It looked to me like he was actually in North Portland--i.e. Mississippi. I'd say that's a little "west-side" of him to lump the two together.

It's nice to be reminded that some of us, including me, are still in love with the place, in spite of Sam Adams, Randy Leonard, the disastrous school situation, the leftists, the unionists, the sadist corps inhabiting the police force.....

Portland has echoes, some charming, some less so, of the description of NOLA given by the character Ignatius P. O'Reilly, in the novel, A Confederacy of Dunces:
"the flagrant vice capital of the civilized world... exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protected by graft..."

About Portland, I would add, "crack food reinventers, reshapers of the food and clothing economies, ecstatic dancers, daring dressers, supremely self-satisfied slackers, and some original trend-setters who are successfully and creatively eking out a living between scraps of sunlight, all ranged against a comforting backdrop of solid regular people, many of whom are straight thinkers and talkers."

And don't forget, the stunning natural beauty enveloping the place...the breathtaking land and water, and the multitude of gardens on every block.