If a person wanted to live in a medium size town with a low cost of living, clean environment, mild weather, lot's of artsy things to do, liberal and open, and on or near water, would Eugene be a good choice? Any other choices?

I'm also interested in Eugene. Is there anyone here who has ever lived there who could describe the town?

Well it's not on the water and I don't think the cost of living is particularly low. That part of Oregon is VERY beautiful, it's got liberal and conservative pockets of thinking both. Eugene's reputation is a bit "hippy" still. Corvallis is another town nearby you might want to look at as well.

Hey, Suze, a river runs through it (or is that the name of a movie?). Lots of watersports opportunities...no surfing, though.

I have never lived there but I have visited many times and think that it is a neat place. For those so inclined, it is an outdoorsy place. For the academically inclined, it is a college town.

Oops, sorry I assumed golfer meant the coast/ocean. Wasn't considering rivers and lakes.

I live in Eugene- moved here 15 yrs ago
Eugene has many nice features
1 1/2 hrs to mountains and the ocean/ bike trails throughout the city for biking,
takes me 9 minutes to drive to work, access to lots of outdoor activities- biking, rafting, skiing,kayaking, fishing, golfing
can still buy a house or condo under 300,000

Lots of cultural events- have the Hult Center plus events at the U of O - many nice restaurants.

the downside is that the downtown area is struggling to make and comeback but hasnt happened yet and city council has a reputation for not making progressive decisions for the city.

Also good paying jobs are at a premium here and have heard that the cost of living is high compared to the average income.

All in all I do like living here - I would actually prefer to live in Portland but looks like that wont happen for awhile- but its a quick trip up I-5 so go there frequently.

I used to live in KC where my main activity was shopping. Here I have taken up hiking, biking and many outdoor things I would never have believed I would be doing -

Summers here are wonderful - so much to do
Winters, although rainy - are not bad- at least you dont have to shovel snow out of the driveway before you go to work and if its overcast and rainy here its frequently better weather over the pass - and we go snow shoeing or cross country skiing.

So there is a little snapshot of Eugene

Dont know much about Salem and Corvallis but have heard that they are really growing too

The other downside of living in Eugene is that the airport is fairly small -
I freqently drive to Portland instead as more choices and much better prices usually

I went to graduate school in Eugene and really liked it, though it was too "small town" for my taste. As fair as climate goes, well it's mild--rarely too hot or too cold, but I think it rains more there than where I live now (Seattle) and it isn't "near water".

We loved living in Eugene, it was a completely different lifestyle from what we had in Philadelphia.
Eugene itself is pretty liberal, but there are many conservatives (some VERY conservative, one guy in all seriousness told us how annoyed he was that you couldn't shoot trespassers anymore).
Up in the hills (particularly on the east side), there are lots of big, expensive homes, and Eugene isn't as nonmaterialistic as it was when we first moved there. We're still annoyed that we didn't buy that really cute 2 bed den new craftsman style house around 15th and Olive that was sold for $125,000 in 1993. (we're always just missing the boat on real estate booms...)
The downtown area has struggled for a long time, experimenting with pedestrian only streets, then reopening them to traffic, and so on. Shops come and go.
It can get very foggy in winter.
If you want to rent there first, one of the nicest complexes we looked at was Boulders on the River, over near Valley River Center. I don't know if it's still as nice (we last looked at it a few years ago).

It's a great place to enjoy the outdoors. We remember the night we walked down to 16th and Oak and saw a porcupine (!) meandering along the sidewalk.

Still has aging hippies, some of them apparently wanted by the law (a la Homer Simpsons' mom). We have a picture taken of my husband at one of the street markets. There are a couple of aging hippies in the background who were obviously hiding their faces from the camera.

Now that we're in our upper 40s, not sure if we'd want to live there (like sunbum, we'd probably pick Portland), but when we were in our late 20s and early 30s, we thought it was outstanding.

When we lived near Portland, we used to visit E so often that our parakeet's favorite saying was "going to Eugene!"