I am considering moving to Portland, Oregon for uni; is it really as bad as people say?
It’s very hard for me to tell; I’ve lived here all my life. An influx of people combined with stagnant housing supply has made a fairly large population of homeless drug addicts and court rulings about tent camping mean that it’s pretty common for me to walk by the charred remains of tents that were burnt down by people starting open fires inside to stay warm.
The city also didn’t used to be covered in mounds of garbage, I’m salty about that.
That said, talking to people who have moved here from other cities it is apparently significantly worse in a lot of places in the US, so you may see real improvement.
It’s still not a very dangerous city by US standards.
Also if there’s a protest downtown you just route around it, but for the last couple of years people have been too cynical and exhausted. I’d expect some more if someone like Trump or Desantis win the presidency, but it will mostly be confined to a few blocks downtown. If you aren’t working in a government building or a business in what is really a very small area of downtown it’s pretty much fine.
Reed’s still good (that’s not a uni though \u2013 it doesn’t do graduate education, though it sends the highest share of undergrads in the country there), OHSU is still good, I’d wave off PSU
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