North Portland

Long dismissed as the city’s "fifth quadrant," North Portland has come into its own in recent years, as the comparatively low cost of real estate has made it popular with young entrepreneurs, students, and other urban pioneers. Marked by a 31-foot-tall roadside statue of the strapping lumberman Paul Bunyan (on the National Register of Historic Places), the neighborhood occupies the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Willamette River (to the west) and the Columbia River (to the north). In the working-class, port-side neighborhood of St. Johns, old-school barbershops and hardware stores sit alongside a steadily growing mix of hipster-favored shops, restaurants, and cafés. Farther south (and closer to downtown), North Mississippi and North Williams avenues, which are about 10 short blocks apart, have become home to some of the hottest food, drink, and music venues in the city.