#1 With A Bullet? Portland And Boomerpdx

Portland Baby Boomers need to pay attention to Money Journal at moneyjournal.com.

They just named Portland the top of their top ten most liked U.S. cities.

While that’s not news to the region, it’s still good to show the rest of the country how it’s done.

The only drawback is Money Journal called it Portlandia. Seems like an easy tag, but it works.

Here’s the original listing:

1- Portland, Oregon – “Portlandia” tops the list as America’s most popular big or medium sized city. Portland may lack an NFL or Major League Baseball team, but 52% of Americans like it. People love Portland for many reasons – its culture, laid-back lifestyle, excellent public transit system and above all nice people. Another reason why it’s so popular is that Portland is one of the best cities in the U.S. for micro-brews. Oh, you gotta love that!

What really makes Portland the best city, if there is such a thing?

• Culture?

To the rest of the world America is all the same. Maybe to the rest of America, too. But fill up the gas tank and drive a few hours to change your mind.

Portland is a crossroads, part seaport, part river city, where I-5 and I-80 roll every direction. Add rail lines and air transport and you’ve got a major hub masquerading as funky town.

The cultural tipping point from raw material export, wood and fish, is changing to high tech startups and the shoe industry, among others. If that sounds like California, so be it. Leave the Golden State to the gold diggers. Oregon learned that lesson, and Portland shows the goods.

• Laid-back Lifestyle?

Portland had the reputation as the best place for rich hippies to retire and send their kids to Reed College.

Now it’s a place for ideas people to grow with venture capital, seed money, and squeezing so much out of every twenty four hours it seems like they added more time on the clock.

The laid-back part comes from what you see on the surface. The bike riders, the Hawthorne Blvd strollers, and the brew pubs all give the sense of relaxed people having a good time.

Then you see madeinportland.org and find a list of actual bike makers, oregonlive.com for an article on Portland shoe companies, Made In Portland again for Portland beer.

Biking, walking, and beer might spell laid-back, but that stuff doesn’t get made on it’s own. Portland is full of grinders who work harder to make things better. That spells good luck for the rest of us.

• Nice People?

During a timeout in last night’s Blazer vs Thunder game the camera settled on a sign in the crowd. It said, “NICE.”

Where else does that happen? Did it mean nice, as in Nice Season So Far? Or, We Are Nice?

One thing that wasn’t nice was the way LaMarcus Aldridge channeled Hakeem ‘The Dream’ Olajuwon’s Dream Shake while he carried the Trail Blazers past the Seattle Supersonics/Oklahoma Thunder.

The way the Central Catholic Rams rolled up the Tigard Tigers 83-49 in a 6A semi-final football game was also not so nice from the Tigard side.

You can like Portland, even love Portland, but don’t be fooled by the sweet facade. It’s full of more back room hustle and up-early dreamers than you’d expect. It’s not built to coast, but geared for climbing.

What’s your Portland?