City of the Escaped

"There are those who believe that living in a better city will make you into a better person. Portland is the kind of city people give up their dreams for. A place so desired by some that just making it there, merely existing, surviving in the city is good enough. People that leave their towns with bad weather and little natural beauty, places like Cleveland and Indianapolis and Detroit, come to Portland to solve their problems, to seek new beginnings."

From a pretty good essay about Portland I stumbled upon recently on the website Thought Catalog.