Towards a new way of describing Portland geography

[twofiftyfive]

While looking at job listings on craigslist, I was intrigued by a listing that claimed to be in "NW Portland". I no longer live in NW, but it's easy to get to on transit--in fact, the bus that goes right past my building goes into NW. So I clicked the link to find that the job is at...15220 NW Laidlaw Rd.

Now, this address isn't even in the Portland city limits, as it turns out. It's in unincorporated Washington County, and has a Portland postal address. But that isn't really the point. The point is that NW Laidlaw Rd isn't just farther away from where I live than, say, Couch Park in the way Mt. Tabor is farther from downtown than Ladd's Addition. It's a completely different part of the city (if the fact that it isn't in the city bothers you, just use a spot 2.5 miles to the east instead). Why do we use USPS address conventions to talk about Portland geography? Downtown is nothing like the rest of Southwest; houses across Burnside St from each other shouldn't be described as being in different quadrants; and compared to Old Town and the Pearl, Linnton had might as well be in St. Helens.

I think the divisions on this map are much closer to being correct, though I would clean it up a bit and expand Central City to include much of the residential part of the NW District. I'm definitely in favor of officially calling the area east of I-205 (or even 82nd Ave?) "East Portland" instead of NE or SE. As for changing the mailing addresses of thousands of Portlanders, I'm not really advocating that, but it wouldn't be unprecedented.

I realize that the fact that this map exists (and I've seen other similar ones, from the Planning Commission maybe) means there is some official recognition of a different way of dividing the city's regions, but I think it's rare.

Does this bother anyone else?

[nobody]

So don't use those terms. You can be as specific as you want to be.

[JoshYent]

This problem may be solved, they are trying to create a city in that unincorporated area that you speak of.....I too have a hard time accepting the fact that the "City of Portland" extends all of the way out along the northern border of the Sunset to Cornelius Pass....However I dont think that creating a new city out of that area should be allowed, it should be annexed into the cities of Hillsboro/Beaverton. This area would be a great addition to the tax base.

[JordanL]

Forget that, annex it into Portland...