Portland Overview

From Sunday, September 19, 2010, through Monday, September 27, Di Yin and I traveled around Oregon, mostly visiting Portland, Crater Lake, and Ashland.

Between the twenty-fours I spent in Portland at the beginning of this trip and the two days I spent at the end of the trip, I think I got an accurate impression of the city. I also visited Portland once before, with D in 2002. During that visit, we biked around the city and along the Columbia River. I've aggregated my general observations of Portland into this post; they come mainly from this visit, as my earlier one was so long ago that I don't have many concrete memories of it.

Portland doesn't look much like a city. It doesn't have many tall office buildings and has very few skyscrapers. Also, there's no congestion. The streets, even downtown, are surprisingly uncrowded, both in terms of people and cars. Incidentally, the lack of cars might be explained by Portland discriminating against drivers. For instance, parking is enforced even on Sundays (til 7pm).

Many parts of Portland don't feel like a city either. It feels small: you can get anywhere in Portland in about 10-15 minutes. It's amazing. Also, there are lots of two-lane roads--it feels like Austin in this regard--and consequently doesn't feel dense enough, like there's not enough traffic flowing for it to be a real city.

But, it's like a city in one feature: there are lots of people asking for money, probably more than in all other cities I've visited. Many are not traditional panhandlers but rather people walking around asking for a few bucks to get a hostel. There are, however, also traditional homeless people.

Whether a city or not, Portland is attractive in design and style. Here's a long, dense list of reasons. Read and absorb it slowly; this paragraph is by far the most important in this post. Portland has large, leafy, appealing parks, such as Washington Park, and attractive, upscale neighborhoods, such as King's Hill, Nob Hill, and Irvington. It has many nice green spaces dotted around the city (like London). I've had good experiences with the food, ranging from perfect pizzas to top-notch Southern fried chicken. Plus, it has a vibrant food cart scene downtown. It's pedestrian and bicycle friendly. For instance, one day (Sunday the 26th), we saw that some roads were closed for the Sunday Parkways, a periodic event where they close streets in a big loop and let people mosey along doing whatever (walking, rollerblading, biking, etc.). In general, it feels like a chill town. There's lots of street art. Finally, as an added bonus, the beautiful Columbia River Gorge is just up the interstate a bit.