Quote:
Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan
To me, I think the heart of the difference (besides the economies and growth patterns and the rest of that) is in the culture of the two cities. Portland just isn't a serious place in my opinion. The culture is laid back to the point of laziness and not being serious. Portland is content with what it has, for the most part. Seattle, on the other hand, has long been aware that it can be a premier city if it works toward it. It still has the overall West Coast relaxed feeling, but Seattle remains serious, competent, and competitive enough to be continually improving, and that's how Seattle can be on par with cities like San Francisco and Chicago. Me, personally? Seattle's my favorite city on the West Coast (leaving the Kings issue aside).
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First of all great shots -- you really captured the best of Seattle with the stunning views and great lighting.
I agree to an extent about the differences between the two cities. Around 30-40 years ago Portland was able to take a look at its West Coast neighbors' growth patterns as it was growing more slowly. They were booming in the post-WWII, Cold War economy and Portland just didn't have the same booming economic base. So in a somewhat simplistic nutshell, it seems the Portland region, with the help of progressive-minded governors, mayors, etc., focused starting in the 1970s on reversing the sprawling, auto-focused, downtown-killing policies that were hurting cities everywhere. And I think that, while this has lead to some great urban planning success, the region took this success for granted and got complacent about economic development. For many years, the thinking was 'let Seattle and California choke on traffic and sprawl, we'll go in another direction with light rail and parks and growth boundaries' -- which is great but this approach, in itself, results in a more carefully monitored, planned economy rather than a more competitive, growth-at-all-costs economy. Although I think there's been renewed emphasis in the last few years on economic development (South Waterfront, for example).
Having lived in both cities, I love different aspects of each but prefer living in Portland. It doesn't have Seattle's more exciting global, corporate culture... but I found, for myself, that Portland is exciting in its own ways that make the day-to-day living more 'livable.' It's fun to watch the two cities grow, despite so many similarities from politics to weather to in-city population, in pretty different ways.
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