A fast growing city in northern
Oregon of approximately 78,000 inhabitants,
Beaverton is part of the
Portland metro area, which is comprised of around 1,800,000 people. As with the rest of
Oregon, Beaverton is not too incredibly
ethnically diverse, 4 in 5 Beavertonians are white. Beaverton itself isn't too noteworthy a
city, but being close to
Portland gives residents the excitment of big city life without the problems of living in a big city. Beaverton is near a lot of interesting and significant places on the
west coast. Besides the obvious Portland, Beaverton is 3 hours from
Seattle, 5 hours from
Canada 1.5 hours from the coast, 1 hour from skiing at
Mt. Hood, 1.75 hours from
Eugene and 11 hours from
San Francisco.
Most of Beaverton is suburban, the city has a small commercial district but is composed mainly of neighborhoods. There are many high schools, many churches but no colleges in Beaverton. Beaverton is a fairly nice place to live. The city is composed of a large number of college educated white-collar people, high tech is one of the main employers of Beaverton. Many people come to Beaverton to work at Intel, Tektronix or various other high tech jobs, which are located in or near Beaverton. The city is no Corvallis, though, it also has significant blue collar industries as well.
One thing Beaverton is famous for is that it is home to Nike World Headquarters. Nike is also a large employer in Beaverton, and the Nike Campus is huge and beautiful. Somewhat amusing that a relatively unknown town is home to a huge mega corporation known worldwide.
It ain't heaven, but Beaverton isn't a bad place to grow up.