Portland, OR real estate and demographic information

About Portland

Portland is a very large city located in the state of Oregon. With a population of 593,820 people and 156 constituent neighborhoods, Portland is the largest community in Oregon.

Portland home prices are not only among the most expensive in Oregon, but Portland real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.

Portland is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Portland is a city of professionals, sales and office workers and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Portland who work in office and administrative support (12.64%), management occupations (10.45%) and sales jobs (9.98%).

Of important note, Portland is also a city of artists. Portland has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Portland’s character.

Also of interest is that Portland has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Portland is one of the most attractive larger cities for people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. This makes it a good place to live for young singles in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting their professional careers. Although Portland is a large city, this demographic is significant enough that young professionals will find many others like themselves here, with really good opportunities for friendships, recreation, romance, and more.

Portland is a big city, and with that comes lots of benefits. One benefit is that most big cities have public transit, but Portland really shines when it comes to the extensiveness and use of its public transit system. More than most large American cities, Portland citizens use public transit daily to get to and from work. And while there are transportation options, most people in Portland ride the bus. Whereas in some cities one is destined to sit in traffic every morning to get to work and every evening to get home, in Portland a lot leave their cars at home (if they even choose to own one), and hop a ride on the bus.

Portland Information and Demographics

The citizens of Portland are among the most well-educated in the nation: 41.98% of adults in Portland have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Portland in 2010 was $30,631, which is wealthy relative to Oregon and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $122,524 for a family of four. However, Portland contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Portland is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Portland home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Portland residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Portland include German, Irish, English, Italian, Norwegian and European.

The most common language spoken in Portland is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Vietnamese.