Best Old-House Neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon, isn’t a city known for extremes. Our mild-mannered climate gently swings between cool summers and damp winters, our history is rich but lacks dramatic booms of wealth and industry, and our inhabitants are so easygoing that we actually stop our cars to let pedestrians cross the street.
Our architecture follows the same script. You won’t find boulevards peppered with gated estates of the super-rich here, or severely blighted areas of urban decay. We have no big-name architects’ masterworks, nor acres of bland, no-name development. What Portland does have—perhaps its greatest asset— is a living mosaic of inner-city neighborhoods filled with tens of thousands of charming and well-preserved early 20th-century homes.
Divided right up the middle by the Willamette River, Portland has an East/West split that defines more than the city’s geography and address system. On the Westside is the city’s urban center, which quickly rises into the 1,000′-high West Hills, where winding streets and forested canyons play host to view-blessed homes of the affluent. On the flatter Eastside, an endless grid spreads across a gently rolling landscape, where more modest middle- and working-class houses are woven into a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods both funky and elegant, sewn together by vibrant commercial streets, busy public schools, and beautiful city parks.