The word is out about Portland: it’s a nice place to live. But with young, creative types coming to the City of Roses in droves for over a decade, the very people who made Portland cool are being forced out by unaffordable housing.

Portland, Oregon.

Portland, Oregon. Image by Stuart Seeger / CC BY 2.0

Skyrocketing rents and a scarcity of affordable housing are causing many of Portland’s low-wage earners or artists – the very people that made Portland cool – to look elsewhere for places to live.

Experts say Portland’s housing issues reflect a wider scarcity of urban housing in the US as more and more people seek a hip, metropolitan lifestyle. Unlike previous generations, which preferred living in suburbs, college graduates under 40 are moving to areas closer to downtown neighborhoods of San Francisco, New York or Seattle. These urban areas are having trouble catching up to housing demand, and residents have to pay inflated rental rates as a result. Read more: nytimes.com