Apartment Therapy is wrong: Beaverton isn’t even close to being Portland’s coolest suburb (commentary)

Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, September 28, 2017. Beth Nakamura/The OregonianLC-

Earlier this month, the lifestyle website Apartment Therapy unveiled its 2019 list of “The Coolest Suburbs in America,” and Oregon had exactly one winner: Beaverton.

Beaverton. A suburb named after beavers. Cool.

Beaverton is a stretch of strip malls and freeways. Beaverton is occasionally cool, like when Beyoncé flies in and visits Nike (though Nike technically isn’t in Beaverton, but is surrounded on all sides by Beaverton). But it is a fleeting cool, temporarily bestowed by a passing celebrity.

Even Apartment Therapy, in their write-up of Beaverton, seem to acknowledge this reality.

“Neighbors are chatty,” write Arianne Cohen for the website. “Bike trails to neighboring towns and downtown Portland abound. Hop in your car to dozens of box stores minutes away. It seems like everyone composts. Parking is readily available and free.”

So ... it’s cool because of the big box stores with huge parking lots? Cohen would go wild for the Midwest.

Is it possible that Cohen only visited the one suburb before making her determination? It seems quite possible. Beaverton is pretty big and it does have Nike and a MAX line. It has beaver in the name, which is fun. But, come on. What about Forest Grove, a bucolic paradise, or Vancouver, a city in a whole different state where liquor is available in grocery stores!

And that’s not even mentioning Portland’s number one best suburb: Troutdale.

“Troutdale?” you ask.

Yes, Troutdale.

Like Beaverton, Troutdale’s name features an animal species found in Oregon. But unlike Beaverton, its best feature isn’t a proliferation of Best Buys and Targets. It’s the beautiful Sandy River and the entrance to the Columbia River Gorge.

Troutdale might not have unending strip malls, but it does have arguably the best McMenamins in the world, Edgefield, which is a wonderland of bars, a golf course, a movie theater and a meandering, heated soaking pool.

The Korean and Indian food in Beaverton is fine, but Troutdale has the adorable, river-adjacent Sugarpine Drive-In, serving colorful soft-serve creations, and Tad’s Chicken 'n Dumplins, serving some of the best comfort food Oregon has to offer.

A visit to Troutdale is basically a vacation, whereas a visit to Beaverton is probably not a visit. If you’re going to Beaverton, it’s because you live there. Or, I guess, because you think their Target is better than the one in your neighborhood.

The truth about Beaverton is: it’s fine. It’s not cool but, what suburb is really all that cool, besides Troutdale? At least Apartment Therapy didn’t make a real mistake: They didn’t pick Lake Oswego.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

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