Portlandia’s Portland

According to the comedy sketch, Portlandia, Portland, Oregon is populated with ultra-liberal, tattooed, pierced, artsy, environmentally conscious hipsters. We all shop in community owned co-op stores, travel only by bicycle, and eat exclusively organic, locally produced food. 


Apparently we’re living a liberal utopian dream...

“Portland's almost an alternative universe. It's like Gore won. The Bush administration never happened. In Portland, it's almost like cars don't exist. They ride bikes, double decker bikes, they ride unicycles, they ride the tram, they ride skateboards.”

“In Portland you can go to a record store and sell your CDs.”

“In Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art.” 

“It's the city where young people go to retire.”

Does this lampooned dream of the 90’s actually offer something better? Only time will tell. It is nice to be in the cultural spotlight anyway.


Every city has its annoying features. Here are a few of Portland’s: There’s a guy at every freeway off ramp begging for money. You can’t walk anywhere in the city without being asked to sign petitions or give money to save one thing or another. There are way too many creative types here, many who will sell their creativity for under market value, which makes it difficult for those of us making our living as creative professionals. Constant rain gets kind of annoying after the first month. 


Some of the great things about living in Portland: Within an hour you can drive to the beach, wine country, or the mountains. Local, organic foods are abundant. There’s a Starbucks on every corner. We have awesome hiking and biking trails. You can stroll through Portland and go from prim, proper and pristine to wild and weird within a few short blocks. You’ll find farm animals living in the city on 50x100 lots!

And we have the best doughnuts evah...