I live in Olympia, Washington, smack dab in the middle of both cities. I have two brothers who live in PDX. I have and continue to contemplate moving to The Rose City. Portland is closer to a wealth of recreational opportunities such as Sun River, Bend, Hood River, Drinkin' City (oops, that's Lincoln City), Mt. Hood, Seaside, Smith Rocks, on and on and on. Twice as many tri's as Washington state, twice if not thrice as many bike races. IMO, Portland warms up and dries up a little sooner than Seattle. Chance for harsher winter weather comming outta the gorge. More pedestrian and cyclist friendly downtown. More/better parks nearby (again, my opinion).

HTH

Brett

I haven't done Portland, but have visited Seattle many times. Absolutely beautiful when the sun is out. Lot's of fun stuff in seattle, plus you're close to Victoria, British Columbia, which is also really nice.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Portland. It's that easy. I've been to both many, many times and have also comtemplated a move to the NW. Portland is smaller and it feels smaller, although the city offers a lot in terms of outdoor activities, pubs, micorbrews, arts, culture, etc. Tons of great places to run. Housing is significantly cheaper than in Seattle. Both places have crappy freeway systems, so it'll be important to live close to where you work. I have friends that live in Lake Oswego, and it's awesome. With Nike and adidas headquartered there, there seems to be a 'respect' for outdoor enthusiasts. For me the biggest difference is the cost of living and the size of the two cities. Good luck.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

If you have kids, you might want to check out the school situation before moving to Portland. My folks (retired) live in eastern Oregon and talk about how the schools over there had to drop to 4 day weeks because of budget issues. The state is a fiscal mess. But it's also the most beautiful place on earth. Go figure.

Portland. Better weather, MUCH less traffic, no sales tax..... or you could live just across the river in Vancouver, WA and avoid the high Oregon Income tax (no State income tax in WA).

Good point made earlier about Portland schools though, they do have their funding problems. However, there are some very nice suburbs that are very close to the city that have wonderful schools.

Yeah both are wet, but contrary to popular belief, it doesn't rain all the time in Portland. It's been nearly two months since we've even had measurable rain. Summers are fairly dry, winters are damp but mild temps make up for it.

Recreation is endless, in 1.5 hours or less I can be on the beach or in the mountains.

Good luck,

I went to college in Seattle not too long ago.

Positive: it's a beautiful city, with great nightlife and restaurants. You've got the Olympic Peninsula and its rainforest just a few hours' drive to the west, and the Cascades not too far to the east. Canada's not too far north, and BC is damn pretty. Ferries can take you and your car just about whereever you want to go on Puget Sound, and SeaTac airport is an international hub. Seattle has one of the best public transportation systems I've seen. It's so good, in fact, that I'd argue that you don't really need a car there: you can take a bus to any part of Seattle if you have the time. There's also a pretty good athletic community there, with a great pedestrian/bike path that runs from near the University of Washington all the way north along the shore of Lake Washington.

Negative: if you want to live there, be prepared to be cold and wet. And wet and cold. And all variations in between. Also, be prepared for cold and gloom from October through May. (There are some clear days, but the majority overshadows the minority and to many, winter seems like one long drizzly twilight.) One of the more depressing things for me was to see the five-day forecast and see nothing but showers and 40 degrees, and the weather map showed storm after storm coming down from the northern Pacific...

Indifferent: the politics tend to be a bit liberal. There's a lot of granola there. Brown and frumpy sometimes seems to be the prevailing vogue. Tree huggers. Spotted owls. Bill Gates. Rick Neuheisel. Kenny G. (Don't laugh. He's got a cool float plane that he keeps at his private dock on Lake Washington. It's a red DeHavilland Beaver, I think...)

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__________________________________________________
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

Wonderful places both.

I agree with most of the other posters.

I know Portland well and would much prefer to live there: A bit less rain, less crowded and cheaper. It feels much less like a city, too. Still, it's growing like gangbusters. Just be prepared to pay $400K for a total beat-out home in the hood or $600K plus for a decent place by the time 2010 rolls around.

Of course, WW3 could be going on, we might roll into a global depression or natural disasters could strike the Best Coast (all long overdo), but barring those calamities, housing prices will keep going up. The best thing is to visit early and often and pay attention to the economy, prices, jobs, local government, etc.

I'm confident most of the rural West (I live in NW Montana) will fare well in the future, so that's where I have staked my claim. Boise, Spokane, Missoula, Bend, Coeur d'Alene are all less cool than the metroplexes, but nature is even closer and houses are half the price: Worth if it if you can find suitable employment.

good luck,

-TB

I'd agree with most of the above with the exception that if you want to live in an inner-city/downtown/cosmopolitan area, I'd probably take Seattle over Portland. Portland would like to be a big city, with real sports, arts, etc, but it just isn't. That is also part of it's charm though. In any case, a lot of people move there and it doesn't stick, so be prepared to back out if you can't handle the rain.

The public schools actually in the Portland school district aren't great, but there are two great private high schools in Portland, and the many of the outlying suburbs (Lake Oswego, West Linn) have good school systems. Lots of Portland's suburbs are very affluent and aren't dealing with the school funding crunch as much as inner city Portland and the schools in Eastern and Southern Oregon.

That's at least some good news about the schools. By the way, we're headed to Oregon next week for a family vacation (celebrating my parents' 40th Anniversary at Wallowa Lake). I was talking with a neighbor about the trip and she told me that she and her husband almost moved to Portland a couple of years ago. She visited there, though, and remarked she thought it was a "godless city". I guess the weekend she was visiting, there was a witch/pagen festival and she was shocked -- SHOCKED -- at the art in some of the galleries. She also mentioned she didn't see any churches. Ridiculous; absolutely ridiculous. Where does she live now -- a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Great choice, babe; God is definitely in the 'hood.

As a card-carrying liberal, I told my husband afterwards that the Kerry/Edwards sign was going up in the yard immediately, the Planned Parenthood bumpersticker would soon grace my car, and I would be out campaigning in favor of gay marriage. He nixed the yard sign, though -- something about him voting for Bush (can you believe I'm still married to him!). Man, she pissed me off.

Seems like the places with the most churches (especially evangelical Christian churches) also have some of the highest rates of domestic violence, assaults, child molestation ... Here in Montana, we have the highest rates for drunk driving fatalities and teenage suicides ... It would surprise no one this state is solid red. In Portland and in the Bay Area, I viewed myself as pretty moderate and was irked by some of the political correctness. Here, I'm considered liberal (example: I don't blame all the forest fires on environmentalists) ... I've quit talking politics with most people here. It goes nowhere.

I live in Seattle and have been to Portland a few times. Even though it may rain most days in the winter it doesn't rain all day or very hard. In winter I run 3x a week at lunch and only run in the rain maybe 10-20 days a year. As my daughter says "it's not real rain unless it makes you squint". Local sprint tri's have 800-1300 people show up. Great hiking, climbing and mt. biking in the cascades, sailing, kayaking on the sound or the lake. Winter: downhill and cross-country skiing and after-work night skiing. I ski 2-3 days a week from nov to april. Jan-feb weather: 40 deg and drizzle during the day, 35 and drizzle at night. No sun for a month at a time. Summer weather: sunny, 75-80 during the day and 60 at night. Summer rarely starts before the 4th of july.