No major cities
One reason I haven’t seen mentioned: it’s hard to get there. The best you get is a two-lane highway (as in one lane for eastbound and one for westbound). Also because you have to go over a mountain range, there’s actually very few highways to even use.
For the Oregon Coast, in that circle you have 4 highways: 6, 18, 26 and 30. If you want to go to, say, Newport you pretty much have to go to Lincoln City and then head South.
Ask the people in Astoria and the other cities there.
I was there yesterday. It’s cold AF all year.
What they said but also, that’s the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Faced disastrous drop in land level back in the 1700s. Dunked the whole coast into the Pacific
These are ceremonial, organ-harvesting sites.
Best to stick to the main roads.
they are populated. gorgeous drive up the coast. did a week in the banana belt near the turn of the millenium. it was a very nice municipality.
It’s a Bigfoot reserve.
we just went to that area yesterday!! its very rocky and lots of cliffs on the coast, and super super hilly and forested in the interior.
many absolutely do live there, and those municipalities marked on your map there are reasonably populated. but the terrain is not super great for building large stuff, and they really do not like deforestation either. it is also farther away from freeway I-5, where most stuff on the west coast is freighted by truck, and is more expensive, at least from our experiences.
the sunset on the coast is SO pretty though :)
If I remember correctly, they talk about it in this YouTube video. It basically boils down to the terrain and it being bad for ports.
There’s a city named “Newport” smack dab in the center of the circle ironically enough.
It has been blocked off by a ring of lava
These places feel normally populated for the geography when you drive through them.
A few reasons. One is there isn’t much flat land; most of it is hilly and even mountainous and covered in thick forests. The flat areas are occupied with farms and towns but the space is small and not enough for big cities to grow. The hills and mountains are heavily forested and there has never been a big enough population to need to encroach on them. It’s also not great for building and farming, unless grazing animals.
The other big reason is there are no natural deep sea ports in that region. It’s either marshy or the estuary of the river Colombia. Small fishing towns would be fine, but not big industrial ports that drive city growth (or did in the past). Meanwhile, Portland sits further back up the river with plenty of flat land and access to the water, so makes a natural port. And Seattle sits on the bay further north and is coastal, and a good port.
The dynamic got set up of big cities further back, and those areas never really grew. Once the land became part of state forests, then that restricts growth even more.
EDIT: Here is a topographical map showing in blue the flat land: https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/world/?center=38.54817%2C-119.79492&zoom=6
I just realized why it’s called Portland.
In my defense, I’ve never seen a map of it before.
Nope, the name was decided with coin flip. Lol Could ended up as Boston.
Going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole:
[Portland, Maine] was formally founded in 1786 and named after the English Isle of Portland. In turn, the city of Portland, Oregon, was named after Portland, Maine.
I failed at finding how the Isle of Portland got its name but saw this:
In Dorset, England:
The origin of the name “Portland” on the Isle of Portland is uncertain, but theories include:
- It may be a corruption of the Celtic word “Port Lann” (“harbor by the cliff”).
- It may derive from the Old English “portelond” (“land by the harbor”).
- It may refer to a fortified harbor or headland.
https://etymologyworld.com/item/portland
Its the first time I’ve seen the site though and that page feels a bit AI generated
That’s a little disappointing.
Inland port -> Portland seemed nice and tidy
i thought you were kidding until i saw the wikipedia link. that’s fascinating, and very cool that they still have the penny
But why was Portland one of the options?
One of the founders (Francis Pettygrove) was originally from Portland Maine, and the other was from Boston. They both wanted to name the new city after their hometown.
It’s entirely possible that part of Pettygrove why wanted to name it after his hometown is because he thought it would be fitting for river port city. But idk if he ever stated anything to that effect.
All good points but you also forgot to mention another key factor. This is more or less the rainiest region in the country. It’s extremely wet and most people don’t like that.
It really is shitty out there most of the year. Even in summer it can be 95 degrees in the valley and raining on the coast. Most of the people living out on the coast are natives, retirees, and Trump supporters as there isnt much work outside of casinos, gas station/fast food, and logging. There’s also tourism but thats also just the beach, the casinos, and your standard saltwater taffy shop, antique shop, kite shop trio repeating over and over all up and down the coast.
Yeah people love to complain about rain in Seattle but some parts of the coast here get around double that amount of rain.
Yes. The temperate rainforest region of Pacific Northwest is a horror show. 300+ days of rain. And the others are just cloudy. You can’t swim in the ocean. It’s constantly below 80. Don’t move here. It’s horrible.
So… no high speed fiber access then?
You can’t swim in the ocean. It’s constantly below 80.
Uhhh all ocean water is below 80 degrees otherwise humans will near boil when going near it.
Yep. The ocean is both too cold and near boiling. The PNW is awful!
I think they were measuring it in burger units.
cant swim in the ocean
Windsurfers rejoice!
Nope too dangerous for that too. Definitely don’t move to this hellscape.
Mostly because no one wants to deal with twinkling vampires.
Because they live somewhere else
Because somebody put a giant red fence around the area, nobody can get in.
The Goonies: am I a joke to you?
NGL I’d move to Astoria in a heartbeat if I had a remote job and a place to land lined up, but the Epstein class has decided that can’t happen
I freaking loved Astoria, such a mood. Totally get why you’d move there. Maybe one day…
This isn’t an informed guess, but I’d imagine it has to do with ground suitability, as well as risks caused by the ocean and weather. I recently read an article that major cities in the area, away from the coast, are causing the ground to sink below their weight.
