Safe towns around Portland?

[JRuby]

Pretty fond of St. Helens a bit of a commute but I like it a lot out there.Appears a lot more people are liking it since I moved out there.

 

[browntown]

The Jackson school exit (exit 59) off 26 is the last Hillsboro exit on your way west. Some nice neighborhoods, Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course is nice and on the edge of rural. There are condo developments, and a nice neighborhood around the school. All pretty suburbia, probably no shop. It's been a few years, so I can't help with the price estimates, but that area "was" affordable. Points west are increasingly rural, and the further you go the more affordable the homes become.

 

[jbett98]

Aurora is nice in a laid back way. Close to I-5. Not much in the way of a night life.

 

[MrMillspecer]

Buxton, Banks or Vernonia. Or on the outskirts of Hillsboro , West Union, Skyline farmland areas. And like others have said North Plains area and Pumpkin Ridge area. I'm in the Scappoose area but wouldn't recommend it because hwy 30 and Cornelius Pass gets worse every day.

You will need some peace after the traffic chaos.

 

[nwslopoke]

I think if you are going to buy in Forest Grove-Banks area you should buy now. If you are renting you may as well rent near the hub of shopping- entertainment, Hillsboro-Beaverton because rent prices don't vary to much. Yes Hillsboro is going to cost more to rent but you lose time/money for gas/driving with no tax benefit living in FG area.

I've been out in FG 15 years. It's a nice place (not fond of the school system - hipsters seem to run it). With no traffic you can get to downtown Portland in 30ish minutes and safely to PDX is under and hour. Seaside or Lincoln City is easily under 1.5 hr. Several places to shoot within 30 minutes. Plenty of houses for rent but what few apartments available are usually taken for the college kids or the farm workers.

 

[cigars]

If you're coming up from Salem, most anything on the west side of Portland is better.
Affordability may be an issue. Though many people I know deride it as the redneck heaven of Portland, I have friends and acquaintances who live in Aloha, on quiet streets, have neighbors who mind their own business, and enjoy what I would call good quality of life. If you like small towns, you can look as far as Vernonia too.

Ditto. Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, quality of life is pretty good compared to Portland. It is getting a bit congested though. School systems are way better than PPS too.

 

[JRuby]

Buxton, Banks or Vernonia. Or on the outskirts of Hillsboro , West Union, Skyline farmland areas. And like others have said North Plains area and Pumpkin Ridge area. I'm in the Scappoose area but wouldn't recommend it because hwy 30 and Cornelius Pass gets worse every day.
I do find it amazing that cornelius pass is the only real connection to Hillsboro from highway 30 and how bad that road is. They are going to have to fix that eventually.
You will need some peace after the traffic chaos.

 

[FortunateSon]

There are no safe places, just different types and degrees of danger. Show me someone who truly believes they are safe, and lives their life accordingly, and I will show you someone destined to become a victim.

JMO

 

[RicInOR]

There are some crime maps you might want to study.
MyLocalCrime
CrimeReports™

Search results
That is Hillsboro, note the tool says, nope goto Eastmoreland area of Portland !

And the Flood plain maps. FEMA Flood Map Service Center | Search By Address

Anywhere near MAX has higher crime.


Politics.
ex. Beaverton, where a Mayor once said, officially, that he didn't care what the law was, if you open carry Beaverton Cops are going to put you on the ground. You might find that important.

1,000 Friends of Oregon can impact your desires.

Urban Growth Boundry, or no?



Good luck.

 

[CoastRange57]

Which community is your property mentioned above in?
I'm in NE Portland at the moment, and contemplating a move that way as I now work in Hillsboro.

PM me if you prefer.

South of Forest Grove.

 

[Squatch831]

What part of Portland do you need access to or is it just the area in general? On the south and east areas Canby, Damascus, Carver and Boring come to mind. You should also look into Vantucky and Camas.

We spend a lot of time in Vancouver, but I'll be working I. Hillsboro

 

[CoastRange57]

I see what you did there. Will have to take this into consideration once we get on that retirement trajectory.

Pretty good feeling to know that in a year and a half we will be over there. Even approaching full retirement it is still possible, 3 of my boys now live over there and have good jobs. Never coming back to the west side they say. The cost of real estate and construction is much less than these urban jungles.

 

[3MTA3]

We spend a lot of time in Vancouver, but I'll be working I. Hillsboro

Cornelius, Forest Grove, Gaston and possibly Yamhill come to mind

 

[2Wheels4Ever]

SE PDX born and raised. Anywhere around 82nd and 122nd are great places to hang out.....

 

[Garg]

Look. It's not rocket science. Wherever there are drugs, and drug addicts, there will be crime.
The only way to keep away (ish) from it, is to separate yourself from the community, by space, and even then, meh, maybe maybe not.
I wish you luck on finding a safe space for you and yours, just don't try and get your expectations TOO high.

 

[HuckleberryFun]

It used to be, once upon a time, that the countryside was a place of relative wholesomeness and populated by stand up people. Now, rates of drug addiction, crime, poverty, and other bad things are actually higher in many rural areas. It just depends.
It's not so cut and dried anymore.

 

[11Charlie]

I haven't read every post but my thoughts are if you spend a lot of time in Vancouver then buy in Vancouver area. Go out of town towards Battle Ground, Camas, Brush prairie.

Honestly safe and Portland don't go hand in hand JMHO

 

[WildBills-AR]

Many on the areas that have been mentioned are fine. The prices are ridiculous everywhere. But reading the first page somewhat concerned me see how people have such a low value of the areas they live and travel in. Sure you can go a few miles one way or the other get completely different results. But not everyone has money to blow on a over priced home. This is part of the problem in our country the great divide.

 

[CoastRange57]

Look. It's not rocket science. Wherever there are drugs, and drug addicts, there will be crime.
The only way to keep away (ish) from it, is to separate yourself from the community, by space, and even then, meh, maybe maybe not.
I wish you luck on finding a safe space for you and yours, just don't try and get your expectations TOO high.

I live in a rural residential area two miles out of Forest Grove. 30 years. Neighborhood is decent, but in an area of 70 homes, guess what you are going to have a dope house or two, and some criminals.

Last night at 2345, I hear voices outside and my recycling container rattling. The fing tweakers that ride up and down the road are tossing it looking for bottles and cans. So I put the 1 million CP light on them and start yelling to get the f out of there before I shoot your tweaker azz. They leave and stop at the neighbors and do the same thing. I keep the light on them until they finally leave.

Rural areas do not protect you from crime. The rural areas out by Yamhill and Carlton have burglary issues. There are criminals and tweakers in towns, in the country and all over. If you are aggressive towards them they get the idea, but always be ready to back up what ever smack you run at them. The locals just think I cam crazy and stay away.

Towns just concentrate it in a tighter area.

 

[WildBills-AR]

I like above post. I'm from SLC you want to talk about boring white neighborhoods but you get the same crap everywhere. Times change and so do the people and crimes. I see all west of Portland just like SLC. But I also feel very fortunate to even live in the United States. So when people get out of touch when they see the possibility of crap by them I find they may need to rethink things. We almost all want nice and safe. Anyway I feel lots of places mentioned are great places and if you don't think so you have traveled enough.