With all seriousness, though, it's a great place to live, coming from a resident. Although if you find yourself on the conservative end of the political spectrum, you might be uncomfortable with the liberal bent of the city.
Haven't we just about purged the libertarians by now? You guys have just about converted me, even.
As an added plus, we have incredibly robust public transit for a city of our size. That's how I get to and from school every day.
Only by west coast American standards. It's highly competitive in the bike friendliness though, lots of unused bike paths due to successful bike lobby and crappy weather. I'm not sure if the OP is looking to move to a US city. He also doesn't mention what sort of weather he enjoys.
If you are looking for a nice mid size city with sun and doesn't vomit politics on you at every turn, then you need to avoid Portland. Portland is great for young people to retire and people that love 9 months of clouds and rain. Seriously if you consider yourself an outdoors person do not be fooled, Portlanders act like they are all about hiking and biking but in reality they aren't. It's far too cold and rainy all the time and none of the rivers there are swimable. So water sports are non existent right along with other outdoor activities.
Still my fav city though because I like to be indoors drinking beer and looking at strippers. No one does beer and strippers like Portland. Not sure why they sell themselves as an outdoorsy mecca. They do have tons of bike paths though, just not many bikers due to the weather.
My fav US cities are SAC, PDX and Seattle. All west coast, Seattle is getting expensive though. :-( San Fran, LA, Oakland and San Diego are ridiculously crowded and polluted. Some people like walking over human shit on the way to the bus stop I guess.
So that's my take. Hope it helps.