Portland is pretty sick, I like it here. Try to secure a job here before you land though, if you can. Homeless resources are stretched real fuckin thin right now and the mayors new directives are not helping. Getting food stamps and medicaid are pretty easy, anything beyond that is hard.
The city is gets a lot less white out in the outer east side (“the numbers)” and in North Portland, and seems to be all sorts of gay all over the place.
The left-wing scene here can be real frustrating sometimes. I’ve had multiple events with my old org crashed by childish “anti-tankie” anarchists that outnumber principled activists 10:1.
We have lots of good food trucks, like everywhere.
People often leave here cause it’s expensive and they don’t like dealing with homeless people (which in fairness, this situation has caused lots of social problems. Nobody likes seeing needles in the street, and there have been some high profile violent crimes committed by homeless people recently). I’d have reservations if I had young children (like with any big city), but as a childless millennial I love it here.
Putin sucks but I support many but not all of his geopolitical goals.
Though I’ve also heard him referred to as “the guy who stopped shock therapy after he got his”, which idk the accuracy of but would probably earn some goodwill among Russians.