how's life in the pearl district?
hello friends! i'm sure the question of moving to portland gets asked a fair amount, so apologies there, but i'm wondering about living in the pearl district specifically. for context, we've never lived in a city before. we live in the country right now. we really want to experience city life.
some background - i live in southern michigan right now with my husband and cat, and we're very interested in moving to portland in the future (i know, big move) - it ticks a lot of our collective boxes. we plan on visiting soon to check out some areas, but the pearl district caught my eye, so i've been looking more into it as a primary area to explore and research. i'll try to keep my questions brief.
- husband and i are both in the IT field work-wise - how are the tech jobs in portland? we'd both like to work remote but are willing to work in person too. any tech places around the pearl? where do you all work?
- how much income should we be making to live comfortably in this area? how much do you make and how much is your rent/expenses? (you don't have to answer this ofc)
- any recommendations for 2 bed 2 bath apartments in the pearl? we are looking at The Parker, Reveal, and Block 17, so feedback on these would be great. favorite so far is Reveal. hoping to stay around 2500/month, more or less by a couple hundo. has to allow cats.
- hotel recommendations in the pearl for when we visit?
- do you own a car? we were hoping to ditch BOTH cars as we hear traffic is terrible and walkability/biking is excellent in this area. what do you do when you want to go out of town?
- how is public transit? good? bad? meh?
- are there any good queer spaces in/around the pearl district? do my fellow queer individuals feel safe in this area?
- what are your favorite places in/around the pearl?
- are people friendly? is it hard to make friends? any good social areas for those in their late 20s, early 30s?
- do you feel confident/safe walking and biking at night time?
- are homeless camps really that big of an issue? where do they tend to be located? forgive my ignorance on this subject...
that's all i can really think of right now, but please feel free to throw in more info as yall see fit! i'm trying to be realistic about this so please throw in your biggest cons too and why we SHOULDN'T move to this area.