Dead Last

Oh, Oregon, will you ever win? If I were to believe the incessant food media coverage of my home state I would believe that all of Portland was cultivating, harvesting, curing or pickling food or busy being a coffee messiah (unshockingly, dude just moved to my Brooklyn neighborhood) or just being generally adorable and rah rah and riding bikes around.

But inside, I know they are deeply sad. (What I suspect in actuality is that many of the tastemakers, fun-havers are transplants and not born and bred Northwesterners because they couldn't possibly be so productive and happy-go-lucky.)

But to my point, the second happiness, or rather unhappiness, survey in two months has portrayed Oregon as most miserable once again. BusinessWeek recently pegged the state as the most depressed and suicidal. Now MainStreet.com’s Happiness Index, a new ranking based on foreclosures, unemployment and debt places Oregon dead last at 51st. And there are only 50 states! That's how unhappy Oregonians are. 

16 thoughts on “Dead Last

  1. Krista, you nailed it. As a Portland native, I have to confirm that we are miserable. All of that foodie sh*t is indeed being profligated by the out-of-towners: “hey, it’s so cheap to live here! We sold our NYC brownstone and bought two houses here and opened a restaurant!!” (that is practically verbatim from some semi-recent NYT article).

    I do have to say that the farmer’s markets here, though, are incredible (even better now that they finally banned DOGS! Yesss! (I mean, sorry that you ignore your dog all week, but on the weekend your dog wants to go to the PARK, *not* the freaking farmer’s market!!)

    So: bottom line: don’t believe the hype. Everyone: stay in your own freaking state, and try to make it better!

  2. portlandgrrl: Now coming from a New York perspective I totally see how people view Portland as this cheap paradise. Kind of sucks if you’re a Portlander. I wouldn’t put up with it if I were you.

    Love the dog ban. That’s the kind of Portland progressiveness I can get behind.

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