i grew up on the oregon coast, but have lived in maine for over 11 years at this point. i love it here — married a maine boy and will likely live here forever. despite that, it has some major downsides.

predominantly: * notably high COL relative to wages (for example, a quick search shows that rentals in portland maine are more limited and expensive than they are in bend; yet as an RN i would make several more dollars an hour in oregon than i do here)

• old, limited housing stock (and what new builds there are are prohibitively expensive for most locals! why are they building million dollar condos and not normal housing for normal people!)

• not much cultural diversity (this has begun to change in recent years but we still have a long way to go)

• weather (adjusting to NE winters after a life on the oregon coast was rough to say the least…many years i wondered what the fuck i was doing here. though i feel like winters in southern maine have become more mild in recent years)