More Accolades: Money Magazine calls Portland “Best Place To Live” (in the West) for 2016

September, 2017
Money Magazine

PORTLAND AT A GLANCE
Population                    622,004
Median Home Price     $349,000
Average Property Tax  $4,285
Unemployment Rate    4.7%

Portland is the place where Portlandia seems more documentary than satire. Farm-to-table restaurants, stretched earlobe rings, craft-beer-swilling hipsters, and cries of “Bicycle right!” are common in this burgeoning Pacific Northwest city. But that quirky spirit, coupled with a vibrant tech culture, is precisely why people are moving here—or moving back.

“When I graduated from the University of Oregon in the ’80s, my college counselor told me to leave the state because there were no jobs,” says Leslie Carlson, a partner with Brink Communications, a small firm that combines social activism and marketing. That’s not a problem today. Portland’s unemployment rate stands at 4.7%, and its 3.3% job-growth rate puts it in the top 10 of large U.S. cities. The arrival of technology companies including wind-power giant Vestas, home-sharing site Airbnb, and venture-backed Puppet Labs has earned treelined Portland the nickname “Silicon Forest.”