Portland Apartment Guide: Neighborhoods

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Portland Neighborhoods: A description of the area from an apartment renter's perspective.

Random Facts and Observations About Portland, Oregon

Frequently-Asked Questions About Moving to Portland

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Portland Area - What's It Like?

[Suburbs] [Downtown Portland] [Northwest Portland] [Hawthorne]

See Also: Random Facts and Observations About Portland.
See Also: PortlandMaps.com (City of Portland) to find out info on any apartment in any neighborhood (type in the address there).

See Also: My "Street Scenes" Photo Album with dozens of photos of Portland's urban neighborhoods.

I'm not going to attempt to describe every square mile of the Portland area, but I'll give you the highlights and some in-depth descriptions of the areas I know best...

In a nutshell...

Portland has five "sectors". Four are obvious, based on a natural dividing line of the Willamette River going north-south downtown and Burnside Street going east-west. Those four sectors are indicated by NW, SW, NE, and SE. A fifth sector is known as "North Portland" (N) and is based on the way the Willamette curves north of downtown to create a weird section between NE and the river. See this Portland Map for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

In Portland, "downtown" is considered to be the area west of the Willamette River, south of Burnside, and east of the West Hills (so downtown is in SW). This area is in fact very small, and you can drive through it on the I-405 almost without realizing it.

Until a few decades ago, most of Portland's population lived east of the river, and that's where most of the old, compact urban neighborhoods lie. There's also NW Portland (aka Nob Hill), which is very close to downtown. The areas west of the West Hills (west of downtown), including Beaverton, Tigard, and Hillsboro, have seen huge growth in just the last few decades (Intel in Hillsboro grew to over 15,000 employees in the 1990's). These areas do have older developments, but their character is much different from the east side. Some older neighborhoods on the west side don't have sidewalks and a very few don't even have paved streets.

Portland's major suburbs are Hillsboro and Beaverton to the west, Tigard and Tualatin to the Southwest, Milwaukie to the Southeast. Further out, we have Gresham to the east and Wilsonville to the south (about 15 miles south). Lake Oswego is an affluent suburb to the south. Oregon City is far to the Southeast. North of Portland, across the Columbia River in Washington State, is Vancouver and Clark County - basically another suburb of Portland, though the residents there might beg to differ.

The Suburbs

Traditionally, most employees worked in downtown Portland, so if you lived in the suburbs, you commuted into downtown. Working downtown though would give you another incentive to live close-in to downtown. In the last several years, though, there has been a lot of job growth in the suburbs - Intel on the west side, Fujitsu in Gresham, Nike in Beaverton, Mentor and the (former) Tektronix in Wilsonville. If you work for one of these companies, you can choose from either an apartment near your job, or you can choose a place closer to downtown with more character, more going on near you, but further from your job.

Portland has more character than many west-coast cities, and you may find it more desirable to live in one of the close-in neighborhoods even if you work in the suburbs. I used to live in Phoenix, and I would never dream of living "downtown" there, but in Portland, I lived downtown for years, near movie theaters, shops, restaurants, and book stores. Portland's downtown is walkable and interesting - and fairly safe. Free transit in the downtown "fareless square" zone makes living down there even more desirable.

Some people are used to the suburbs, though, and find downtown (even Portland's modest downtown) intimidating. If you choose to live in the suburbs, just understand that you are restricted to chain restaurants and book stores for your "culture", and you'll have a nasty freeway drive (or perhaps a long trip on the MAX train) to get anywhere near downtown.

I lived for a short time in Tanasbourne, which is a newer development near NW185th Ave south of Highway 26 (Sunset Highway). This is right at the intersection of Portland, Aloha, Beaverton, and Hillsboro. This area is convenient to Intel employees in particular. There are numerous "McApartment" complexes full of new, luxurious apartments in large complexes. These are comfortable for the most part and not too expensive but lacking in character. You'll find most of them in For Rent Magazine.

Tanasbourne is about the "Best of the Suburbs". It has two big chain gyms, 24 hour Fitness and Bally Total Fitness, nearby. There's a Barnes and Noble, a Safeway and Albertsons (a Fred Meyer not far away), a Target, and restaurants like Old Chicago, Stanfords, Red Robin, and Spaghetti Factory, as well as just about every chain burger joint there is. As a bonus, there is a Pizza Schmizza (local chain pizza) that's very good. There are even some "box stores" and furniture stores in the area now. A Regal multiplex movie theater is also nearby, and you're close to the (busy, crowded) Sunset Highway (26).

Tanasbourne is comfortable but dull.

Downtown Portland

For numerous photos of the Portland skyline, etc., see my photo albums.

Most of the apartment buildings mentioned in Downtown are listed in For Rent.

"Downtown" is actually quite a small area west of the river, east of the west hills, south of Burnside. North of Burnside are Old Town (near the river) and the lately-trendy Pearl District. "Uptown" is an area south of Burnside just "up" (up the hill - west) of downtown.

If you want to live downtown, you will likely live in some sort of mid-rise building that's at least 4-6 stories - or a high-rise building of 14 or more floors. There are numerous high-rise apartment buildings near Portland State University (PSU), through which go the South Park Blocks, a nice break of park area through the city. You really have the most choices on either side of PSU in one of the high-rises.

Due east of PSU there are several large high-rise buildings between Lincoln Street and Harrison Street. One is The Village at Lovejoy Fountain (formerly Parkside Plaza), where I lived for six years. This place is slightly upscale and might price out PSU students unless a number of them share an apartment. It has a pool (part-year), a hot tub, a secure parking garage, and security guards and secure access to the building. Call them at 503-223-5314 and see what they have available in your price range (price increases by the floor - 14th story gives great views). For reference, look up 301 SW Lincoln on your map or in Mapquest. [I don't get any kickback from them if you rent - honest! - but please let them know you heard about them from "Andrew's Web Page".]

An alternative to Village at Lovejoy Fountain is Portland Center Apartments, a block north of VLF. They have three towers and more units; prices ought to be about the same, but I haven't lived there, so I can't vouch for their quality.

Not far from these places is Riverplace, right on the Willamette waterfront. You can rent some apartments down there or even buy condos. It's more of a marina with a few shops, though, and the river is, uh, polluted, so unless you have a boat. But you can run up/down the waterfront if you want that or walk your dog there. Beware - there are festivals every other weekend in the summer and the waterfront can get busy and noisy then.

On the other side of the Park Blocks at PSU you have Ione Plaza, another high-rise that's a bit more worn (and cheaper) than the others mentioned above. PERFECT location for PSU, though, and close to downtown. Across the street are a few more buildings including the pricey Southpark (not from the TV show - from the "South Park Blocks").

Further west of downtown is a neighborhood called Goose Hollow - some new apartment buildings there, with direct bus service to PSU and OHSU. Also near the Max light rail train and not far from NW Portland.

There are other little (lower rent) apartment buildings around the downtown area - look in the classifieds, use your map, and see what's nearby.

Northwest Portland

Northwest is popular for many reasons. It's close to downtown (an reasonably-easy walk). It has good bus service. The Portland Streetcar takes you from NW into the Pearl District, turn right and goes past Powells Books, into downtown, past the Central Library, and up to Portland State University (the Streetcar is popular). Northwest is also close to major freeways. It's near Washington Park and Montgomery Park. It's also got some terrific old houses and many blocks of old sidewalks lined with tall, shady trees.

Though mostly a residential area, there are two major streets of businesses - NW 21st Ave and NW 23rd Ave. These two streets are crowded with foo-foo shops, trendy restaurants, a few book stores and some old bars. Escape From New York on 23rd Ave is also considered by many to have Portland's best pizza (and worst seating).

NW 23rd Avenue and Escape From New York.

There's also the Cinema 21 on 21st Ave - the city's popular first-run art house theater. The McMenamins Mission Theatre/Pub (where you can see second-run movies and drink a beer or eat a burger) is also nearby on 17th and Glisan.

Northwest is notorious for its horrible on-street parking. Part of the problem is that there are numerous apartment buildings among with the nice houses, so it's a fairly dense area. Portland recently refurbished nearby PGE Park (AAA baseball), and the neighborhood association has started using parking passes nearby, making it hard to park for more than a few hours. Fortunately, the street car and good bus service (and proximity to a MAX station) reduces the need to drive if you're transit-savy.

Because Northwest is such a popular area, finding reasonably-priced housing can be difficult; if you have a car, consider the desirability of off-street parking in this neighborhood! But, if you can find a place and you happen to work downtown, you might walk to work or take the bus or train and rarely need to use your car.

Here's a tip: In NW Portland, the streets (starting at Burnside and working north) go alphabetically one block at a time. So the streets go north as: Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby, Raleigh, Savier, Thurman (there are a few past that). So if a place is listed as being near 23rd and Flanders, you know it is 1.2.3.4 - four blocks from Burnside. Pretty close in.

Also, it helps to understand how the numbering/addressing scheme works. A place that has an address of 2344 NW Glisan is just west of NW 23rd Ave (between 23rd and 24th)- you can tell from the "23" in the beginning. If it's at 2244 NW Glisan, it's between 22nd Ave and 23rd Ave. If it's at 14344 NW Glisan, it's WAY the heck out there (NW143rd Ave), not at all "close in" to downtown.

SE Portland - Hawthorne District

The "Hawthorne District" is not a neighborhood at all but denotes the area around SE Hawthorne Blvd. Actually, the Sunnyside and Richmond neighborhoods to the north and south of SE Hawthorne between about SE 30th and 39th Ave comprise most of what area residents think of as "Hawthorne", though there is interesting stuff west past 20th Ave - and many apartment buildings between 30th and 12th.

This area, like Northwest, is popular (and gentrified) with some foo-foo shops: new age shops, a few trendy restaurants, etc. A McMenamins Theatre/Pub, the old Bagdad, lives at SE 37th and Hawthorne. There are also a number of used CD places and music stores in this area. One of the city's youth hostels is on Hawthorne at 30th. Mt. Tabor Park, a tremendous park on the site of a dormant volcano, is nearby as is Laurelhurst Park and assorted smaller parks.

The Hawthorne District has a definite counterculture vibe about it. You'll see plenty of young people with tattoos and piercings on the main drags, and there are a growing number of vegetarian restaurants. Area residents were up in arms in August 2001 about a proposed McDonalds supposed to go at 34th and Hawthorne in to this largely alternative-minded area (they won: McDonalds pulled out). You'll see lots of bikes running around though plenty of cars. The homeowners a block or two off Hawthorne Blvd are perhaps a tad more conservative than the pierced/tattooed kids, but not much (this is a pretty liberal city).

The Sunnyside and Richmond neighborhoods both have, like Northwest, nice tree-lined streets of great old houses. Sunnyside also covers Belmont to the north of Hawthorne, and gentrification (Zupans, a pricey yuppie-ish grocery store) is also setting in up there. There are more apartment buildings west of these neighborhoods in Buchman and Abernethy.

Parking around Hawthorne isn't nearly as bad as Northwest. But if you drive, the freeway on-ramps are not close. Many of the residents seem to like that; the ill-fated Mount Hood freeway, which would have plowed through about a mile south of Hawthorne, was defeated partially by neighborhood activists in the 1970's. The MAX train doesn't come near here, but there are two good bus lines - the #14 and #15 - that run often to and from downtown. The #15 also connects to the Airport MAX train.

NE Portland: Irvington

Irvington is a nice old NE Portland neighborhood not far from downtown. It extends from NE 7th Ave to about NE 22nd Ave, just north of NE Broadway, up to NE Stanton St. There are some expensive old houses in this area plus a few apartments. NE Broadway has some decent shopping and restaurants to wander to and, for the tacky, there's the big Lloyd Center Mall very close by. Two multiplex movie theaters are close by also, so in some ways in Irvington you can get a taste of suburbia while you live in old area full of charm and character.

Downtown is served by a few decent buses; the MAX train is not far away but is not really convenient by foot, unfortunately. If you don't mind walking (or biking), MAX is free into downtown if you get on at Lloyd Center.

NE Portland: Hollywood

East of Irvington, Hollywood is one of Portland's "up and coming" areas. NE Sandy Blvd. (a diagonal street) cuts through NE Portland and changes quickly from a collection of used car dealerships and porn-type stores SW of Hollywood to a bunch of Vietnamese restaurants NE of Hollywood. Hollywood itself is probably the nicest part of Sandy in between - there's a little stretch of area that contains the classic old Hollywood Theatre (being restored, showing old movies), a Trader Joe's, some restaurants, and a nearby Hollywood MAX train stop. The I-84 freeway is also easily accessible from Hollywood, and the airport is a short drive away up Sandy.

Hollywood has an eclectic collection of old houses and apartment buildings.

North Portland

North Portland is an "edgier" area of town also containing the University of Portland. It's another "up and coming" area with fairly cheap housing if you are looking to buy. But it's not necessarily the most convenient area in which to live, unless you have a good reason to rent there (like: you are going to the university). It's a ways from major freeways and there's not a lot of exciting stuff to do.

SE Portland: Sellwood-Moreland

Southeast of downtown Portland, on the east side of the Willamette River, about a mile south of Powell Blvd - an intimidating fast-drag road with lots of stoplights and fast food joints - is the much more peaceful Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood. This area has terrific old houses and quiet tree-lined streets, much more laid-back than the hustle and bustle of NW Portland or Hawthorne. The main draw for Portland visitors is the antique shops. Proximity to Reed College is good, but the residents seem older on average than some of the other trendy neighborhoods. Freeway access is not terrific, and in 2004 the Sellwood Bridge will be closed for a year for repair, so residents will need to cross into Portland on the Ross Island Bridge.

Other Neighborhoods

(To be expanded later)

NE Portland:

Laurelhurst
Kearns
Sullivan's Gulch
Lloyd District
Eliot
Irvington
King
Sabin
Woodlawn
Vernon
Concordia
Hollywood
Center

SE Portland

Buckman
Sunnyside
Hosford-Abernathy
Brooklyn
Sellwood-Moreland
Richmond
Creston-Kenilworth
Foster-Powell
Mount Scott-Arietta
Reed

NW Portland

Old Town/ChinaTown
Pearl
NW District
NW Industrial

SW Portland

Downtown
Goose Hollow
King's Hill
Arlington Heights
Homestead
Corbett-Terwilliger
Multnomah

North Portland

Overlook
Humboldt
Boise
Piedmont
Kenton
Portsmouth

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