What's Vancouver, Washington like?

I thought it was very ugly, architecturally, but only drove through.

It's the Paris of southwestern Washington state!

Er... well, that's only comparatively speaking. I mean, the only competition would be Aberdeen...

It's like Portland but with more old people.

A few years ago it looked like a full on depressed meth town but there is tons of new (niceish) buildings/homes being built. I predict it will be the next hipsterish town in the Northwest after everyone is priced out of Beaverton/Portland etc

A lot of Oregonians have moved there to escape taxes and the filth of Portland streets, so there have been some improvements as far as dining and entertainment options, but it’s still limited.

If you’re looking for somewhere clean and not in need of being able to walk out your door and have everything at your fingertips, I think it may be ok. If you need constant activity and stimulation, it’s probably too sleepy.

A few years ago they had a major waterfront revitalization project, but I’ve never been to check it out.

In Vancouver, Washington all seems to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

OP I hope you love singin' in the rain because it averages 163 rainy days per year.

but isn't it mostly in the winter, r7? I'd rather have rain than snow. In the midwest it's always cloudy in the winter, and often with snow.

That’s 163 days with some type of precipitation, that’s not 163 days of solid rain. There are plenty of days it may rain 30 minutes then the sun comes out for the rest of the world.

The bigger issue is the increasingly hot summers. 90’s used to be rare, now it’s regularly 90 in April.

OP if you do get serious about moving there, make sure you get a place with AC. It used to not be necessary, so a lot of housing doesn’t have it. Most newer construction will.

World = day ^

For just facts about cities I have always loved City-Data, it will tell just about data you could want to know about a city, the forum tab at the top you will find discussions.

I lived in Portland, just across the Columbia River from Vancouver. You can basically expect rain during a 9 month period. Only in the summer is it likely to be sunny. The other 9 months you can pretty much expect rain or else cloudy gray skies if not raining. The rain is not usually a pouring rain, it's more like a constant light drizzle. If you crave sunshine and don't like rain or gray skies, the Pacific Northwest is not for you.

"Only in the summer is it likely to be sunny," is a fallacy. Does it rain a lot? Yes, but there are plenty of sunny days throughout the winter.

No, you've got those dark low-hanging clouds nine months of the year, during which time you will forget the sun ever existed.

r14 San Francisco basically

I can confirm what R12 and R14 are stating. There is not a lot of sunshine in those nine months of the year. It’s more of a brighter cloudiness contrasted with a grey overcast.

The climate certainly has changed since I lived there (1980s), but when I lived there, weeks and weeks could go by without ever seeing full sunshine. It was either clouds or very light, misty rain. The summer was more sunny, on average.

But it was never super cold. I recall snow falling only twice in the whole time I lived there. I liked that kind of cool, cloudy climate, but the allergies I had in the springtime there were far worse than any other place I have lived, due to the abundance and diversity of the plant life.

Friends I knew when I lived there now tell me it has changed; that there are more hot days than before, and that it can rain harder, instead of the typical continuous mist like it often was back then.

As a side note, I read that Tonya Harding lives with her family in Vancouver, Washington, or in an outlying area near it. Not sure if that is still true or not.

If you like outdoor sports, you have the Columbia River rushing by and tons of water sports, drive east a bit and there is Mt Hood or skiing. Lots of outdoorsy things to do and Portland is a decent sized town. Seattle is a nice weekend get away. Cost of living is a bit lower for you in Vanvouver. I live in Bellevue, a burb of Seattle and it is one of the most expensive places to live in the US. Gates and Bezos call it home. They have a local housing assistance program called ARCH that allows people with low income and no real property to rent very nice apartments in very nice locations at a nominal rent. I am one of them.

I live in Bellevue, too neighbor. It’s so expensive. If I left, I could never afford to return.

Bellingham and Olympia are the two cities in western Washington worth a look. Vancouver is just downscale suburbia.

People call it Vantucky for obvious reasons.

Just across the 205 bridge to Oregon and about 10 miles east is Rooster Rock State Park, one of the few legal gay nude beaches in the country, and a natural paradise in the Columbia Gorge. You'd really only find nude people there during the summer however. Vancouver doesn't really have its own downtown. It has malls and such. At the moment, Portland's downtown is not appealing to most people because of the amount of rioting, homeless and so forth. But once upon a time there were interesting things to do and see there (amazing Powell's bookstore) and character to be found in the adjacent Chinatown, with the famous Hung Far Low Restaurant. Vancouver feels like an extensive suburb of Portland. It's flatter than Portland and the houses are generally on bigger lots and newer than the housing stock of Portland. I don't think there's much independent gay life there. Gays who live in Vancouver probably travel into Portland to go to bars or to the bathhouses over there.

We went to Rooster Rock a few times, as well as another nude beach on Sauvie Island, closer to Portland. I've eaten at Hung Far Low and I have a picture of the sign. Downtown Portland was very nice back in those days, clean and green with many parks and those water fountains that never stop running. It was a great downtown then. There is a brick with my name on it somewhere in Pioneer Courthouse Square, though I've never seen it as I moved away before it was finally built. The Family Zoo (mentioned in the TV movie "Prayers for Bobby") was my home away from home for 2 years. It was a gay bar under different names from 1947 until sometime in the 1990s. I miss that Portland and Vancouver but I'm sure it has changed so much that it would be disappointing to visit again.

R17 she does live in the area. Sadly she’s gone a bit Q Loony.

No sales tax in OR so you can live a low-tax life. The Couve is getting better but you’ll find yourself wanting to go to Portland often. But, lately not downtown. Two clothing-optional beaches in the summer on the OR side, as others mentioned.

Is there public transportation to Portland? Would they ever extend the light rail across the river?

The barrier is political. Obviously they already crossed the WIllamette

It's lovely, I had a mother who lived there once.

It was Vantucky but is basically being demolished and a new, gleaming, expensive suburb for monied young people (many refugees from Portland) is being built in its place.

Some of DB Cooper's ransom money was found on a sand bar 5 miles downstream from downtown Vancouver.

This is what I mean:

Today’s an example of “9 months of rain and gray skies.”

It was foggy this morning and burned off to this. The 9 months of rain weather is becoming more and more a thing of the past each year.

Does Chuck Palahniuk still write twisted, disturbing gay literature up there?

R32 he is still in the area, but I don't know if he lives in Portland proper these days. It has been reported that he was living in Vancouver and also "up the gorge" at one point in recent years.

I thought he was married to Helen Hunt and living in Hawaii somewhere...

Supposedly (I haven't checked), Vancouver itself is getting slightly more hip, especially downtown. But it still votes Republican. And bear in mind that crossing the river to and from Portland can be a nightmarishly slow process. (For R26 - everyone in Vancouver is violently opposed to extending the light rail and prefers to spend half their lives in their cars.)

I have several family members who moved from Portland to Vancouver a few years ago. It is boring as hell, and the restaurants are terrible. You have to time your trips across to Portland based upon traffic and the time of day. The people also seem kind of trashy. Portland has gone to hell too (crime and massive homelessness) but at least the food is good.

It's not 9 months of solid grey every day. Spring and fall have many days that are partly sunny/partly cloudy.

But, if you're a "sun" person, this is NOT the part of the world for you.

It's also getting progressively hotter (as someone else mentioned up above) and you will need A/C. Portland metro area averages quite a bitt hotter than Seattle.

Vancouver WA is....dull. If you're gay or arty and like a variety of gay/arty things to do, you'll be constantly driving over into Portland and traffic can be horrible.

That may change as more people get priced out of Portland but it's usually older people interested in "settling down" and buying a home who want to move to some place like Vancouver. They're not necessarily moving and expecting/wanting lots of fun night clubs and restaurants and shops.

I lived in Vancouver for two years and then across the river in Portland for another two. Vancouver is sprawling and devoid of personality. There are a lot of strip malls, chain restaurants and auto repair shops. It's nice being able to drive to Portland but you have to be really careful with the traffic coming back. The northbound lane of I5 is a parking lot between 3 and 7 PM. R5 is half correct, most people choose Vancouver over Portland for tax reasons but there's nothing resembling "filth" in Portland unless you count the homeless people that are in every single major American city. R5 needs to see more of the world if he considers wealthy, safe Portland filthy.

[quote]If you need constant activity and stimulation, it’s probably too sleepy.

I believe OP is a dozy pensioner.

When was the last time you were in Portland, R38? I was there in September, and what you describe, safe and clean are not words to describe its current state.

The SoloFlex guy from the eighties used to live there. Before he embezzled millions of dollars from the company and ended up in prison. Scott Madden or something like that name.

^^^^^^^^^sorry, $250,000^^^^^^^^^^^

r40 is right. Portland looks like a dump these days. There are homeless camps and garbage everywhere and doors and windows are boarded up around the city, not just downtown.

Yes, R43, my house is fine, but the neighborhood around it (Laurelhurst/SE) has so much graffiti, garbage, people on the streets, so many businesses boarded up. So many fires in SE, apt. buildings/strips of businesses. Curious fires, where I'll bet new apts will be built.

Has like 90% Chinese citizens.

Downtown Portland is a lovely city marred by the presence of a lot of homeless tents. But it is not a blighted city. All they have to do is get rid of the homeless encampments.

All those fires in Portland are fishy as fuck.

I guess I had better just live in my memories of downtown Portland in the 1980s, rather than go there again now and be let down.

Is this the same as Vancouver Canada? Like how Niagara Falls has a US and Canada side?

No R49, this Vancouver is right across the Columbia river from Portland. Vancouver BC is about 5 hours north.

R38 , R5 here, I travel plenty. Portland is a shithole compared to what it used to be like just a few short years ago. The streets of downtown and Old Town (the worst hit area in town) are littered with camping, trash, needles, human poop/piss, people in states of mental duress, in various states of drug psychosis, you name it. I am in DT, Old Town, Pearl and NW almost daily for work, I see it everywhere. Many people I interact with for work have been chased, attacked, threatened and a few sexually assaulted. All in areas they felt safe walking through a few years ago.

Portland is also a lot less safe than in the past. We're approaching 100 homicides for the year. There are daily shootings and stabbings across the entire city. Pair that with a police force that has been depleted by over 100 officers in the last few years and you have 911 calls that are often not answered or responded to.

If you need to drive, that is another entire can of worms. The conditions of the roads are abysmal. Huge holes, rough, etc. and every other day you find a new street that has been closed to vehicle traffic for bikes only or reconfigured from multiple lanes to one (often in high traffic corridors) so traffic backs up even worse than it was.

The city that works is broken and it starts with our outdated council form with mayor as figurehead government. Until it goes, nothing will change.

I've lived here 30 years and spent many years here prior to that. This is the worst it's ever been and I'm counting the days of the 90's when there were constant gang shootings and you didn't travel to certain parts of town after dark.

I was there in July r40 so don't try to bullshit me. I saw a huge number of homeless people in Chinatown but that's normal for Portland. The city has a long way way to go before it can be considered a crime-ridden hellscape, despite what you see on right-wing media.

R51 it sounds like you don’t live here.

Incidents like the linked article are commonplace now. 27 buildings on a stretch of one road.

Catalytic converter thefts are a huge thing, often in broad daylight. Car theft, package theft, busted out windows, etc.

Does Portland match up with the crime capitals of the world? No, but the change over the last several years is astonishing and felt across the city.

The DA doesn’t charge people for the crimes they commit, so there is no incentive to stop.

They recently busted a drug dealer operating out of a tent in the park blocks. Huge quantities of meth and fentanyl and the people were released on $0 bail a few hours after being arrested.

Hot, dry, earthquake prone, sure to be hit with a tsunamis, and the wildfires, consuming the remains of dead forests, clogging the air and lungs with dirty ash and cinders.

And drug needles lining the beaches.

r45 Wrong Vancouver, dear.

Dry? Portland?

20-year Portland resident here and I have to agree that right now things are in much worse shape than I've ever seen here.

[quote]Hot, dry, earthquake prone, sure to be hit with a tsunamis, and the wildfires, consuming the remains of dead forests, clogging the air and lungs with dirty ash and cinders. And drug needles lining the beaches.

Are you thinking of the Philippines? A tsunami is pretty unlikely in Vancouver, Washington since it's about 60 miles inland from the ocean.

[quote]Hot, dry, earthquake prone, sure to be hit with a tsunamis, and the wildfires, consuming the remains of dead forests, clogging the air and lungs with dirty ash and cinders. And drug needles lining the beaches.

Somehow you managed not to include in your list the one natural disaster that really does threaten Vancouver, WA.

I've mounted several Helens, and let me tell you -- they were no saints!

Hunt, Twelvetrees, and especially LAWSON -- all of them CUNTS!

I’ve considered moving to the PNW many times now — most recently since Hurricane Ida. I started looking at real estate, and houses that are in the same price range as mine (which is middle class) are absolutely terrible. Old bungalows with one bedroom and horrifically outdated. I believe WA is a place where you always rent and never own, unless you inherit a home. The environmental protection efforts are great, yet they need to make building nice homes affordable there. So here I am, probably stuck in America’s little banana republic (Louisiana) forever.

The location troll rears her ugly bead again

[quote]So here I am, probably stuck in America’s little banana republic (Louisiana) forever.

Or until the next Katrina - which may work out very well for you.

R63 — people are stupid here. We will rebuild until New Orleans is a modern day Atlantis. It’s not my decision by far.