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This happens all the time, the funny thing is this is literally the street Ned Flanders was named for. A few other characters \u2013 Kearney, Lovejoy, Quimby*, Chalmers \u2013 have local street names. Matt Groening came from Portland, and Springfield is basically modeled after it (mostly - the Springfield/Shelbyville rivalry is from Eugene/Springfield).
The complete range of characters fit there, at least when the show started - the rich old money baron, the slack-jawed yokel, the sea captain, the local TV celebrity, the overeager Christian. I guarantee Dr. Hibbert and the Blue-Haired Lawyer practiced west of the river, Dr. Nick and Lionel Hutz east of it. Bumblebee Man and Fat Tony are the only ones I can’t justify.
The nuclear power plant is really the hydro plants built on the Columbia, Capital City is Salem. The elementary schools actually look like that, and actually have janitorial outbuildings (for the boilers, not live-in shacks).
(Or maybe it’s the nuclear power plant that used to be just down the river. \u2014ed)
Moe’s’ neigborhood - not just the diveyness of the local haunt but the fact it’s on a commercial streetfront street next to a gratuitously themed store - King Toot’s.
The fact that places like Android’s Dungeon, Noiseland Arcade, Herman’s Military Antiques, the air conditioning-specific store It Blows and all the other one-off gags still exist as curbside storefronts\u2026
Scott once asked what exactly I had for Portland and I never gave a proper response but I guess this gets at some of the charm I found on arrival and hope endures
* Beverly Cleary’s “Ramona” series was also set in Portland, and her first and last names are each lifted from local streets
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