely bus rides. Does every other city's residents feel so vapidly self-absorbed? (Even when they've only been there four years?!) Funny how what is considered boorish in person — even by boors themselves! — is treated as being hiply institutional in our town's print media. No wonder most people here aren't worth more than one night stands, even the passing pleasantry is as dull and trite as a hangover on a dreary winter day.
19
Also, what's with this delusional “contributing” blather? This is just getting weird, what people are believing and saying ... it all sounds like a skewed bit of self-congratulatory Newspeak, in which language people no longer live but are contributors to some very nebulous and situational ideal schtick spin. Sorry, but I don't give a shit about your flat tire; I'm not “contributing” to the beauty and virtue of this city, maybe somebody else has a tire iron.

The West Coast has gotten very Brave New World, what with its multiculturalism that results only in Latino gangs and teaching children how to capitulate to Chinese corporate communism in Mandarin, its socialism that wishes to sell out its workers to illegal immigration, its disturbing endorsement of hyper-sexuality that's mum about our role as a shining city on the hill to pedophiles and sexual predators ... the list goes on. Is this sort of intellectual degeneracy the price of a species' success?
20
Trust Fundy White People are SOOOOOO sensitive about living in Albina/Mississippi/N. Russel. As well they should be I guess.
21
Ok Steven. You did good here. I've been in Portland for 9 years and I always welcome newcomers. Even though lately it's hard to with all the condos going up and historical places vanishing before out eyes. If you move here and have a really interesting or creative idea you want to express please do it! Don't just hang back and get some shitty job and hang out at dive bars every night. BE CREATIVE AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE CITY! And we will like you. ;)
22
When I first moved here five years ago from Spokane (a place where we've had jokes about invading upper middle class Californians longer than Portlanders) I was the only one wearing white shoes. Dark colors dominated everywhere except on people's heads and maybe their socks. I also noticed people walked very slowly here. On top of all this having to adapt to eight months of solid cloud coverage was very depressing. But I did eventually notice that people were way too nice for an area with one million people in it. Still I thought you all were very weird and I wanted out so i went to Eugene.

Two years later I reluctantly ended back up here and ended up seeing the good side of Portland....and now that is being overran.

The plain and simple fact is that we are not attracting the cultural ones; we get the ones who have money and read tourists digest or whatever and come here to take pictures of a plastic horse on a sidewalk, snap pictures of more dumb shit, and who feel the need to have a shopping bag or a group of soccer kids under their wing just to leave the house...This is not culture and I don't know what is up with the plastic horse shit.


@GUSTRATION: so your telling me that smaller, faster, and newer does not automatically equate to a positive contribution to society? Are you sure because minus 200 ft tall landfills full of perfectly good but useless shit and edible food, ridiculous obesity and depression rates, mind altering levels of television, incredibly fragmented mediums of communication between people, the need for five cars per household despite global warming, and an overall evolution away from actual human contact I thought the I-phone 6 raised peoples quality of life index by a point or two.
23
Oh please with the lack of understanding. No one's claiming everyone here is special. However, this state is not only special, but unique. It didn't get there on it's own and hell yeah, the mass in migration has affect the livability, the cost, the quality of life and has impacted the environment with trash all over that you would rarely see 20 years ago. This is not a criticism on those who move here and get it, who embrace the beauty and make it a better place. For the mouthy know it alls, stop the arrogance. When I moved here, I didn't claim to know everything. I spent years learning. If you've been here a short while or even a few years, you have a lot to absorb. Also, cut out the white supremacist crap. So you googled our history...that's nice. We kicked their asses out in the 90's. Oregon, is bar none, the friendliest state I've ever know and I've been all over the country. As far as racism, the most racism I experienced was where I grew up, NY! We welcome those who appreciate where they've moved to and help make a difference. For those who think they can even begin to understand this state from your brief encounters, open your hearts and minds. No place is perfect, but for those of us who've been here for a long time, we know what's changed both for the better and for the worse. Love your new state and respect the fears and concerns of those who've been here. We don't wanna be SF or NY or any other place and we resent the rising cost of housing which is insane. Not all your fault, but know what it's like to gentrify people out of their homes and those who replace them have this cavalier attitude. JS peace out
24
Thanks TtT. From the article - ""that special "thing" longtime Portlanders possess that makes this city the kind of place where people love to move."

I was simply pointing out the ridiculous nature of that quote, and it sounds like you agree.

The state is mainly special and unique due to its geography (proximity to the coast but has mountains, the gorge, rivers running through portland, and a very diverse climate as you move further east). It is "unique", but you could say the same thing about any state.

I disagree that "transplants" are littering any more than "natives". How many times have you seen some nasty fool throw a cigarette butt on the ground like it is nothing? Has been happening for decades, and it aint "wealthy, techie" transplants who are doing it.

The cost of living in all major cities that have grown has increased substantially over the past 10 - 20 years. Yes, Portland has had a bit of a quicker catch up over the past 3-5 years after many years of slower rises, but over the longer term, this has been a trend that has happened in most cities.

I used the white supremacist example as a metaphor. It wasn't a comment about the current state of Portland. However, since you brought it up, I would encourage you to do a little research on the subject. It is a well documented and widely held belief that Portland and Oregon still has a larger concentration of hate groups than many other areas. Google "Operation White Christmas".
25
Speaking of White Power, we need to "tweek" our gas and engines because every now and then Portland smells like LA in 1978.
26
Thanks for your civil reply, JTR. But I'm pretty savvy about hate groups and Oregon is not even on the list. Actually, by number, Pennsylvania is numero uno in the number of groups. By volume of people, Oregon doesn't make the top 10. Infact, NJ is on that list, as well as Virginia, along with the expected states in the deep South...ref: SPLC. I've been here 26 years and there is absolutely no question that slovenly littering, not just cigarette butts, but outright trash in the wilderness is at epic proportions and this was NEVER the case. I'm not referring to you, but the few transplants who make it bad for everyone else. Like anything else, there's good and bad and the sheer number of new people means the probability becomes greater that a portion of them are simply, douchebags, to be polite. But thank you for being nice about it instead of some of the childish responses I've seen. :))
28
You forgot to mention that they are expected to tolerate being hit on by overly persistent gays every time they turn around or bend over.
29
Portland is the place where everybody from the rest of the country who migrated to California and couldn't make the big time, move to, because here they get to play 'Let's Pretend'. Them, and of course, drug cartel members from Central America along with Jihadi refugees from Hilarity's War.

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