Gresham, OR (Portland, Hood River, Sandy: crime, house, safe area)

[CBaillo]

Hi all. For more details about me and my family, here is an old thread of mine:

https://www.city-data.com/forum/portl...ow-i-dont.html

the basics: we are a family of four, with a 2 and an 8 year old (both girls). Very family oriented, looking for safe areas, close to nature and the city. I had heard lots of bad things about Gresham, for our situation, but found this pretty nice looking property there, and was wondering if this area its in is an exception, or if all of Gresham is bad?

The address of the property is:

5830 se 15th loop gresham, OR

[pdxMIKEpdx]

For cirime statistics, Google "Portland Crime Mapper", then plug in the address.
I think it covers Gresham.

Then plug the address into googlemaps, go down to "streetview" and visit the nieghborhood.

That's a good start.

[Daisy32673]

there are pockets of good, it seems like they are trying to clean it up. would I live there with my kids? nope

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Oh come on, Daisy. A blanket statement like that is just plain silly.
There is absolutely NO PART of Gresham you would live in? Really?
You make it sound like the whole town is a hell hole.

It sounds like you know nothing at all about Gresham, except maybe just driving through it on the main drags like Burnside or Powell.

There is much more to Gresham than that.

Like everywhere else, there are bad parts, good parts and the extremes of each.

[CBaillo]

i already did the street view, thats why i had said its a nice property..and the surrounding neighborhood seems good.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by CBaillo

Hi all. For more details about me and my family, here is an old thread of mine:

https://www.city-data.com/forum/portl...ow-i-dont.html

the basics: we are a family of four, with a 2 and an 8 year old (both girls). Very family oriented, looking for safe areas, close to nature and the city. I had heard lots of bad things about Gresham, for our situation, but found this pretty nice looking property there, and was wondering if this area its in is an exception, or if all of Gresham is bad?

The address of the property is:

5830 se 15th loop gresham, OR

That's a good area. It's all housing divisions there, butting right up next to the Urban Growth Boundary. Based on the cookie cutter looks, it's a newer subdivision which I'd personally stay away from due to the much lower build quality of the house itself.

The "bad" parts of Gresham are more down along 181st and Burnside. Maybe down through Twelve Mile and that area. Anything outside of those areas is going to be fine for a family.

Barlow is a decent High School too.

Whoever continues to propagate the myth that Gresham is a "bad" area is an idiot. Even it's worse areas don't compete with bad areas of Portland, and certainly nowhere near anything like in NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or LA. Or they're plain racist, as Gresham does attract a lot of immigrants.

[philwithbeard]

Originally Posted by CBaillo

....The address of the property is: 5830 se 15th loop gresham, OR

I looked that up on Google Maps, that address came up as on the far east side of the Gresham community.

Getting a bit close to Mt Hood for my comfort level, YMMV. I presume you know Mt Hood is an active volcano. You're good for about 70 years (give or take a decade or two) with Mt. Hood, BTW. Sister mountain is Mt. St. Helen, a couple of hours drive to the North.

If you have lots of free time on your hands, Google: Boring Lava Field
(that's the name, not an editorial comment on the dryness of the reports.)

There are a ton of photos of Mt. Hood in the Portland Photo gallery on this forum. quite impressive tall cone shaped snow covered top mountain standing by itself east of Portland and Gresham.

[Creativeguy504]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

Oh come on, Daisy. A blanket statement like that is just plain silly.
There is absolutely NO PART of Gresham you would live in? Really?
You make it sound like the whole town is a hell hole.

It sounds like you know nothing at all about Gresham, except maybe just driving through it on the main drags like Burnside or Powell.

There is much more to Gresham than that.

Like everywhere else, there are bad parts, good parts and the extremes of each.

If she wouldn't live there, what's wrong with that? Everyone has their own personal preference. I like Gresham, but I realize that it's not the place for everyone. Different strokes for different folks.

[wanderbygrace]

Originally Posted by philwithbeard

I looked that up on Google Maps, that address came up as on the far east side of the Gresham community.

Getting a bit close to Mt Hood for my comfort level, YMMV. I presume you know Mt Hood is an active volcano. You're good for about 70 years (give or take a decade or two) with Mt. Hood, BTW. Sister mountain is Mt. St. Helen, a couple of hours drive to the North.

If you have lots of free time on your hands, Google: Boring Lava Field
(that's the name, not an editorial comment on the dryness of the reports.)

There are a ton of photos of Mt. Hood in the Portland Photo gallery on this forum. quite impressive tall cone shaped snow covered top mountain standing by itself east of Portland and Gresham.

I wouldn't be overly concerned w/Mt. Hood in Gresham, nor anywhere else in the metro PDX area, until you get way up to Zig Zag, Rhododendron, and Government Camp. Heck, I'd be inclined to say 98% of Sandy would even be fairly safe, and its much closer to Hood than Gresham.

There are five primary problems when it comes to a volcanic disturbance: earthquakes, pyroclastic flows/blasts, lava flows, lahars, and ashfall.

Earthquakes resulting from volcanic activity are fairly localized and generally don't cause a whole lot of damage. I'd think anything outside of Timberline & Government Camp wouldn't see anything other than a little shaking.

Pyroclastic flows/blasts are tremendously destructive, but are limited by terrain and distance. The combination of those two things would protect anywhere in Portland.

Lava flows can stretch for fifty miles if the terrain is right. But in this case, the same limiting terrain for pyroclastic flows would cause even more limitations on lava flows from damaging anywhere in metro Portland.

Lahars would likely present a significant problem to the Sandy River, but unless you are in the Sandy River valley (which very few area once you get into Sandy and below it), there'd be little cause for concern. The Columbia could see issues, but it would affect river traffic more than anything. This particular property is well over 400' ABOVE and a healthy distance AWAY from the Sandy, so lahars wouldn't be a threat.

The #1 concern would be ashfall. However, since the prevailing winds blow towards Hood, odds are that any ashfall would occur to the east of Hood.

Just because MSH caused so much death/damage doesn't mean Hood would. Given the terrain & distance of metro PDX to Hood, even an MSH type eruption (swollen dome collapse following an earthquake, resulting in a lateral eruption, followed by a Plinian eruption) shouldn't affect our metro area. Of all the communities in/around Mt. Hood, the only ones I'd be seriously concerned about would be the aforementioned communities between Sandy & Hood along 26, as well as Hood River (lahars)

Okay, sorry for the ramblings....I'm a bit of a volcano buff.

PS: The Boring Lava Field is pretty well extinct. It does, though, make for some beautiful scenery in Mt. Scott, Mt. Tabor, Mt. Talbert, etc.

[jamurphy]

Very interesting post, WanderbyGrace! You are quite knowledgable on the subject --Thank you for sharing that.