Honestly I don't understand some people's fascination with Portland, Oregon, a place in the Pacific Northwest where I was born, raised, and lived for 28 years.

It is a dirty expensive city sometimes referred to as "Little Rock (Arkansas) on the Willamette." What you might not pay in rent you pay in VERY EXPENSIVE utilities. Then it rains, rains, rains and the air pollution is bad (since Portland sits in a bowl such as Denver). Plus you sit in traffic most of the time because the traffic infrastructure has really not been expanded in 25 years because all of the public money for such projects has been invested in a public transportation which less than 8% of the people actually use. Yet the progressive politicians there keep taking the "moon in the sky is green cheese" approach that people are going to use public transportation all the time.

When I live in Portland it was was a beautiful small city. I left in time.

Not only that, Oregon is economically on the same level as Arkansas with a VERY high unemployment rate. Portlanders and Oregonians are on the whole biggoted and small minded. I should know...I got to feel it on my own flesh.

Surely So. Cal and San Diego have their very big problems, ("it has its faults") but when you put everything together this is the BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO LIVE!