Rustico, Yes; though people make fun of P.R. of PDX, there is good spirit of community here with things like rose festival. Air is cleaner too. There is good public transport (MAX light rail). But the roads are under maintained for the wet & colder weather here. But the most puzzling aspect is the local governments’ iron hand on land use policy. The tri-county area (Multnomah/Washington/Clackamas) are extremely stingy with building permits and that has caused a lot of ugly “vertical” growth – like 2000sqft homes on 4000sqft lots. Some of the newer developments remind me of Tokyo. This in a place where you drive 20 miles out of town and it is all empty. They don’t even grow anything valuable (like in California). A popular T-shirt sold here has the slogan “Keep Oregon Weird”.
