Originally posted by: Evander
Didn't see this thread before, but recently I've become strongly interested in moving to Portland (I'm overseas at the moment though). Below is a cut-and-paste of part of an email i sent to my dad about why I want to go there- anyone care to comment?
"Up til now I've never mentioned anything about Portland- well that's b/c
I didn't know how good it sounded until a few weeks ago. By chance I
came across an article and video on the web about how Portland is
America's most bicycle friendly city (and supposedly the most bike
friendly place in the western hemisphere outside of Amsterdam). As I've
said before, I much prefer living in a city where I can easily get
around anywhere by bike instead of driving across wide distances by car,
which is one of the reasons I came back to Japan in the first place.
This article perked my interest, and after a little more digging I also
found that Portland is America's most vegetarian city, which would be
great and a such a huge relief compared to Japan. It's also a city of
500,000+ with reasonable apartment rental, something I couldn't find in
New York City, which helped push me be back to Tokyo. Those are my top
3 reasons for wanting to move to Portland, but here's the icing on the cake:
- seems to be relatively libertarian/socially liberal as Ron Paul just
got 15% of the primary vote a few weeks ago. Previously Paul's previous
best showing to my knowledge was when got 2nd place at 14% in Nevada
back when there where still a number of Republicans still in the race
-second most eco-friendly city in the world
-mild winters. although it's not generally not as hot as I'd like it to
be throughout the year, mild winters are a plus
-it's not so far from the coast
-OR is supposedly a beautiful place with plenty of nature
-no sales tax (though a relatively high income tax)
-has Sapporo Japan as a sister city, should indicate a chance to
interact with some Japanese people
I got most of my information from these 2 links:
http://www.democracynow.org/20..._bicycle_friendly_city
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon "