Wow! Thanks to everybody for all the information and opinions. I’m sure that living west of the river would make everything more convenient for commuting by bike or car, but I’m not so sure about the trade-offs. We would really like to live in an urban neighborhood, but we’ve had enough of apartment and condo life. I don’t think we’ll be able to afford single family homes near downtown or in NW, but my understanding is things might be a little bit more reasonable east of the river. We’ve only spent a few days in the area so far, mostly downtown and in the NW area – which were really nice, and out in Hillsboro which was too much suburbia for me. Maybe there are near west neighborhoods with some of this ‘culture’ that gonesh9 and nathank were saying is more prevalent in the SE neighborhoods?
gonesh9: When I saw the pictures of your commute a few weeks ago, it made me feel like we made a good decision to move out to Portland. Not too many views like that from Chicago, although we’ll still miss the big city.