Find Your Badass Portland Neighborhood

As a Realtor, it’s not uncommon to field questions about which neighborhoods have low crime, good schools, ‘like-minded’ neighbors (either politically or demographically), and other personal preferences.

Unfortunately, Fair Housing laws limit our ability to guide or ‘steer’ people into specific neighborhoods based on our opinion of  a neighborhood’s racial complexion, family-friendliness, safety, and other social factors. Often, we just point them to the raw data, where available, and let them come to their own conclusion.

Over the years, sites like PortlandMaps, Walkscore, and others have made this process a lot easier, through geomapping and other visualizations. For example, I love M Realty’s Walkscore heatmap view for searching in highly walkable neighborhoods.

But what if someone wants to know where Portland’s badass neighborhoods are?

I have little to no hipster in me, so I wouldn’t even know where to start. But a couple local dudes apparently do and have created the city’s first bad-assness index.

The factors:

  • Public transportation availablity. Good.
  • Property values. Yes.
  • Bike access. Sure.
  • Beer availability. Still with you.
  • Coffee locations. Makes sense.
  • Food cart proximity. I suppose…
  • Pinball availability…um.
  • Strip clubs…no comment.

Pull together the data, geocode it, and turn it into a heatmap, and voila — Portland’s badass neighborhoods (PDF).

Areas of town get ratings from from ‘Hella Badass’ to “Flannelville” to ‘Vancouverish’ at the low end (sorry my Clark Country friends). The Boise neighbhorhood gets top prize, followed closely by Goose Hollow and Oldtown/Chinatown. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

 

Shout out to Rick Turoczy at the Silicon Florist for the find. From Dillon Mahmoudi on Vimeo.

April 27, 2011 · Filed Under Diversions, First-Time Buyers, Lifestyle, Livability

Comments

4 Responses to “Find Your Badass Portland Neighborhood”

  1. Bern on April 27th, 2011 8:11 pm

    What? This is awesome beyond proportions of badassedness… I wish I had thought of it!
    Maybe we can layer it on top of our search maps in HomeQuest. Hmmm….

  2. Ron Ares on April 29th, 2011 11:47 am

    More badass Portland links:

    http://northportland.katu.com/news/arts-culture/how-badass-your-neighborhood/440061

    http://www.stumpedinstumptown.com/2011/04/in-portland-badass-is-as-the-badass-map-says-it-is/

  3. peter woodward on May 1st, 2011 10:30 pm

    I’m with you on the first three factors, beer and coffee, are ok too. I can do without the last ones. haha. PS Vancouver still loves you Portland.

  4. megan on May 30th, 2011 8:09 pm

    this post is pretty badass

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