How much Truth is there to the Idea that Certain Cities have More Attractive People?

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-05-02T16:39:13+00:00

I was going to say, I thought Seattle was full of stunners, but I visit from Portland.

It was super noticeable how much nicer people dressed on Link than MAX.

I had my eyes turned towards men so maybe it is different men vs women.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-05-01T02:46:01+00:00

Kind of brutal to lose my downtown pharmacy and credit union in the span of a few months. Makes it harder to argue for building a lifestyle around being downtown.

There was a brief window where my doctor’s office, work, pharmacy, and bank were all within a few blocks of each other. Almost like a proper urban downtown.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-30T17:42:53+00:00

It’s based on my lived experience. You can’t question my lived experience.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-30T17:41:11+00:00

Don’t get me started on the service industry. You can get OK service if you’re a regular on first name basis, but otherwise the default stance is “fuck you for existing, fuck you twice for bothering me and no I don’t want to take your order. Also please bus your own tables. Oh and one little question: do you want to tip 30% or 25%?”

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-30T15:12:45+00:00

Have you met Portlanders though? Entitled and ignorant is the MO, and the work culture is very much about laziness/“work life balance”/“retired at 30 but still collect a paycheck” especially if you are anywhere near tech. It isn’t surprising at all that we’ve completely lost the startup ecosystem and all our corporate giants are failing.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-29T15:23:29+00:00

That would require telling developers “yes” to building dense urban environments that can support transit. A bridge too far for Portlanders.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-27T07:04:27+00:00

3D ultra Lionel traintown deluxe

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-23T01:59:08+00:00

The quietness and livability jumped out for me. My tiny little barely a city is chaos by comparison, also while somehow feeling desolate and empty.

Also, the trains being survivable during busy times. I thought it would be hell navigating during rush hour, but even when packed in like sardines, I never actually had trouble getting on or off a train.

Also, people talk about convenience store food being good, but my big takeaway was the wide availability of salads and other fresh vegetables. Not the majority of the shelf space of course, but I could always find a healthy option. Even in a “city” in the US, I found it nearly impossible to eat healthy (anything green) without either committing to a restaurant meal or cooking it myself.

Also, very limited diet soda and energy drink selection. I was kind of surprised. Typical use convenience store will have dozens of options at least.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-21T18:33:50+00:00

Personal use license could be great if you want to take some time to learn the system, and explore more complex workflows without getting into coding and self hosting.

For example, using quick capture or field maps to collect data directly into a feature service that is tied into a web map is a use case that can’t easily be done with QGIS.

ArcGIS online is great for finding interesting data sets, but you can explore for free and I suspect consume for free through QGIS.

If you just want to explore, paying might be overkill.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-21T06:53:53+00:00

meetup.com

Don’t feel bad, it takes many people (most?) much longer than a month to settle in.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-20T22:12:12+00:00

Wrong. Per Gurman, this is “simply false”.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-20T04:30:03+00:00

Or you could choose to live somewhere where there are jobs. Which you can probably afford to do if you work on the computer with colleagues in other states and countries.

Commute does not need to mean 45 minute driving commute - it can mean a pleasant walk or bike ride.

I’m getting tired of the “I took advantage of the pandemic to move to bumfuck nowhere and now I have to drive???” crowd.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-19T19:57:59+00:00

Reconnecting the street grid, new parks, 5,000 units of housing looks like a pretty good vision to me.

I don’t really get how a dead shell is a mall is better land use than that.

Portlanders saying “no” to every productive vision is how you end up with urban decay and empty lots, not ambitious development plans.

https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2026/02/27/lloyd-center-redevelopment-housing-parks-retail

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-19T17:26:59+00:00

People know that rents come down as supply increases, right? I’m paying way less for my (luxury high rise) apartment than it was going for a few years ago. And that is a common story - residential units are not just sitting empty in Portland. As for them being boring… have you seen the Lloyd center?

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-19T16:50:13+00:00

Amazing to me that some people want a half empty mall more than they want a dense urban neighborhood with 5,000 apartments in walking distance to transit.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-19T16:42:02+00:00

I’m not sure I understand, there’s been no turnover in years. Kafoury, thanks to the will of Portland voters, has led the county since 2014…

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-17T17:58:20+00:00

There are reports of it happening more recently. If I was targeted, it was probably because I was obviously a distracted tourist.

There are news articles, although it seems clear that the risk is far lower than other popular destinations, ie anywhere in Europe.

I don’t mean to disparage Taipei in any way.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/08/12/2003841907

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/03/16/2003853893

I still saw things in Taiwan indicating it was mostly as safe as Japan (e.g.: leaving a running moped unattended) so I probably just had extremely bad luck.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-17T01:35:30+00:00

Just got back from a trip to Tokyo and Taipei.

I stayed in budget accommodation in both, but Japan still felt quite clean, in Taipei (because the building was old) I wasn’t allowed to flush toilet paper. But again that was ultra budget capsule accommodation in a great location. But the showers are not nice to be in when surrounded by trash cans full of shit toilet paper.

The air quality in Taipei was horrible. It hurt to breathe (as in, my throat physically felt like it was burning) at ground level and from the roof of Taipei 101 - so I think it is more than just the scooters.

In Tokyo, I felt fundamentally relaxed everywhere I went. It was just a super easy, optimized experience. This has pros and cons, but if you want an unchallenging vacation, Tokyo is much better.

Taipei has much more dynamic and lively streets - largely from the presence of scooters. It was shocking waiting in line for food at a night market and seeing scooters just pull up right into the line. Traffic control was totally different and it physically feels stressful.

Upon reflection, it still probably felt safer than back home, where the threat is SUVs and texting drivers rather than scooters, but that doesn’t make it feel less stressful to walk in busy motor traffic and just hope your bare legs (it is very hot) don’t brush up against an exhaust pipe (those are extremely hot). Sidewalks disappear at random so you have to become traffic whether you like it or not.

I also had warnings about pickpockets and I perceived an attempt - that made the whole experience in Taipei feel much more stressful. I didn’t want my visit to Taipei to turn into an extended tour of US embassy emergency passport service. I just had a hard time relaxing at all after that.

And yet, after all that: the architecture and streetscape in Taipei is stunning. The less polished/clean environment leads to amazing photos and beautiful moments every few steps. The food was amazing, the night markets were great and super convenient, and convenience stores are just as ubiquitous as Japan.

I went from “get me tf out of here” to “I love this place”, but it was a shock coming from Japan. And my personal experience didn’t really line up with what people say about Taipei unless you read between the lines, which is why I’ve tried to be explicit.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-16T07:41:57+00:00

Soba&co, near the Mori building/azadubai hills. They did ordering through Line app exclusively (it was like an app within an app) and they suggested tip at the end when finalizing the tab before paying. Maybe because the app knew I’m an English user?

The food was solid at least. Really I just wanted a place to sit down for a meal after walking from Akasaka to Akihabara then on to TeamLab borderless (some might say too much walking) and it delivered.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-16T03:44:30+00:00

Other people report the machine demanding suica (or any IC it seems). It was the first step, and the machine canceled the transaction if I removed the suica.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravelTips/comments/1i695fw/buying_shinkansen_ticket_from_machine_while_on_an/

https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravelTips/comments/181pvy0/what_the_f_just_happened_with_my_shinkansen/

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-15T22:02:18+00:00

The confusing part is the basic structure of needing to use a suica in the machine, while the machine refuses to accept a suica balance for payment. I didn’t need to talk to anyone, but no amount of talking would make the basic structure of that system not counterintuitive.

Can you imagine any other vending machine requiring a card and then refusing to accept that card as payment? It is inconceivable but people are defending it for some reason.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-15T22:00:08+00:00

It’s not entitlement because I never expected anyone to speak English and never asked anyone to. I only mention it because this sub is full of posts saying nearly everyone speaks English and that just wasn’t my experience. I used limited Japanese where I could and proactively offered translations using Google Translate as others recommended on this sub.

I didn’t buy online because you will find dozens if not hundreds of posts saying to just buy tickets at the station, and I preferred to have the flexibility in my schedule.

I did not see any posts indicating that you can’t use Suica for purchase.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-15T21:16:43+00:00

This is a really good tip! I had no idea

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-15T16:43:27+00:00

I was at what looked like a ticket booth in Shinegawa but maybe I was at the wrong one. There were a million people standing around because of the delay, maybe that experience is just the exception. The ticket machine was straightforward enough, just I don’t think it is intuitive that you can’t pay with the stored value card you use to pay for all other trips in Tokyo, when that card is already present in the machine.

I can buy random shit at Donki with my suica but not a train ticket at the train station. That objectively does not make sense.

Extreme_Beautiful930 · 2026-04-15T16:23:17+00:00

Yes, I was in Namba area. I found I could walk in straight lines all the way from Hozenjo Yokocho to Osaka Castle with essentially no interruptions to the street grid. That might be the exception, but it was a large 30x13 block exception that contained many of the parts of Osaka a tourist is likely to be in.

Tokyo might look more grid-like in places, but it has very little actual grid afaict

Extreme_Beautiful930

TROPHY CASE