We'd like to have a large garden and maybe some chickens. We're very familiar with Portland, but not these particular smaller towns in/around the Willamette Valley.
Good School districts are very important, and we'd be purchasing with cash a "forever" home in early retirement. A diverse environment, neighbors with community, and nearby to Trader Joes/Whole Foods. We're outdoor hobby enthusiasts.
Like Lhamo says, don't overlook co-ops, CSAs, meat shares, stuff like that.
Eugene and Corvallis have TJs, Albany does not. Eugene and Corvallis have a more similar vibe to Portland- tend a little more liberal, a little more food-sourcing oriented. Albany is... well, it sucks IMO. Most people I know don't actually want to be there, they just grew up there or couldn't afford Corvallis. Albany is cheaper than Eugene or Corvallis though. Corvallis tends to be a bit more university oriented, while Eugene is larger than just U of O. Corvallis is a little more purely liberal vibes, whereas Eugene has a little more urban/rural divide in the city itself. Eugene feels more like a city than either of the others (no surprise, since it's 4x the size), but nothing like Portland.
School districts: Vancouver WA has terrible public schools. Eugene is pretty good but has a bad HS drop out rate overall. Albany has fairly bad schools, Corvallis has pretty good ones. I know a lot of Eugene schools have AP and IB options, not sure about Albany and Corvallis as much.
Vancouver *really* feels like a suburb of Portland, and not a city in its own right. Huge swaths are food deserts. It is very car dependent. We recently looked at living there because of the income tax consideration. Even for a 10% raise, functionally, it wasn't worth us to move to Vancouver instead. Just... if that tells you my thoughts on the matter, lol.