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A lot of people say Seattleites are cold. That was probably given by a transplant that didn't make a lot of friends and it somehow stuck. I thought this way too at first but then I thought about it: a high tech place with lots of geeks and lots of outdoorsy stuff to do and greater than 50% of the population are transplants. It is all natural that folks will not be very outgoing.
This was a shock to me, since I come from the Midwest. We knew everyone on our block (in a big city like Chicago that's easily 30-40 people). We had block parties complete with teh road closed to cars and jumping jacks brought for the kids and maybe a cop car or a fire engine to spray down everyone from a fire hydrant. We got invited to each others' parties. We welcomed new people with enough food to feed an army.
Not so much in Seattle.
I knew someone who lived here 15 years and had dozens of friends, but didn't know his neighbors. The most remarkable memory of his neighbors: "yeah, the folks living across from me had a really noisy kid teenager, but he moved out when he went to college." Wow. Just wow. "What happens in an emergency?" "Well if its a fire you usually get someone's attention." Double rainbow wow.
So you make do with what you got. Meetup.com is THE place to find people who enjoy doing what you do. I've made friends and it's been fun thus far, you just have to adapt, and many people can't adapt, so they label it something silly and go away in a huff and a puff. Or maybe they got dumped by a girl and can't get over it. W/e.
Another thing people do that I think is a little unfair is try to draw parallels between Seattle and other cities. I've been to a fair number of them and it's impossible. The only cousins are Vancouver and Portland. It's a Pacific NW thing, you don't understand (unless you live here). No, seriously, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. WE AREN'T NYC IN A BOTTLE, WE AREN'T A MINI SAN FRAN, WE AREN'T A CHICAGO/ST. LOUIS HYBRID, WE AREN'T ANYTHING LIKE THAT! We're Seattle. Wanna know what it's all about? Come out for a visit. Nor do we "aspire" to "be like" NYC or LA or whatever. Ugh. Endless concrete jungle or sprawling fakeness. NO THANK YOU.
A lot of people still think Seattle is also a logging town. GIVE ME A BREAK. We brought you Costco, Starbucks, Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon.com, we broke the human genome, Jimi Hendrix and the whole grunge scene started here, and many many others I don't feel like expanding upon. Well OK we still have logging here (Weyerhauser), but there's so much more here.
People also tend to think Seattle is sorta like San Francisco when it comes to liberalism. Newsflash: we laugh at SF too. They're nuts down there.
The only cousins are Vancouver and Portland. It's a Pacific NW thing, you don't understand (unless you live here). No, seriously, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. WE AREN'T NYC IN A BOTTLE, WE AREN'T A MINI SAN FRAN, WE AREN'T A CHICAGO/ST. LOUIS HYBRID, WE AREN'T ANYTHING LIKE THAT! We're Seattle. Wanna know what it's all about? Come out for a visit. Nor do we "aspire" to "be like" NYC or LA or whatever. Ugh. Endless concrete jungle or sprawling fakeness. NO THANK YOU.
People also tend to think Seattle is sorta like San Francisco when it comes to liberalism. Newsflash: we laugh at SF too. They're nuts down there.
Totally agree with the comparisons issue. Seattle isn't like anywhere else in the country. Not even Portland (I think Seattle and Portland are 2 very different kinds of cities, but that's me). Seattle is one of the most liberal cities in America, but you're right that the PacNW brand of liberal is very different from the SF/Berkeley version or NYC version. In Seattle people are liberal but not as sanctimonious about it as those cities. The big difference with Seattle is that people are MUCH friendlier than those places. Seattle proves that is is possible to be liberal without looking down your nose at everybody else. Before I ever lived in this part of the country I thought Seattleites were going to be snooty and elitist, but once I finally spent some time there I found them to be exactly the opposite. Most of them are very laid-back, down to Earth, and accessible.
The only thing I would add is the "365 days of rain" stereotype. Seattle doesn't even hardly see a single cloud during the summer, much less rain. The only thing that I hate about Seattle is how expensive it is to live there. That is the only reason I live in Spokane instead.
Last edited by Brewzerr68; 07-16-2011 at 06:41 AM..
Everyone thinks it's impossible to live in Miami and speak only English. It's not true. I have lived here for ten years and still don't speak Spanish. Conversely, I think ones life is seriously hampered if Spanish is his or her only language.
On a side note, I don't find that my semi-proficient French is very useful here. :-)
One can survive in Miami not speaking Spanish! But why fight it? It's a beautiful language! By the way if you hang out long enough you will hear more than just Spanish being spoken in Miami.
Omaha has extremely cold, wind-chilled climate for 3-5 months of the year. This is commonly used as a reason to dog the city when in fact 9 months of the year have average highs above 50, another month 40-50 range and the remaining two are tolerable in the mid-30s.
Omaha is extremely boring. Yet we have a robust music and arts scene, a top20 in the world concert ticket selling venue that competes with several other venues for concerts at any given time. We have three of the nation's top 100 festivals, the CWS, Olympic trials, NCAA events, by far the nation's largest baseball stadium without a pro team. UFL football, AAA baseball, two Division 1 univeristies and a third Division 1 major BCS university in Lincoln. We have great food and there are many events going on at any given time.
Omaha is a cow-town. Although I've seen this myth disappear almost completely in the last five years.
Omaha is in the middle of nowhere. Omaha is not in the middle of nowhere and when you factor Lincoln the city is growing 14% a decade and is 1.205 million people for the 2010 census. You have many small metros like Sioux City, St. Joseph, Grand Island all nearby with mid-sized metro Des Moines only 150 miles away, large-metro Kansas City is only 170 miles away, another mid-sized metro Sioux Falls about 180 miles away, yet another mid-sized metro Cedar Rapids about 200 miles away, another mid-sized metro Quad Cities about 300 miles..
Omaha is too conservative. Yet Omaha gave Obama an electoral vote and has a democrat mayor the last three terms.
Omaha has extremely cold, wind-chilled climate for 3-5 months of the year. This is commonly used as a reason to dog the city when in fact 9 months of the year have average highs above 50, another month 40-50 range and the remaining two are tolerable in the mid-30s.
Omaha is extremely boring. Yet we have a robust music and arts scene, a top20 in the world concert ticket selling venue that competes with several other venues for concerts at any given time. We have three of the nation's top 100 festivals, the CWS, Olympic trials, NCAA events, by far the nation's largest baseball stadium without a pro team. UFL football, AAA baseball, two Division 1 univeristies and a third Division 1 major BCS university in Lincoln. We have great food and there are many events going on at any given time.
Omaha is a cow-town. Although I've seen this myth disappear almost completely in the last five years.
Omaha is in the middle of nowhere. Omaha is not in the middle of nowhere and when you factor Lincoln the city is growing 14% a decade and is 1.205 million people for the 2010 census. You have many small metros like Sioux City, St. Joseph, Grand Island all nearby with mid-sized metro Des Moines only 150 miles away, large-metro Kansas City is only 170 miles away, another mid-sized metro Sioux Falls about 180 miles away, yet another mid-sized metro Cedar Rapids about 200 miles away, another mid-sized metro Quad Cities about 300 miles..
Omaha is too conservative. Yet Omaha gave Obama an electoral vote and has a democrat mayor the last three terms.
How did you arrive at 1.2 million? Are you including the Lincoln area? Looking at the 2010 Census numbers, I found the metro to have roughly 865,000 residents.
Oh yeah, you forgot another stereotype: Omaha is flat (and Nebraska by extension). Boy, was I wrong. Omaha is VERY hilly, and reminds me of my home area, the Quad Cities region. For good measure, I used Google maps to confirm my suspicions, since I thought that my eyes were playing with me and showing hills in the background of downtown pictures...lol. I have a thing for cities with hills, so excuse me for sounding so enthusiastic whenever I talk about the topographies of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Seattle, etc. Omaha seems like a hidden jewel.
Totally agree with the comparisons issue. Seattle isn't like anywhere else in the country. Not even Portland (I think Seattle and Portland are 2 very different kinds of cities, but that's me). Seattle is one of the most liberal cities in America, but you're right that the PacNW brand of liberal is very different from the SF/Berkeley version or NYC version. In Seattle people are liberal but not as sanctimonious about it as those cities. The big difference with Seattle is that people are MUCH friendlier than those places. Seattle proves that is is possible to be liberal without looking down your nose at everybody else. Before I ever lived in this part of the country I thought Seattleites were going to be snooty and elitist, but once I finally spent some time there I found them to be exactly the opposite. Most of them are very laid-back, down to Earth, and accessible.
The only thing I would add is the "365 days of rain" stereotype. Seattle doesn't even hardly see a single cloud during the summer, much less rain. The only thing that I hate about Seattle is how expensive it is to live there. That is the only reason I live in Spokane instead.
Technically Seattle and Portland should be in Canada.
1. That it's just a college town.
2. Nothing to do but go to OSU.
3. No outdoor recreation.
4. No diversity.
5. Good for families, but not singles.
6. The weather sucks year-round.
All of these are either outright false or no longer applicable.
for nyc: its anywhere less than the greatest place on the planet. all this stuff having a superiority complex really means that people have a hard time admitting we're the best at everything.
How did you arrive at 1.2 million? Are you including the Lincoln area? Looking at the 2010 Census numbers, I found the metro to have roughly 865,000 residents.
Oh yeah, you forgot another stereotype: Omaha is flat (and Nebraska by extension). Boy, was I wrong. Omaha is VERY hilly, and reminds me of my home area, the Quad Cities region. For good measure, I used Google maps to confirm my suspicions, since I thought that my eyes were playing with me and showing hills in the background of downtown pictures...lol. I have a thing for cities with hills, so excuse me for sounding so enthusiastic whenever I talk about the topographies of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Seattle, etc. Omaha seems like a hidden jewel.
That is how people end up feeling when they first arrive here. Madison, WI is similar in many regards.
The edge between the two continuous cores only has 23 miles left and quickly being closed up as the cores are growing fast. The last decade it had grown by 135000 people! Several counties qualify as an msa for both and most assume the metro will be consolidated either 2013 or 2023.
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