[Find more of our excellent and good vibes-filled “Say Nice Things About Portland” guide here.—eds.]
Portland’s 82nd Avenue is a little busted, and a little brilliant.
It’s a state highway and a main street. It’s a commerce epicenter more varied and useful than downtown Portland, and the site of two recently shuttered Walmarts. It’s home to some of the city’s best unpretentious cuisine, and a corporate fast food parade. It’s a noisy, deadly car traffic jam, and host to one of TriMet’s most popular and reliable bus routes. It’s a series of used car lots that gives way to patches of old farmland. It’s where Portland ends for some of the city’s residents, and where it barely begins for others.
I’ve lived half a mile off of SE 82nd Ave for the last six years. I’ve come to realize that the street is a cipher, and how it translates depends entirely on the decoder. It’s a street with big problems and big potential, big champions and big critics, and so much depends on which literal side of the street you’re looking at it from.
In other words, it’s a hell of a lot like Portland in 2023. I think that’s why I love it so much.
