Weather is similar to Portland, but as you get closer to the coast you get less temperature extremes. The coastal mountains do get snow in the winter, though, due to elevation. There's probably more rain.
I think in general people don't build there because it's harder/more expensive to build on hilly terrain, there aren't many jobs in the area, roads are relatively sparse, and though the landscape is beautiful in general, the way it's logged means there's little species diversity and the land always looks like it has a bad haircut.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other plausible sites we could find by spending a little time with Google Maps. Most of them will have something wrong with them, otherwise cities would have been built there already. However, some of the problems may be features in the right context. For instance, hilly terrain might deter real-estate developers from trying to build 100-houses-at-a-time developments and encourage the kind of people who are willing to make the effort to use the geography to their advantage.
I think in general people don't build there because it's harder/more expensive to build on hilly terrain, there aren't many jobs in the area, roads are relatively sparse, and though the landscape is beautiful in general, the way it's logged means there's little species diversity and the land always looks like it has a bad haircut.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other plausible sites we could find by spending a little time with Google Maps. Most of them will have something wrong with them, otherwise cities would have been built there already. However, some of the problems may be features in the right context. For instance, hilly terrain might deter real-estate developers from trying to build 100-houses-at-a-time developments and encourage the kind of people who are willing to make the effort to use the geography to their advantage.