Oregon is the most majestic and geographically diverse state Ive ever lived in. The views and recreation are spectacular! The temperature is fairly mild all year, and despite most peoples impressions, we get much less rain per year than Washington, New York, Northern California and a few other places in the US. Oregon is a great growing state and ideal for camping, hiking, skiing, fishing, and sight seeing. Oregon is home to the smallest city park in the world, largest forested city park in the United States, shortest river in the world, and only source of myrtle wood in the world. Portland is a pretty town that has been compared to the likes of Seattle and San Francisco, for being very liberal in stance and open minded to the LBGT community. Portland is a major bike city. People flock from all over the country to spend time biking around the city of Portland and its surrounding metro area. Ive often heard people describe Portland as having a very European feel to it because of all the outdoor cafés, warm inviting citizens and bikes. Portlands one of the few cities Ive been to where you can be literally just a couple miles from downtown and be completed surrounded by wilderness. There are a LOT of bars, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, cafes, bistros, sit down restaurants, and music venues in the Portland area. Portland also has been credited for having the most strip bars per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. (Not sure if thats a good or bad thing).

Cons: There are a few things I dont like about Oregon. The worst thing would be the high unemployment rate and the lack of a competitive wages for most industries. It seems like it doesnt matter if you have a degree or not because in Oregon you wont get paid what youre worth. Our social services are also terrible. Its hard to qualify for the Oregon Health Plan (you basically have to be pregnant, make almost no money at all or be a certain list of minorities). Unemployment benefits dont seem to last long enough to pay the bills and find another job and once again they dont give you what you need based on your income and previous wage. Education here is also pretty bad. Oregon students score lower on state assessment exams than most other states in the nation and we are continually pull more and more dollars out of our education budgets every year. There are some helpful assistance programs for college students but to get scholarship from a state school basically requires perfect grades and a very high SAT score. But seeing how schools dont prepared students for SATs or the working world properly, many students arent able to meet the GPA and SAT requirements to get many scholarships. Other negatives include high income tax and high property tax. The Portland Police are also a negative because Ive heard many stories of abuse from police carried out upon minorities, the poor or homeless, protesters, and the LBGT community. You also might run into some overly conservative, redneck-type of folks that arent very accepting the further out of the main cities you get but that seems to be true about any rural region in the US. The only financial pro I would say is that we dont have a sales tax and most commodities seem to be fairly inexpensive compared to the overall cost of living.

I know that sounds like a lot of cons and I actually would prefer to rate Oregon as a 3.5 instead of a 4, however the warm, open-minded and environmentally friendly community mixed with the best landscape and recreation Ive ever seen make it over a very comfortable place to live.