The Local Flavor Is Fun! SITREP Mom and I blitzed down from Seattle through town to see our Oregonian siblings and cousins and we had fun! THE SETUP There are so many Thai and Mexican restaurants to enjoy (our favorite cuisines right now) that are reasonably priced. Voodoo Donuts is always a fun stop to grab a baker's dozen of some pretty special Choco-Peanut donut masterpieces to take back home with us. And the gas always seems cheaper here than it is back home. THE LOWDOWN Always love my time in Eugene, OR. read more

City of Eugene - The Local Flavor - Municipality Near Me - Eugene, Oregon

Home of Eugene University What a beautiful sight driving through this town of green natures. read more

Review number 1,000 deserves to be a special one: A love letter to my home sweet home. I'm a born and bred Oregonian, and lived most of my life in my hometown of Eugene. It's a small city, the second largest in the state (something that Eugene and Salem fight over every few years when there's a census). County seat of Lane County and home to the state's flagship university, the University of Oregon, Eugene is a funky place. It has its issues. I always thought it was boring as a kid, which may be part of the reason I wanted to live in a large city when I finished college. But as I have been in that large city for many years now, I miss my home, family, and friends. I go back and forth on whether I've outgrown the city, or if it maybe has growing pains of its own that it's struggling with. I think there may be a bit of both there. Eugene has several claims to fame. It's the birthplace of Nike; Bowerman and his waffle iron, combined with Knight's business prowess, started a phenomenon. I'll bet you didn't know that jogging--yes, the type of jogging people do to keep active--was popularized in the United States after Bill Bowerman started a jogging club in the city and wrote a book about it. One of Eugene's nicknames is Track Town U.S.A., in part because of its association with Bowerman and the powerhouse track athletes that have come from U.O. Steve Prefontaine may be the most well known of those athletes, even as it nears 50 years after his death. Eugene has a lot of hippies--my best friend, who grew up in Portland, said Eugene is where hippies went when the 60s ended. It may be because Ken Kesey lived outside town and taught at the university, and the Grateful Dead found their way here pretty often when Jerry Garcia was still alive. That spirit is still here, and I think it makes Eugene special, but I hope the city is also growing up a bit. If you're in Eugene, you can drive an hour west and find yourself along the Oregon Coast; two hours or so east and you're in Bend or Sisters, and a couple hours to the north you'll be Eugene's big sister, Portland. You'll generally find lots of people here with a good heart and and open mind. read more

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The City of Eugene: Where things are overhyped, falsely touted, and then underperformed! Case in point: The World Championship Track Meet. Required taxpayer funding, coupled with grandiose promises. Instead, businesses are mostly empty; waiters & waitresses are making less money than normal (lack of customers and tips); taxicab use is flat, or down; hotels "from Roseburg to Salem" are not full; the track meet stadium has empty seats...it goes on and on! Case in point: Homelessness is absurd. One of the highest per capita rates in the country. Dopers and drunks are all over. Mental health issues for many. Frequent crime problems. Case in point: School issues. Bottom line: Don't say you were not warned. Some of us made the mistake of going there...we learned, and left. read more

This is just a general love letter to the city that I have been calling home for the last 4 years. My husband and I moved here in February of 2016 from Los Angeles. He is originally from here so we decided to make the trek north to be closer to family and to escape the big city life. Being a Californian my whole life, it took me a while to adjust to PNW living. But after a few months I really began to fall in love with the city of Eugene. An eclectic town full of people who are passionate about their home. Passionate about their Oregon duck teams. Passionate about their restaurants, breweries, and bars. And passionate about all the outdoor activities surrounding Eugene. During the COVID-19 crisis I have become more thankful than ever that I call Eugene my home. A town that took this crisis seriously during the early days and are doing whatever it takes to save lives but also save businesses. I have enjoyed seeing the online community come together to share information about what businesses are open and share tips on the best ways to support them. My heart aches for my community but it also remains optimistic that we will be able to rebuild and bounce back from this. read more

"World's Greatest City for the Arts and Outdoors!" This is the cities official slogan. Seriously, look it up www.eugene-or.gov Some days I love this city and some days I hate it with a passion. That's what happens when you've lived here long enough to have left and came back. It is a great city for ages 0-23 and retirement 55+. If you don't fall into that category or have someone in your family that does I would encourage looking elsewhere for residency. I would like to give more than 3 stars but I can't right now until I see some major changes that would make the city more attractive for the 25-35 crowd. A thriving downtown would be nice, a significant employer besides the University could tip the scales. This ends my 100th review and I hope to be able to update it 5 years from now to at least a 4 star. Good luck Eugene I wish you well. read more

City of Eugene - downtown Eugene - Municipality Near Me - Eugene, Oregon

Two and a half stars was not an option so here it is. Eugene is a medium sized city in the southern Willamette Valley. It has a good geographic location as it is just 100 miles south of Portland and 60 miles to the Pacific Coastline on the west and about the same distance to the Cascades winter sport recreational areas to the east. It features a variety of average restaurants and decent shopping via Valley River Center. The hiking within the city limits is above average and views from Spencer's Butte and Mount Pisgah are spectacular. The summers are hot dry and desert like with wildfires in August and September. Winters are long but mild with excessive rainfall often lasting months at a time. Rain begins in late October and lasts through about May 1st. Politically, the city is liberal and way too tolerant of drugs homelessness and crime. Property crime in Eugene is rampant. There are about 4 to 5 thousand homeless people in Eugene. Way too many for a city of about 200 thousand. Eugene is undeserved with a profound shortage of basic amenities like gyms grocery stores and medical services. Everyone everywhere is short handed all the time. High property and income taxes don't help favor small business development either but both lane and Multnomah, Oregons most populous and most influential counties continue to vote extremely leftist. The lack of political checks and balances does no favors to the people of Oregon. Hopefully someday things will change. Until then I guess we just have to deal with it. Eugene has great potential especially if it had leadership with higher standards that enforces withe law with more accountability. read more

Eugene is the southernmost end of the Willamette Valley, but it's hardly a low point. When Eugene Skinner established it, he described the Oregon countryside as a "land of enchantment" to his sister in a letter in the 1860s. Unlike the more metropolitan Portland, Eugene is very much in the country. It has a small, personable airport. It's very much centered on the arts, with Alton Baker Park, the Saturday Market, and the Oregon Bach Festival at the Hult Center. Going to Eugene, I've seen the hippies, Dvorak's lesser known opera "Dimitrij", and medieval religious plays performed live complete with a real-life double rainbow for the opening Genesis sequence. It is that kind of enchanting place. While Portlandia obviously has the hipsters, Eugene has the hippies, and that's a significant part of its charm. It calls itself a great city for the arts and outdoors... and in this case, it's true. read more

I love coming out to Eugene Oregon every year for a visit. I find though,on the negative side: the homeless population is increasing, the police and government there allow them to be in open areas with tents, even trashed basketball nets under the open bridges, grocery store carts etc, where visitors coming to their city are very surprised to see. Homeless have areas all along the river taken for living places, claiming their areas! It's so sad and also unsightly. I even see the homeless in their sleeping bags on private property in many places where nobody does anything! They need more shelters for them and rehab places( many are heroine addicts and alcoholics) I was looking at property in Eugene to purchase, forget it; it is such a high price for this type of stuff all around there. I want my property to stay nice. Such a shame. Government and police need to clean it up a lot and do not seem to do anything but, Let it get worse. read more

Great city and Super bunch of employees!