Portland’s much-vaunted “livability” took a heavy hit this week as Business Week magazine ranked it the unhappiest large city in America.
“BusinessWeek.com ranked 50 of the largest metros based on a variety of factors including depression rates, suicide rates, divorce rates, crime, unemployment, population loss, job loss, weather, and green space,” the magazine explained on its website. “The most heavily weighted factors were the depression, suicide, jobs (unemployment and job loss), and crime rates.”
Poor old Stumptown ranked at the top of Biz Week’s misery index on the strength of its high reported incidence of depression (#1 among the 50 cities evaluated), suicide (#12), divorce (#4) and number of cloudy days per year (222).
Others in the Most Miserable 10 were St. Louis, MO; New Orleans, LA; Detroit, MI; Cleveland, OH; Jacksonville, FL; Las Vegas, NV; Nashville-Davidson, TN; Cincinnati, OH, and Atlanta, GA. Soggy Seattle – which, believe it or not, has 21 fewer cloudy days a year than Portland according to Business Week’s data – came in at Number 20.
The Business Week rankings can be disputed, of course, and no doubt Portlanders (who are even bigger queens of denial than Bendites) will dispute them energetically. Portlanders even claim to love their damp, dismal climate – although The Eye notices that they get orgasmic every time the forecast calls for the sun to peek momentarily through the perpetual cloud cover, and they head east or south every chance they get in the hope of catching some rays to ward off rickets.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
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misery is watching people in mercedes, audi, bmw and porcshe suvs with rocket boxes plastered with “make local habit” and “mtb” and “bnd” stickers. That is truly misery. God this town is killing me…….Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I’m get depressed just reading this. Come on Bruce miller, this is a prime reason why people stay in a depressed state, there is always more negative then positive written!!
“I’m get depressed just reading this.”
So don’t read it.
“Come on Bruce miller, this is a prime reason why people stay in a depressed state, there is always more negative then positive written!!”
On the contrary, there is far more positive than negative stuff written, in the culture at large. Putting a positive spin on things and convincing people that Life Is Wonderful is a HUGE industry. Look at the countless books, seminars, motivational speakers, therapies, etc. devoted to it — not to mention organized religion, which by and large is dedicated to advancing the proposition the Everything Happens for The Best.
I’ve always wondered why, if everything is really so wonderful, we need to spend so much time, money and effort continually reassuring ourselves that it is.
In the long run I truly believe people who face facts squarely and see the world as it is instead of trying to sugar-coat everything are happier and healthier than those who constantly have to expend mental and emotional energy maintaining their “positive” illusions about it. Life is neither wonderful nor terrible; it is what it is.
“300+ sunny days probably seems like paradise to them!”
They’re suckers if they buy the “300 sunny days” Chamber of Commerce BS.
Actually, if you look at the climatological data, Bend is not much sunnier than Portland. They get the rain, but we get the same clouds.
And wet and gray as it is, in Portland at least the winter isn’t eight months long like it is here. By the end of this month it will be spring in Portland — grass and trees greening up, flowers blooming. Bend stays locked in winter until mid-May, at least. That can be just as depressing as the rain.
Coming from the Midwest, I would gladly live in Portland before any city in the rust belt/corn country. And its not even close.
I tell newcomers the second winter will be your test… the first is a curiosity. I moved to Stumptown in 1994 from Santa Cruz, CA – a nice place, but way too expensive. Even though it’s much cheaper now there, I still wouldn’t move back. Too crowded.
Remarkable how many defenders of Portland and Bend say, “Well, wouldn’t you rather live there than in the Midwest?”
Yes, I’d rather live in Portland or Bend than in the Midwest. I’d also rather live in Portland or Bend than in Darfur or Siberia. It’s all in your point of reference.
Everyone knows you don’t move to the NW for the sunny warms days. You move here for the doom and gloom days. Once people can’t take it any longer they move to the sunny areas of the NW (i.e. Bend), now you have your sun but a whole bunch of other problems. Portland is a cheap place to live (city living wise), but the only positive thing I can say about my years of living P-Town is…one hell of a fun city to go drinking in. By days are done in the NW, Bend has it is issues that I no longer wish to deal with, and I cannot take the deary rainy days of Portland anymore, so I am off to even more sun and less rain days then Bend.
There’s no sugar coating it, I had the misfortune of spending spring and summer in Portland this past year. We had a chance to check out a new business opportunity and was wanting a change of scenery after 30 plus years in Bend. At first it was fun exploring the city, going to nice restaurants, theater, and Stumptown coffee. It didnâ ™t take long to grow weary of the rain, days at a time, no relief in sight. The downpours made it dangerous when driving 65 to 70 mph, bumper to bumper on the freeway. Yes they had green grass and flowers in the spring along with mold, slugs, rain and more rain.
The summer was hot and humid, over a hundred degrees for several days in a row. The only relief was good AC and a small lake near Gresham that half of Portland would flock to. You couldn’t even call it a lake; it was more like a large pond. Then you had the river that had to be patrolled by the police because of rioting drunks, not very family friendly. Most of the locals I talked to would have loved to be in depressing gray Central Oregon away from the crime and the massive numbers of humanity.
The quality of life in Portland has been deteriorating for several years and itâ ™s not because of the weather, itâ ™s because of the exploding population (mostly criminals) and rising cost of living. The wages in some jobs are higher but so is the cost of living. The housing, property taxes, car insurance costs are substantially higher than in Bend. Needless to say we decided to come back and endure the long winter, so much for our Portland adventure.
“I am off to even more sun and less rain days then Bend.”
Good for you, and good luck.
Basically, in Oregon you get the choice of living west of the Cascades and having clouds and rain eight months a year or living east of the Cascades and freezing your ass off eight months a year.
“Needless to say we decided to come back and endure the long winter, so much for our Portland adventure.”
You seem to be laboring under the misconception that Bend and Portland are the only two options. Believe it or not, there are other places to live in the world — and many of them are pretty nice. Maybe you should shop around more.
You would think they would be happier since those of you who chose to live in Bend, did not choose Portland.