Huckleberries Online

Portland Tops Unhappy City List

Posted by DFO

March 2, 2009 noon • 23 comments

Item: BusinessWeek ranks Portland at the top of ‘unhappiest city’ list/Oregonian

More Info: Portland has found itself at the top of another list, but not the kind you can brag about. A staggering jump in calls to a crisis intervention hotline, high rates of depression and divorce have landed Portland atop BusinessWeek’s list of unhappiest American cities. The magazine looked at a range of factors - crime, unemployment, and cloudy days (an average of 222 a year in case you’re wondering) - and concluded that the Rose City is one miserable place.

Question: Portland is a fairly liberal city. Does this mean that liberals are unhappier than conservatives?

23 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

BlueinIdaho on March 02 at 1:53 p.m.
Did you get any help to make that leap? Sheesh. Taking the same giant leap, Texas kills more criminals than any other state. Texas is a hugely conservative state. Does this mean that conservatives are more deserving of the death penalty? Really. Huge. Jump.
PDXPup on March 02 at 1:53 p.m.
DFO, are you baiting me? :)

I just think it means people with seasonal affective disorder shouldn’t move here. if you’ve been living below the mason-dixon line (am i still allowed to say that?!?) for most of your life, chances are portland won’t be your cuppa tea.
PDXPup on March 02 at 1:55 p.m.
BlueinIdaho. Easy fellah, that’s not a leap DFO is making. OregonLive’s article on the story is at 150 comments and counting, most of them an unintelligble back and forth about the very question DFO posed. See for yourself:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/business_week_ranks_portland_a.html
moscow_minidoka on March 02 at 1:57 p.m.
No DFO, you don’t have any bias at all on this blog, do you? You’re not even trying anymore, and that’s what so disappointing… It’s all about baiting and clicks… this afternoon should be about the right time to front-page Bryan Fischer.

Oh well, I refuse to bite anymore. There’s enough biting going on around here these days without me contributing.
toadman on March 02 at 1:58 p.m.
“Does this mean that conservatives are more deserving of the death penalty?” - Blue..

Whoa.. don’t go there. There may be some who agree with this assessment!!

;-)
moscow_minidoka on March 02 at 1:59 p.m.
Ernest Hemingway said that “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

So, does that mean that happy people are STUPID? Guess so. Those people in Portland are suffering from excess intelligence, I guess. And Utah is suffering from a severe lack of it.
BlueinIdaho on March 02 at 2:00 p.m.
PDXPup. It defies every rule of logic, so that makes it a jump. But, I will agree with the “unintelligible” part.
PDXPup on March 02 at 2:15 p.m.
I see what your saying, BlueinIdaho, but I’m not sure how much of a jump it is as a question when The Oregonian’s own website has a feature on the story, and nearly all of the commenters are engaged in a liberals vs. conservatives war about which side is contributing more to Portland’s overall unhappiness. It’s true, Portland is a bastion for liberals, but the conservatives here yell just as loud, as you might see from reading the comments on OregonLive.

MM, this is actually an interesting question, given some of the “Top” lists Portland has been on in the past year: sustainability, livability, bike-friendly, etc. So it’s difficult to imagine a place that’s been in these types of “Top 10” lists, with so many recreational outlets, as being unhappy. I know more people here who consider themselves “conservatives,” than I do people who brand themselves “liberal,” but one thing they have in common is a dissatsifaction with political and economic affairs of the city and state…i come to the conclusion that we are a talkative bunch who are happy to voice this dissatisfaction to whoever will listen on a more regular basis than our fellow states. haha.
Liz on March 02 at 3:03 p.m.
you know, I was thinking the same thing. That all that liberalism didn’t seem to deliver on the joy factor.
seriously though…I wonder if it has to do with the fact that PDX seems to attract a lot of transient types that already have problems. In other words: Portland is not CAUSING the problems but maybe the problems seem drawn to Portland. Maybe people think the ole geographical cure might help and then it does nothing of the sort???? Sort of a chicken or egg thing…
misc on March 02 at 3:40 p.m.
As someone who was born across the river from Portland, and suffers from seasonally affective disorder, I can assure you it’s because of all the damn rain.

I didn’t figure out the S.A.D. bit until I spent my first winter in Texas.
Stickman on March 02 at 7:22 p.m.
Liberals will always be unhappier than the rest. Where do we make up the line in the sand. You tell me.
Escapee on March 02 at 9:38 p.m.
I saw the Sun today for the first time in about two weeks. Seasonal Affective Order indeed. But, I keep telling myself that at least I don’t have to “shovel” rain or worry about having my driveway being blocked by a RainPlow.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.