I’m feeling a bit stifled in my city and want to move. My priorities are $1500-2000/mo rent and a path to an affordable house (see: picture), a unionised city workforce, good greenspace with an extensive parks system, good biking infrastructure, a good public university, and a good political scene. That leaves Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and maybe an East Coast city I haven’t researched yet. Of those, Portland is at the top of my list because I’m getting an ocean for Great Lakes prices.
What’s bad about the city that makes people move away? Is there a better option in Oregon, especially one that would let me commute into Portland without whatever problems it has?
I was making a similar decision a few years ago. With a similar list of places to go.
I ended up in semi-rural Minnesota.
The short list of why:
Cost of housing was way lower than anywhere on either coast for what we got.
I’m, for better or worse, a midwesterner and the culture does have an appeal to me.
This location was one that appeared to be least impacted by climate change in the short (next 30ish years) term, in the models I looked at.
The water table is quite high here and water is likely to be available in the coming years, as fresh water will be more scarce in the future.
The politics here are surprisingly progressive, even in semi-rural areas. (I moved from a deeply reactionary state)
Portland was on our short list, the things that kind of killed it for me were the cost, getting anywhere close to the ocean is expensive, and I believe at the time the Pacific Northwest was under a heat dome. Then there were torrential rains and mudslides in the region.
You have potential for tornados and strong thunderstorms here, but nothing like where we used to live.
My sister moved from Omaha to Minneapolis with her wife. They really seem to enjoy it. I’m far enough out from the cities that it’s a decision to go, but not crazy when we want to. My cousin lived in a commune in Minneapolis for a few years in the early 00s, didn’t have a great time with it though lol.
You will learn to tolerate the cold. Once you learn the right way to dress it’s not as bad as it sounds. Cold place, warm people. Even the reactionaries here are better than everywhere else I’ve lived. PSL also has a presence in the cities.
Semi-rural Minnesota right outside of Minneapolis is my other big option. It’d be nice to get a homestead that I can bike from, and especially to have the long-term water stability since that’s the scariest part of Colorado. Is winter driving as sketchy as it is in Michigan? Lake effect snow/ice really killed that state for me.
The plows and winter road care are very robust, at least in my area. I’m in Central Minnesota, north of the cities. If you live on something like a homestead (we’re on 3 acres off of a county road in mostly farmland but still paved) you will want a 4wd vehicle maybe 1-2 days a year based on my experience. Otherwise I can’t imagine it’d be any worse than MI, but I also work from home and my “commute” is taking the kids to school in the morning. So… It can be sketchy, but usually not long.
If you wanna watch it play out in real time keep an eye on 511mn.org over the next few days. We’re supposed to go from pretty warm (40+ F) to 5-10" of snow pretty quickly. This will let you directly see how things get plowed and even the highways and roads themselves look via the camera systems.