We have been tossing around the idea of moving out west from the NYC area to Portland or Seattle (leaning towards the latter). Any folks from the area that can weigh in? I like that Seattle is a bit more of a city, and I love that both are very outdoors-oriented with open space right outside the city. I've been to both, though my visit was in August so most of the weather was nice, with the exception of 1 day. The weather is the only thing I'm hesitant about, and I know the job markets in both aren't the best, especially Portland. I grew up around NYC, and both myself and the other have lived here in Brooklyn for years now. Prior to that we both spent almost 10 years in Boston. I think it would be nice to have a change, we both like that area, and frankly, NYC is depressingly expensive. We will never be able to afford to buy a place to call home, even within a barely reasonable commuting distance. It's definitely an idea we are revisiting more and more often.
Here you go:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/teach-me-about-seattle-wa-from-a-motorsports-persp/61057/page1/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/more-education-about-seattle-wa-please/63491/page1/
I really like Portland. It is smaller than Seattle, but I feel like it strikes a really nice balance between having the activities and attractions of a city in a more convenient, low-key package. Portland has rush hour, while Seattle has proper big city traffic jams... That said, I telecommute and have sworn off commuting to the suburbs, where a lot of the tech jobs are. There are only a couple of paths back and forth between Portland and Beaverton/Hillsboro, and every morning too many people from each side get up and swap sides...
It's no NYC. I've only been there once. I expected to find it overwhelming and unpleasant, but actually found it really neat. Portland doesn't have that sort of bustle, really.
To a great extent, people tend to live in a neighborhood here, at least in Portland proper. By which I mean that if you live in SE, you can probably find one of everything you need in SE, and probably won't make a ton of trips to the other quadrants (Portland is split E/W by the Willamette river, and N/S by Burnside st, with a funny wedge that's just North)
Job market probably depends a lot on what you do. A few months ago a recruiter told me the unemployment rate among .NET software developers in Portland was about 2%...
The show Portlandia is a caricature, but it is not a wholesale fabrication; there are grains of truth.
