What if you could make the same salary somewhere else?

[Teebyrd86]

It would be tempting.. I could move back to Roanoke and get a 5 bedroom house for the rent I pay here for a 1 bedroom!

[MishaMacDowell]

Well, I don't miss So Cal (but I do miss being on the beach). We've enjoyed our time here, and I may miss it; but, now it's become too much like So Cal. The traffic is actually WORSE here than what I endured there and, with the BRAC impact on Springfield, I'm thinking we'll sell out in 2-3 years and move on. We're watching for appropriate federal job listings in places where we can pay cash for a house and settle down until our youngest finishes school. Meanwhile, I'm wholeheartedly supporting transportation spending in NoVa. We need it!

[IndiaLimaDelta]

Originally Posted by foxrun

To: IndiaLimaDelta - grouchy with lots of baggage eh?
You don't have to attack others' viewpoints just b/c you hated Seattle... perhaps if you had not been so parochial yourself, you would have ventured and found more than hippies in that area!
P.S. Seattle is also home to many engineers and scientists. It's true.

If you thought that was "attacking," well... Never mind.

There are some nice things about Seattle to be sure. Summers are sometimes very nice (72 degrees, sunny and very low humidity). The combination of water and mountains can be amazing. I still miss hiking to Snow Lake with my family and dogs. There just is nothing like that in Virginia, certainly not in Northern Virginia.

And the food is generally very good, especially fresh vegetables and seafood and the ethnic dining scene is fairly diverse (but there is not a single good authentic Chinese, esp. Sichuan-style restaurant in Seattle, not a single one). What's nice, too, is that a lot of ethnic joints are upscale (with fresh ingredients) rather than just hole-in-the-wall places (nothing wrong with those, of course, esp. on a budget).

However, the things you pointed out are flat right false. Seattle is not a highly cultured, worldly city like NYC, London or Tokyo. I met many Seattleites who proclaimed it "the best city in the world" and yet had NEVER traveled out of the state, let alone the country. On the other end of the spectrum, some of the elites with whom I interacted held their own city in down right contempt, calling it "a cow town not too long ago." People who think construction quality is bad in NoVA should see the landscape of Queen Anne in Seattle during the summer (it looks like there are repairs going on every other building or roof there due to faulty, fly-by-night construction during the boom years).

But what really boggled my mind was the dismal quality of schools there, despite Seattle being a fairly affluent city.

Give me the ugly landscape and strip malls of NoVA anyday over Seattle if that means that people can hold up conversations about world affairs, respect other people's property rights (Seattle is no. 1 or 2 in car thefts and has very high property crime rate) and, most importantly, care about the quality of their kids' education.

To put simply, Seattle is what I would call a high positive, higher negative area.

[Alicia Bradley]

Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta

If you thought that was "attacking," well... Never mind.

There are some nice things about Seattle to be sure. Summers are sometimes very nice (72 degrees, sunny and very low humidity). The combination of water and mountains can be amazing. I still miss hiking to Snow Lake with my family and dogs. There just is nothing like that in Virginia, certainly not in Northern Virginia.

And the food is generally very good, especially fresh vegetables and seafood and the ethnic dining scene is fairly diverse (but there is not a single good authentic Chinese, esp. Sichuan-style restaurant in Seattle, not a single one). What's nice, too, is that a lot of ethnic joints are upscale (with fresh ingredients) rather than just hole-in-the-wall places (nothing wrong with those, of course, esp. on a budget).

However, the things you pointed out are flat right false. Seattle is not a highly cultured, worldly city like NYC, London or Tokyo. I met many Seattleites who proclaimed it "the best city in the world" and yet had NEVER traveled out of the state, let alone the country. On the other end of the spectrum, some of the elites with whom I interacted held their own city in down right contempt, calling it "a cow town not too long ago." People who think construction quality is bad in NoVA should see the landscape of Queen Anne in Seattle during the summer (it looks like there are repairs going on every other building or roof there due to faulty, fly-by-night construction during the boom years).

But what really boggled my mind was the dismal quality of schools there, despite Seattle being a fairly affluent city.

Give me the ugly landscape and strip malls of NoVA anyday over Seattle if that means that people can hold up conversations about world affairs, respect other people's property rights (Seattle is no. 1 or 2 in car thefts and has very high property crime rate) and, most importantly, care about the quality of their kids' education.

To put simply, Seattle is what I would call a high positive, higher negative area.

As someone who remembers when Seattle was a rainy national afterthought (not old enough to remember the "Will the Last Person Leaving SEATTLE -- Turn Out the Lights" billboard, though - darn!), it really cracks me up when people put Seattle on the same level (re: absolute amount of culture offerings, for instance) as NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, wherever. Don't get me wrong - Seattle is a really cool little city where I absolutely could and would eat my weight in fruit at the right time of year. But just go north a bit and cross a national border and you will run into a MUCH, MUCH cooler one.

[IndiaLimaDelta]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

As someone who remembers when Seattle was a rainy national afterthought (not old enough to remember the "Will the Last Person Leaving SEATTLE -- Turn Out the Lights" billboard, though - darn!), it really cracks me up when people put Seattle on the same level (re: absolute amount of culture offerings, for instance) as NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, wherever. Don't get me wrong - Seattle is a really cool little city where I absolutely could and would eat my weight in fruit at the right time of year. But just go north a bit and cross a national border and you will run into a MUCH, MUCH cooler one.

And that "much, much cooler" city has real Chinese food... and has had it since 97 when the wealthier half of Hong Kong showed up overnight. Also, you can actually find rose-flavored Persian ice cream there. BUT, it IS across the border with all the implications.

Someone once told me that Seattle is a small city pretending to be a big one while Portland (Oregon) is a big city pretending to be a small one. It's too glib, of course, but there is some truth to that.

[Mr Idealism]

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