I was walking the dogs recently and when I saw a house for sale I snagged one of the flyers to see what the asking price was, as you do. One of the obsessions of the homeowner is to determine whether the biggest investment one is likely to make in this life is appreciating, or whether one will meet the fate of all dunder-headed land speculators and end up in that pink ranch house in Beaverton.

This house, at the south end of our block, had a pleasantly extravagant asking price, as have others in the neighborhood in the year-and-a-half since we bought in. So that's working out for us, though we have no intention of flipping our own house. Moving is a pain.

Interestingly though, the flyer claimed that house was in the Mt Tabor neighborhood. Now, Mt Tabor is a fine place; its namesake extinct volcano rises above East Portland and the houses higher up the slopes have stunning views of the surrounding city and further afield: Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, Mt Hood, the West Hills, and whatever the vista is of Portland to the south, where the Willamette dwindles into the haze. Capping the hill is Mt Tabor Park, a wonderful place of looming Douglas Firs, steep paths, and more incredible views, including one with the Eastside streets far below your feet sloping straight downhill toward the river, parallel arrows pointing toward the panoramo of downtown Portland.

Mt Tabor neighborhood is affluent, with its share of ritzy homes, one of which looks like an Italian villa and which I shall own when I fall backwards into money. Even the most modest command high prices, what with the views. The streets are quiet, the houses well gardened, most visitors are intent on cycling to the top of the park rather than burgling and car prowling.

Our street, however, is not in Mt Tabor. We live in Montavilla. That is a contraction of Mount Tabor Villa, and though I don't know who came up with that stupid name, it is well-established -- we have a reprint of an old photograph from 1915 (coincidentally the year our house was built) showing one of the old Portland streetcars with its destination sign saying "Montavilla". And the borders are firmly fixed -- Mt Tabor ends several blocks away from us. So a bit of a fib, and one I've seen made for houses-for-sale north of us, further into Montavilla. City crime creeps more thickly about us than higher up the hill; I've memorably been woken by the sounds of police raiding a meth house nearby, at five in the morning.

Montavilla does not have the same cachet as Mt Tabor. Where we live, on the borderlands so to speak, the neighborhood is still amiable and not shockingly louche. The farther north and east one travels, however, the more the neighborhood descends into a place where one has to live, rather than where one wants to. Not exactly rows of crack houses (though 82nd Avenue, running through the neighborhood, has plenty of vice action), just run down, working class to lower middle class. Not the kind of location to tout when selling me a house.

Me, when asked where I live, I just say "near Mt Tabor". I can see it from our street, so why not.