What Portlanders Think About Their Neighborhoods

City of Portland Neighborhood SurveyMany out-of-towners that contact me to talk about the Portland real estate market often ask about the ‘best neighborhoods’ — for resale values, for education, and most often for a general sense of community or livability.

These questions can create a slippery slope for a licensee (i.e. Realtor(R)). Due to Fair Housing laws (and good common sense) we can’t steer clients away from certain neighborhoods because of racial mix, or draw conclusions for a client based on crime rates, demographic profiles, etc.

It’s one reason why I appreciate the City of Portland biannual Resident Survey about issues of neighborhoods and livability. It can fill in blanks for some of the questions that I can’t ethically or legally speak about.

I talked about it a couple years ago, but now the 2007 Survey is available.

The survey measures Portlander’s livability views on city services, development, traffic, infrastructure, and government oversight. There’s plenty of detail — sorted by neighborhood or by survey question.

The survey doesn’t measure ‘vibe’, but for a quick overview, check out the general satisfaction scale for all Portland neighborhoods. As I noted a couple years ago, the dissatisfaction tends to rise as you head east, but you can draw your own conclusions.

March 21, 2008 · Filed Under Communities, Livability

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