Bellingham WA vs. Eugene OR

[ctr88]

I recently spent some time in Eugene and Bham so wanted to report back. Some random thoughts:

Eugene
-I think the downtown is slightly nicer, feels bigger and more developed
-being an hour from the OR Coast is really a plus. Bham is right on the sound but IMO the OR Coast is much nicer than the sound (sound is no slouch though - but OR coast is world class). The OR Coast is a pretty amazing place to have close & it is vast
-Eugene gets a lot more known live music bands
-Eugene is also pretty, the one park you can drive to top and look out over the city is very nice
-Eugene has access to some pretty nice mountain stuff east too - driving up 126 along the Mckenzie river towards Bend (McKenzie river is gorgeous and you hit it very quickly out of Eugene), hwy 58 over towards Waldo Lake and Crater Lake, coastal ranges, etc..
-Eugene appeared to have more and lower cost apartments (but I didn't drive then where I drove what Bham had on CL)
-nice that you can reach sunnier So. OR in say 1.5 hrs in the spring when it's still gloomy...harder to drive to sun in Bham - I guess once hwy 20 opens you can go that way
-I was in Eugene when school was not yet back in session - both of course students have big effect on feel
-OR wine country a great getaway from Eugene
-Eugene is a lot bigger city - like twice the population
-I think Eugene may have more housing stock and be less hot of a market than Bham - but that is a guess and don't know that for sure - being a bigger city of course will have more available houses IN the city - I think you may be able to get more house for the money in Eugene area
-from what I've heard Eugene has slight better winter/spring weather - I have heard pretty bad things about Bhams winter/spring - but not sure how much different it is than Seattle really though - Eugene gets a little hot in July/Aug for me
-Eugene landscape almost has more of a NorCal feel in some ways than Bham


Bham
-I think the downtown is behind Eugene but it appears to gentrifying rapidly (you can't spit without hitting a brewery in Bham...I'll need a liver replacement)
-Like Eugene, Bham has a lot of the young scruffy druggie types wandering downtown - I actually got semi accosted 3 times in say 30 min walking downtown Bham from young druggie types (more than has ever happened in Seattle) - Eugene had this same crowd of young street people but I didn't get accosted there
-I found the Bham apartment market tighter than it appears - a lot of the stuff you see on Craigslist that looks cheap are student oriented type apartments less appropriate with a non-student say 30 yrs old-plus - not easy to find something nice and liveable for a decent price suited for a older non student type
-Canada being close is a neat thing about Bham
-Bham wins big on no state income tax
-Lynden is a nice close by town - really well kept and some cute eateries - love the drive out that way and the open farmland
-Of course Bham is great we all know with the Chukanuts, Mt Baker and the ski area, North Cascades, Islands, etc..
-Bham has a super cool food coop downtown with some of the best coop prices I've seen (don't know about Eugene I'm sure it must have good ones too) - great place to have bfast, lunch, dinner, coffee

Summary:
Overall for ME personally I would give the slight edge to Bham due to: no state income tax (pretty tough to take the hit of a 9% state income tax just for the privilege of living in OR), I think it's interesting being close to Canada, I like that the university in Bham is smaller (U of O is huge), North Cascades & Mt. Baker ski area being close, being not far from two tier 1 cities in Seattle/Van, etc.. But the Eugene area and OR as a whole has a lot of tremendous attributes. Two really great places. I would have to see how I would handle the winter/spring gloom in Bham...I have for 4 yrs in Seattle so shouldn't be much different and I will fly out for sun breaks when I can. I could see how the traffic congestion could get worse in Bham as it keeps growing fast, doesn't seem like it has the road infrastructure - only two lanes on hwy 5, etc...

This is from two brief visits so take what I say with a big grain of salt.

BTW, what is it with the PNW towns and the young druggie street kids? Ashland, Eugene, Bend, Spokane, Bham, Portland....all have these young scruffy street druggie kids hanging around the downtowns in pretty large numbers. I can't remember seeing this as much in other college towns/small cities across the U.S. Where do these folks come from and why so prevalent in the PNW? Just actually really curious. Places like San Fran have a lot of homeless, but they look like more more older hard core long term homeless types and less more like drug addicted young tweeker types.

[razmatazzy]

Is Bellingham a windy place, just windy in winter, just certain areas are windy?

We had many power outages in South King county, usually in winter, wonder if they do too?

[waviking24]

Yes it can get pretty windy in all of western Whatcom during fall and winter.

[NW4me]

FWIW, I just spent a little time in both the Willamette Valley and NW WA. It seemed to me that in general, WA drivers are in much more of a hurry than those in OR, especially along I-5... it was a bit more mellow on the Olympic Peninsula. But the worst were the cars with BC plates!