Thinking of moving to Vancouver, WA? Thinking you can live in Vancouver, work and shop in Portland, and get the best of both worlds? Well, you might want to think again.
I recently moved to "the Couv" -- slang for Vancouver -- with my GF. We've been here for one month, and all I can say is our opinion of the Couv dwindles with every passing day. We ideally wanted to live in Portland -- the obviously better city -- but finding an apt in PDX is next to impossible unless you're willing to wait months or spend $1000 for a 250 sq ft studio.
Vancouver was the fastest and most affordable place we could find an apt, so that's what we settled on. At first, we didn't really feel like we were compromising all that much. We new the Couv would be boring, but we kind of like boring, and we also liked all the recreational marijuana stores there are on this side of the river -- PDX just still isn't quite there yet.
Vancouver is also very pretty -- for the most part -- and it seems like a relatively laid back, quiet place. Our first few days here, we thought, "Hey, maybe this was a great decision? We can live and work here, party and shop in Portland... this might actually workout well!" But now, as my 'tweaker' neighbors allow their child to yell and scream right in front of my door at 12:00 AM, I am full realizing how wrong we were.
If you don't know, a "tweaker" is a person who is addicted to meth, or involved with illegal narcotics in general. They're pretty easy to spot: they look like poor white trash, they panhandle frequently, and often times you'll even catch them nodding out right in front of your local convenient store as they try to get free cigarettes and food from patrons. They're also easy to spot in dwellings because they will cram themselves like sardines into one tiny house or apt, and have constant people coming in and out all day and all night.
I was actually taught the term by a local police officer who told me we were living in "tweaker central." Wonderful!
It's really sad because Vancouver could be a great place to live, but the tweakers and white trash spoil it for everyone. The longer we've lived, the less and less I go outside or walk around the city at all. Why? Because everywhere I go, without fail, I encounter these dregs who ask for money, drugs, and/or cigarettes, and I've yet to encounter one that isn't totally sketchy looking and intimidating -- most of the intimidation comes from the fact that you can never tell just how crazy and desperate these people are.
If I had to guess, I would assume lots of these people are folks who were pushed out of Portland due to a lack of finances, and social support for their habits, and therefore decided to venture up to the more affordable, less crowded, and less policed suburb north of the Columbia river. But, that's just a theory... I honestly don't know why so many of them are here or how they got here in the first place.
So, there's that...
As for the whole "live and work in Vancouver, and play in Portland" concept, it's just that: a concept. In practice, it doesn't work. The commute to Portland is brutal, despite the fact the cities are only a few miles apart. Traffic on I-205 and I-5 is always congested, and sometimes unbearable.
Jobs in Vancouver are also slim. You're best bet is going to be working at Wal-Mart or Safeway. People who have good jobs here seem to be well aware of it and therefore never leave, which means no openings. That basically forces you to find work in PDX, but again, that commute might be more trouble than it's worth, especially if you're not getting paid big bucks.
I'm hoping that as Portland continues to become more and more crowded, more decent people will start moving to Vancouver and force out the riff raff, but I know that's probably wishful thinking.
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