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Comment by badtuple | Hacker News Reader

Either Seattle or stay in Portland. I'm happily employed in Portland and not looking to change gigs, but if my current job went 100% remote I'd probably move to Seattle. I love the PNW, and Portland's just a bit too small of a city for me.

I did the nomad thing for a couple years and loved it, but I sort of got it out of my system. The lifestyle can be lonely. And at this point in my life I'd rather cultivate a life of my own instead of running around enjoying little bits of life elsewhere. Not that I wouldn't take advantage of the ability to travel much more freely!

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Everytime someone says Portland, this article comes to mind: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

My friends in Portland are all intentionally dismissive about it and for that reason I'd never suggest Portland to anybody I care about as a place to live.

The traffic is the #1 reason not to move to Portland. It's a six-lane city that only had three lanes planned for. Sure, the drivers may be better than Florida but at least Florida (outside Orlando) wasn't designed with confusing lanes the width of half a car.

Agreed that Portland isn't a great place for cars. However I think if we grow healthily as a city we can maximize public transportation, expand the MAX and street car, have dedicated bus lanes, and make it so that it isn't a problem.

The suburbs can't escape cars, but I bet we can make Portland proper a utopia for pedestrians.

I already barely use cars. It's wonderful compared to Orlando (where I happened to grow up).

It's so ironic that Portland has some of the worst street infrastructure and yet some of the best rail infrastructure. I agree that expanding MAX would greatly help the situation.

The city does not want to encourage people to drive more. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It is not ironic, it is 100% intentional. The city does not want to buy into the "build more lanes" ponzi scheme because it cannibalizes the livability of the city, and communities near large highways shrivel up and die.

The city has a growth boundary and there are a ton of national parks and awesome nature. There is nowhere to expand to, so we have to use the land we have available to us.

The best solution for this is to live in the neighborhood you enjoy and don't travel much. Portland is very walkable/bike friendly and has many vibrant districts all over the city which have everything you need.

Don’t forget taxes!

I moved out of PDX because of both, still return a month a year but man, the traffic is so awful.

I'm dismissive of it for sure. Portland and the PNW in general is so gorgeous and full of great creative people who know how to be themselves. I'm not going to avoid it and live life in fear of something that may or may not happen.

When the big one does hit though, there's definitely a long list of people who are going to be totally entitled to a good "I told you so".

Portland's a long way from the coast.

Portland is not in the extreme hazard zone, but it will experience sustained (3-5 minutes) of shaking that will be strong enough to reduce much of the city to rubble. The city is predominantly build with unreinforced masonry that will crumble.

The threat of an earthquake which may happen anytime between now and 500 years from now doesn't bother me. It seems better than living somewhere with frequent flooding, tornadoes or hurricanes like many people do.

Since you mention travel...I love the Portland airport and hate the Seattle one. Not the deciding factor of course.

PDX is such a lovely airport. I’m always excited to grab a blue star doughnut before my flight. SEA on the other hand... I suppose all of this is moot now anyway, I don’t see myself getting on a plane any time soon :(

Did you do the nomad thing in the PNW?

Not entirely. When nomading about I did hit Portland and Seattle, but I also lived in Lisbon, Porto, London, Budapest, Marrakech, Vienna, New York for about 3 months each and a bunch of other places for much smaller periods of time just passing through seeing friends.

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