With age comes wisdom. KOIN had a story up the other day about how retirees are moving out of Portland in droves. It’s now the fourth least desirable city in the country for one’s golden years, according to one annual study that tracked seniors who voted with their feet. The top three retiree population losers were New York, L.A., and Chicago.
Oregon was not in the top 10 states for out-migration. But Portland made the list of most unwanted cities.
I’ll bet most of the 4100 or so retirees who left town last year were people who would have voted sensibly had they stayed. And the 2300 or so who moved in are probably naïve enough to think that people like Mike Schmidt and Jessica Vega Pederson are who you want running things. I don’t think relief on the leadership front is imminent.
One factor affecting the exodus might be how the city is no longer such a great place to raise kids. The grandmas and grandpas, in addition to watching their money closely, tend to go where the grandkids are. These days, that’s more likely to be the ‘burbs.
But more than anything else, it’s the taxes, I’m sure. Gas tax, arts tax, homeless tax, preschool tax – the old people notice these things, and they know they can get a much better deal elsewhere.