Name: Eugene, OR
Rating: 0.0

( 42 Ratings )

Living in Eugene, OR

Ranks better than 79% of areas Follow

Population

170,457

Median Age

35.0 Years

Eugene Area Facts

Eugene has a Livability Score of 79_/100, which is considered exceptional
Eugene crime rates are 16% higher than the Oregon average
Cost of living in Eugene is 5% higher than the Oregon average

What do the locals think about Eugene?

31%

Family friendly

57%

Public transit is accessible

34%

Walkable to grocery stores

43%

Yards are well-kept

69%

Lots of parks

49%

Walkable to restaurants

Friendly neighbors

Safe at night

Pet friendly

Streets have sidewalks

31%

A quiet area

49%

Sense of community

Based on 35 votes from AreaVibes users. Take the poll

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Eugene Reviews

Write a review about Eugene Tell people what you like or don't like about Eugene…

UPDATE THE NUMBERS! 1 rating By Anonymous ( May 30, 2019) Average home price 248k and median rent 921? Sorry, but that is way off by large margins!
Average home price is 313k and average rent is 1300 for a 2 bedroom, and it isn't slowing anytime soon!

Highest homeless population counts were in January of this year, and when you drive a ...Read More bout this city it shows. Lots of drivers here are from the upper midwest - notorious for their poor manners on the road - and Californians, who tend to drive like their in their own world and unaware of others existence. For the Hipster coming from the Bay area this is a paradise destination because the crime rate and housing costs compared to their is very attractive. For the Oregonians that have lived here for years it is evolving into an unaffordable nightmare. Sure, you have mountains around you, lots of green, and a short skip to the coast - but good luck trying to enjoy it with the masses about, and enjoy the annual valley filled with woodsmoke with the dried out burning mountains around you.
New housing is of the upscale variety, and the older stuff is stupidly high for what you get. The city government is more interested in building micro-communities of eateries/boutiques/townhouses combos then it is in fixing crappy neighborhood roads and the homeless situation. The weather is great for 5 months, but for 7 it's gray and/or wet. The effect on the non-natives is obvious by February when they're demeanor and vitality starts to wear thin.
Welcome to the new Orefornia. Where the national median income won't do much more than allow you to scrape by, your car will be a magnet for damage from others, you get to navigate homeless human obstacles on a constant basis on every street corner almost, and your kids will probably be exposed to more sex and drugs by 14 than a roadie in a rock band gets in a year.
I'm out next month - if I had wanted to live in California and deal with rising costs, taxation, homeless populations, catering to the well off, pollution, and crowded space and noise constantly I would have moved there. Now, it has moved to me so it's time to go. Read Less

Quad living/ simple living 4.5 rating By Cramer123 ( May 09, 2018) Hi..I live at Westside Quads..I've lived here about a year and five months...Its been a good little pad to lay your head down and have your own little space if your in school or working..or just because....Threes a great maintenance team Manx onsite manager Monday through Friday ...Read More to help you with your needs. She's very nice..If you're looking for low rent..a nice shower and your own little private place..come check these out! Also has a parking garage!Its close to campus and grocery.. Read Less

Worse than ever, what a shame 0.5 rating By BlueEyes ( Jun 30, 2017) I grew up in Eugene and moved back after getting a couple degrees elsewhere and serving in the military. Crime was pretty bad when I was growing up (one of my former classmates is on death row and another was murdered, the list goes on) but it seems far worse than before. I just ...Read More spent a few years on the East coast in a major city with absolutely no crime issues and no problem finding work, but within a month of moving back to Eugene I've had property stolen and it seems like it's impossible to get hired anywhere. The salaries here are way behind other cities but the cost of housing isn't. It seems there are ten times as many people hanging out on corners with cardboard signs and I sincerely regret coming back here. So despite having family here (they have also experienced numerous thefts and break-ins), regrettably, I'll be looking elsewhere because Eugene is a huge disappointment on so many levels. Read Less

I filed 14 police reports in 2.5 years! 0.5 rating By MaryMaryDoe ( Sep 23, 2016) I came to attend the U of O. I was verbally abused by two professors as was the entire class. Most locals have criminal histories(for more than 3 decades) it appears the gov't has been systematically moving criminals down to release from prison. I suspect that over 40% of the loc ...Read More al regular population have felonies. I've been threatened with a lighter by a stranger on the bus(oh, yes that makes 15 police reports in about 3 years). The landlords are either paranoid from past abuses so they go through your room or they are on drugs themselves seeking property to steal, sell and buy drugs with. It's LOOKS fine, on a day to day basis outside. BUT Criminals come from all over the country to also join the criminal penal colony!If you wish for super high risk of crimes against you then go ahead move here.....(I've been back 1 day) I won't risk staying again. Read Less

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Worse than ever, what a shame 0.5 rating By BlueEyes ( Jun 30, 2017) I grew up in Eugene and moved back after getting a couple degrees elsewhere and serving in the military. Crime was pretty bad when I was growing up (one of my former classmates is on death row and another was murdered, the list goes on) but it seems far worse than before. I just ...Read More spent a few years on the East coast in a major city with absolutely no crime issues and no problem finding work, but within a month of moving back to Eugene I've had property stolen and it seems like it's impossible to get hired anywhere. The salaries here are way behind other cities but the cost of housing isn't. It seems there are ten times as many people hanging out on corners with cardboard signs and I sincerely regret coming back here. So despite having family here (they have also experienced numerous thefts and break-ins), regrettably, I'll be looking elsewhere because Eugene is a huge disappointment on so many levels. Read Less

I filed 14 police reports in 2.5 years! 0.5 rating By MaryMaryDoe ( Sep 23, 2016) I came to attend the U of O. I was verbally abused by two professors as was the entire class. Most locals have criminal histories(for more than 3 decades) it appears the gov't has been systematically moving criminals down to release from prison. I suspect that over 40% of the loc ...Read More al regular population have felonies. I've been threatened with a lighter by a stranger on the bus(oh, yes that makes 15 police reports in about 3 years). The landlords are either paranoid from past abuses so they go through your room or they are on drugs themselves seeking property to steal, sell and buy drugs with. It's LOOKS fine, on a day to day basis outside. BUT Criminals come from all over the country to also join the criminal penal colony!If you wish for super high risk of crimes against you then go ahead move here.....(I've been back 1 day) I won't risk staying again. Read Less

Forget Portland, Euegene Is The Place To Live In Oregon 4.5 rating By Anonymous ( Dec 19, 2014) I lived in Eugene, Oregon for three years and one of the first things you learn is that the town has a bit of an inferiority complex. Portland gets all the buzz as a hipster haven, while most people still think of Eugene as being more about the lumber industry than the best place ...Read More to find a microbrewery.

One of the best things about Eugene is its low cost of living, which makes it much easier to enjoy the luxuries of life. Breweries like The Beer Stein and Oakshire are as good as anything you'll find in Portland. But their prices are substantially lower than what you'd find in the "big city."

I must warn you about the big drawback of Eugene. It has a reputation for being the last haven for hippies and there's a lot of truth in that. Sometimes it seems like half the town is comprised of aging VW microbuses being driven by gray-haired artist types. But the upside of that is you'll find lots of small businesses that cater to people with not a lot of money. Lots of cool little restaurants and artist haunts. It's like New York City's Greenwich Village without the high overhead.

If you're thinking of moving to Eugene, you should know that Eugene is a college town. So you're going to hear a lot about the various Oregon Ducks sports teams. But it also means that the local elementary and & high school districts are well-regarded. As for nightlife, well, there isn't as much as you would expect to see in a college town. But the are downtown known locally as "Barmuda" has a a couple of dozen places that cater to the local college crowd. Read Less

It's really a good town! 4 rating By linzjune ( Aug 27, 2014) So a lot of people bash on the weather, but it's really not that bad! Yes, It's mostly cold but when winter comes around you get one or two days of snow which is great but a lot of icy days, not so great. The summer is good though, june through early september is hot! But fall an ...Read More d spring are very short seasons here.

Also the community is pretty great. In the summer You got the local saturday markets and the big hippie festival, "The Oregon Country Fair" right in our neighborhood! It's a pleasant town to settle down with your family! Read Less

This town gets worse every year 1 rating By JJJ ( Mar 16, 2014) Eugene is a college town that's slowly dying from the inside while being covered by an ever-increasing pretentious faÃ§ade.

Good job opportunities here are almost nil, so I have no idea why this town is still growing. There are homeless panhandlers on practically every major c ...Read More orner. About 1/3 of Eugene-Springfield households on food stamps, and that fraction would be higher if it weren't for the rich Chinese kids and retired yuppies. Despite this, though... the only new construction seems to be pretentious crap. Fancy hotels, overpriced student housing units (which is quickly becoming a mini-bubble economy here), etc... We were recently rated the 4th most unaffordable area in the COUNTRY for buying a house (for the average local population). Rent is high, and wages are low. You can't even get a job as a waiter unless you have 2 years of experience, so have fun competing with Master's degrees to flip burgers.

The city government is extremely inept. There are multiple roads with terrible potholes that never get fixed, but they keep putting speed bumps on random roads that don't need it. They're pushing through a pointless bus program through the west end of town that will probably displace a lot of businesses on that route and make traffic even worse than it already is. YMCA and Fred Meyer offered the city millions of dollars for the old baseball stadium space. What did the city do? They're going to waste a bunch of money keeping it as a "landmark". Because yeah, people from all over the world are going to flock here to see where some minor league team used to play...

The University of Oregon is the only thing holding this town's anemic economy up in the slightest. Although when the student loan bubble starts deflating, that's when this town is really going to suffer. UO doesn't have any good STEM programs (there isn't even an engineering department), so they're going to be hit harder than most public universities. All they have to do is lay off 15 professors and overpaid administrators and there's $1mil out of the local economy overnight.

People here are generally stuck-up, pretentious and passive-aggressive. It's funny how everyone here thinks they're so great, but at the same time they're in a competition to be the most mediocre. Nobody gives a crap about doing anything well. They just settle for mediocrity and cover it with self-aggrandizing lies.

This town gets one star, because you won't be shanked to death here. Sure, maybe a tweaker will blindside you with a pennysock, but we probably have the lowest rate of murder for a town of this size. I actually like the winter weather here too, but if you can't deal with clouds and rain for 6+ months out of the year, you'll be miserable. Read Less

Maybe your sorta place but certainly not mine. 2 rating By cbrophy ( Jan 23, 2014) Eugene is a very pretty town, undoubtedly. It has some decent restaurants and some nice hippie type people. And that's about it. There is nothing to do other than visiting friends and going to restaurants. If you like that boring sort of life, as well as TONS of meth addicted hom ...Read More eless people, you will love Eugene. I left some time ago in search of adventure in life and men who don't have beards from the time they can grow them. Oh yes, and jobs. There haven't ever been any jobs, it's not the economy downturn that's to blame in Eugene. Read Less

Eugene, OR - A Melancholy Dream 3.5 rating By Anonymous ( May 07, 2010) I have always loved all things and places that have an artistic flare. Eugene, OR has a reputation as being one of the most artistic cities in the world. This being said it was definitely high on my list of places that I wanted to see. A few years ago my husband surprised me with ...Read More a trip for two to this glorious place. I was so excited to go that I began packing almost immediately.

A few weeks later we arrived in Eugene. The serenity and outdoor life was breathtaking. This city sets only about seventy five miles inland and is completely covered with miles upon miles of nature. Eugen is absolutely breathtaking. The downtown part of Eugene however was not as thrilling as I had expected. Sure there were many attractions to see and a handful of things to do, there was an art gallery on just about every corner. Nevertheless, the overall feel to the city was a bit too melancholy for my taste. The people there were not very friendly and the gloomy weather that consumed our entire trip was a major disappointment.

We eventually decided a few days into the trip that we would spend the rest of our time out of the city and just sightseeing at one of the many natural parks. All in all this was a great trip and a beautiful place to see. I just do not think that it lived up to my high expectations. Read Less

Eugene Awards

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Compare Eugene, OR Livability

Eugene, OR

Eugene is the third-largest city in Oregon, behind Salem and Portland. Its population has grown rapidly in the past few years, spurred recently by the influx of people from Portland and other, more expensive cities in the area as well as the popularity of the University of Oregon. The city is known for its focus on the arts and environmental recreation, and its motto is "A Great City for the Arts and Outdoors".

Eugene's initial growth came as a result of the timber industry's expansion into the Pacific Northwest. Despite this, Eugene has taken great pride in actually preserving the environment and it is hard to forget the beautiful mountains and forests of the area. Locals and tourists alike enjoy the hiking trails, biking, and kayaking, for which Eugene is particularly renowned. Indeed, this city is best for those with an eye toward nature and the preservation of it.

Many residents of Eugene are either students, professors, or alumnus of the University of Oregon. It is one of the best institutions for higher education on the West Coast and this has helped develop the local economy significantly. Aside from education, there are several shopping centers and museums, including the Jordan Schnitzer museum of Art and the Edgewood shopping center. Nearby cities such as Portland and Woodburn also offer plenty of shopping opportunities.

For a city of its size, Eugene has a surprisingly efficient public transportation system. The Lane Transit District services 240 square miles of land in Lane County, including Creswell, Cottage Grove and Junction City. Biking is another common mode of transportation, although there is plenty of infrastructure for cars if you would prefer it.

Employment in Eugene has continued to grow with the overall economy, and many famous companies have their headquarters in or near Eugene. In fact, Nike was founded in the area and still employs a significant number of people. All things considered, Eugene is an excellent opportunity for starting new businesses and that is exactly what many college graduates go on to do here. The cost of living is high at over $1,000 a month for rent, but the minimum wage is set to increase with inflation and cost of living year-over-year, along with the rest of Oregon. This helps to offset the high cost of housing in the area.

Eugene is one of the fastest growing cities in the Pacific Northwest and the environmental beauty alone makes it worth a visit. If you decide to make the move to Eugene, you will be greeted with friendly people and plenty of recreational opportunities to pass the time. This makes Eugene the perfect place for many people, young or old.