i live in portland and went to law school in eugene 2004-2007. it's a good college town for raising kids in. i have a bunch of friends that went to the public schools in eugene. i would highly recommend NOT living in springfield across the river and it's where most of the meth heads live and the schools are way worse. springfield is the springfield of the simpsons and eugene is the nicer town next to it they are rivals with - it's based on real life because matt groening is from the area. eugene is probably one of the most liberal towns in the country (which doesn't bother me, but some mississippians wouldn't wanna live in that environment i guess), but it's a lot of old grateful dead hippie liberals (whereas portland is more of the modern elitists, highly educated liberal). plenty of great breweries - in fact elk horn is run by a msu grad and there's some msu stuff in there. i think stricklin posted a pic with the brewer last year when he was out for the track and field championships? speaking of which, hayward field is a cool spot to go watch a random track meet and is easily the most storied track in the country. the bars close to campus are very college oriented (rennie's, taylor's, i'm sure there's more i am forgetting or opened after i left). but many of the downtown bars are definitely geared away from the college scene. bier stein is a great bottle shop and beer bar.
now to address a few of the misleading comments...
"You are also in the middle of earthquake country. What more could you ask for?"
actually no. sure if/when the big one hits, the pacnw could be in for a wild ride, but it's not like california and the san andreas fault. in the 9 years i've been in oregon (currently on my 2nd stint after being in DC for a job for 4 years), i have never felt an earthquake. ****, the only earthquake i've ever felt was living in DC.
"A little bonus trivia: don't bother going in a strip club - they aren't allowed to take off their clothes, which I thought was strange. Obviously we didn't stay long."
um, which one did you go to? unless that's a new eugene (or springfield since that's where most of the strip clubs were when i was in eugene) city thing that's been enacted since i left in 2007, that's not normal. oregon has some of the most liberal strip club laws in the country. people treat the strip clubs in portland like a normal dive bar to grab a beer and a burger (or steak if you are at the acropolis in portland).
i obviously love oregon, and love portland. i enjoyed eugene but i was ready to get out of the college town lifestyle by the time i graduated, but if you are looking for that lifestyle, then eugene is great. i did not want to leave oregon, but couldn't turn down the job opportunity i got in dc in late 2008, but knew i'd be back out here asap, and made the move back in early 2013. bought a house in 2014 in ne portland, and don't plan to leave. there's more outdoor activities than i could ever hope to do. there's more local beer and wine and liquor than i could ever hope to drink. imo it's the best combination of nice people (like the south) and progressive politics (like the NE) possible and a lack of pretension that really only exists out here (like no one dresses up for a duck game, tattoos aren't taboo in the work place, almost no one wears a suit to work, etc). the rain isn't that bad, it's more of whether you can deal with the grey from ~november until ~march (though we did just have the 2nd rainiest october on record), and 90+% of the rain the rain is barely a drizzle and a hoodie or a vest is more than enough layering to keep you relatively dry. in fact, portland is way below every southern city when it comes to inches of rain per year, it'll just take us a month to get the amount of rain the south gets in an hour storm. best way to handle it imo is to plan your vacation in the winter. last december we went to vietnam for 2 weeks, this year we are heading to mexico for 2 weeks. plus the summers are so great and there's so many outdoor opportunities, beer fests, cultural fests, etc. that you don't wanna leave town then. the people definitely pride themselves on individuality and quirkiness, local businesses thrive, and the area is one of the best not only for small businesses in general, but especially female run small businesses. violent crime is minimal (not sure what we are at now, but portland had a total of 4 murders in the entire first 6 months of 2016), but petty theft (car break ins and bike theft) can be kinda high if you aren't careful - basically don't leave **** in your car you don't want someone to take and get a good lock for your bike and lock it up in a lit area.
anyway, feel free to shoot me a PM if you want more details or have more questions, i don't post on here too often, but figured i'd weigh in since i actually lived in eugene and live in portland now.
oh yeah, best brewery is de garde. rated by ratebeer as the 5th best brewery in the world. it's a small operation out in tillamook that specializes in sour beers. it'll make you reevaluate your beer consumption and you'll find yourself looking forward to a free thursday-sunday so you can run out there and restock on whatever bottles they have available. other favs include breakside, upright, great notion, barley brown, boneyard, logsdon, block 15, and pfriem.
