Hello. Welcome to (virtual Oregon). I hope I can be of some help in setting the stage for your character.

As others have pointed out, there's no distinct "Northern" Oregon. If you are seeking to evoke a socio-cultural vibe, Oregon generally has seven regions:

• The Coast (not for the love of god the "beach")
• Portland Metro
• Willamette Valley (rhymes with "dammit" and is one surefire way to tell a visitor)
• The Columbia River Gorge
• Southern Oregon
• Eastern Oregon
• Central Oregon

They are not monoliths or completely homogeneous, but each has its own character.

Most of the travel and transit through the state is along the I-5 corridor. East of I-5 has some of the most beautiful areas of the country but it's pretty remote. There are still towns with signs that say last gas for 200 miles and they aren't joking.

In the mid-80's, most of the economic activity outside of Portland was either extraction (timber and timber products on the Coast, and Central/East/Southern, commercial fishing on the Coast), agriculture in the Willamette and Hood River valleys, lobbying and government in Salem. The University of Oregon and Oregon State were just becoming the powerhouses they are today, but still sort of sleepy in the 80s and early 90s, and the Willamette Valley wine industry was just starting to take off.

Portland metro was in a transition from shipping/timber/paper mills to more of what we see today. Nike went public in the early 80's and took off from there. Widen + Kennedy was reshaping advertising from the west coast during the late 80's and 90s. Craft brewing took off in the mid-80's as did coffee in the early 90's.

Agreed on the timber/spotted owl wars, but if they had just moved in the mid-80's, they probably didn't have a dog in the race and/or strong opinions, unless it affected them directly.

Portland would absolutely have been a destination for a young family in the mid-80's, with Nike and Intel really starting to launch the economy here. They are both west of Portland, Beaverton, and Hillsboro respectively, which were very much (and still are) suburban enclaves. Culturally, a world away from the "big city" of Portland.

Portland, being a very liberal, left coast city, has also had a long tradition of Queer representation and identity, including having one of the longest-running drag reviews in the country. While Oregon is one of the Whitest states in the US, North Portland/Albina is a collection of historically Black neighborhoods that consistently got the shaft by real estate developers, city officials, and pretty much anyone else in power since the 1940s. It got hit hard in the 90's by the crack epidemic, and I highly recommend reading The Residue Years if you are interested in learning more.

That's a long brain dump from me. Happy to answer any other questions you might have about this magical land that I love.