Light Rail Connecting Portland with Milwaukie

Find out about Trimet's
Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project 
and how it will impact that corridor of the city...
(I predict it's about to make Milwaukie neighborhoods very popular!)

5 Year High: Portland Home Sales

Portland Home Sales Hit a 5 Year High
 Says the Portland Business Journal

Portland: Best for Young People

Portland/Multnomah County Named One of the 100 Best Communities for Young People

"The national award was given to Portland/Multnomah County to recognize its outstanding and innovative work in addressing the high school dropout crisis and for its programs and services that make it an outstanding place for youth to live, learn and grow."

Finding Your "Best Place to Live"

"Best Places to Live" lists aren't all they're cracked up to be. 

Looking at Money magazine's story on the best places to live in America, I roll my eyes at many of the findings. You won't find Portland, Oregon's inner city neighborhoods there, for one thing.

If all neighborhoods were the same, then, sure, finding a home in the middle of big-impersonal-house-land with an Olive Garden around the corner would be everybody's idea of The American Dream. And that's what too many of these lists list as being the kind of life we all want.

Maybe Money magazine knows exactly who it's talking to. But it sure isn't talking about the neighborhoods and lifestyle of Portland, Oregon. 

(Although, goodness knows, Portland Oregon often ranks in "Best Places to Live" lists regularly...for bikers, and river rats, and artists, and foodies, and characters...)

When I was in high school in Littleton, Colorado, we used to drive out to the edge of town, which was County Line Road, and park our cars by big piles of sheep dung. You would have to drive about 30 miles to begin to see a flat-topped rocky outcropping that marked Castle Rock, on your southward way to Colorado Springs. Something like the lusty thrill of illicit freedom sent us out the edge of the prairie at night, in the twinkling dark. Not even the smell sent us packing.

Twenty years later, when you drive along County Line Road, you are smack in the middle of deepest, Car-is-King suburbia. National Geographic took pictures of this place called "Highland's Ranch" a decade ago, white house after white house, stacked like cards, painted not only white but also oyster, beige, or ivory. Wide roads connect these masses of McMansions with the companies that feed and serve them: Wendy's, Starbuck's, Albertson's, Outback Steak House, Best Buy, Target. Toys R Us, Hobby Lobby, Starbuck's, Krispie Kreme, DSW Shoe Warehouse, Dress Barn, and Starbuck's. 

Memories of growing up in suburbia are the only ones I have. A high school boyfriend from downtown Denver used to drive all the way to where my mom lived, and, as the nighttime hiss of summer sprinklers sputtered to life, and he embraced me in the flawless carpet of green grass, he sighed: "Ahhhhh. Suburbia." For an inner-city boy, it was a kind of dream. Nobody can deny that it's conveniences are many. It's intended perfection may mesmerize us.

Yet the connoisseur of city-close neighborhood life is looking for something else. Either escaping what trapped them as kids, or wanting more of what we are used to, The Neighborhoodly have a different standard for what makes a living and a lifestyle. Here in Portland, Oregon, it is a youthful and welcoming diversity that makes everyday life exciting. Tastes that challenge, sights that may affront, clever characters that make a day memorable. Good intentions, and good vibrations, beauty and improvisation.

The internet has conditioned us to expect "quick tips," "hot lists," and short cuts. Magazines have copied internet pacing, and stories have a peppy and facile pace that refuses the subtleties of distinct impressions. When Money Magazine touts Highlands Ranch as one of the best places to live, ever, it is recommending a town less than twenty-five years old that crowds the grasslands where the ranches and farmland south of Denver used to begin. 

There is no main street, no center, no history, and nothing off-putting or alternative...except for the few suburban kids trying to skateboard on sidewalks there, begging to feel the illicit thrill of freedom. The food you eat has been approved by someone in a corporate office: it won't offend you, it won't challenge you, it will recreate a muffled mythic sensation of another country or of Grandma's Kitchen. A grandma you may never have had, in a family that may never have existed. 

The parks are full of children playing soccer. Not tattooed guys slowly doing tai chi or a young family teaching their husky to sing "My Funny Valentine" as there might be in a Portland neighborhood. 

There are thousands of Highland's Ranches all over America. And it's okay to want that kind of life; but when considering the "Best Places to Live" in America, it may easily have as many downsides as advantages for the discerning lifestyle artist.

Take time to figure out how exactly you want to live, when considering buying a house in a Portland neighborhood. Because you are buying into also a lifestyle, and purchasing, with your commitment, stake in a certain kind of world. A neighborhood: a community, a vast and flavorful and disparate collection of people who surround you and provide the services you will depend on as well as the history and landscape of the place firmly set in reality. A real place, with a past, present and future.

Educated Home Buying & Reaping What You've Sown

I just had a lovely chat with a gardener-escrow officer near my office. Noticing a homemade jar of sauerkraut on her desk, we launched into a discussion of all things related to perma culture, early bolting spinach, an overabundance of tomatoes, gardening in Germany, getting rid of bland growing carpets a.k.a. front yards, seasonal foods and traditional food combining, et cetera. As you do, in Portland. Some of the most exciting talk here is of making do/growing your own, and about food and nourishment in general. Portlanders bask in the flavah of being part of the preeminent Food City of the moment.

Kimberly Allen of WFG National Title Insurance Company brought to my attention the Portland Housing Center. If you are a new homebuyer, interested in a healthy and rational process of qualifying for your own home, look into their services. A registration fee of $65. gains access to their counseling and classes, in order to become educated in one of the most important financial commitments you'll ever make: paying off a home over the course of decades.

There are programs out there to make home ownership a journey of support and equity: for folks meeting the income criteria, their IDA plan matches the funds one saves for a down payment. It's vital to know what exactly you are getting into, and to that end, our society has an interest in citizens going into homeownership with eyes open so we can commit to purchasing homes that are affordable to pay off, with the expectation of success. The Portland Housing Center is all about citizen education and functioning neighborhoods. Their FAQ provides an overview of their services.

It's Getting Better All the Time

U.S. home prices show first annual gain since 2010; Portland area up 3%
Mortgage rates fall as housing market continues to recover