moving from Boston... some Seattle questions (appointed, tech jobs, neighborhood)

[movingwiththewind]

Originally Posted by elasticman

Could you "walk" the city of Seattle? In Boston/Cambridge, you could get around slowly but decently just by walking around. A place like New York is totally unwalkable.

What do you mean by saying NYC is totally unwalkable? Are you serious?

[elasticman]

So SLU is depressed and lacks character? It looked OK in the pictures I saw, but I guess I'll have to visit to see for myself. Can you tell me what kind of character I would find in the Queen Anne and Capitol hill neighborhoods?

Re: NYC walking, I was comparing how easy it is to walk all over the entire city of Boston, while you have to take the subway to get around all of NYC. Try walking from the north end of Manhattan to the southern tip!

[Ira500]

Seems like SLU changes on a daily basis. 10 years ago, it didn't even have that name, it was known as the Cascade neighborhood, and was a mixture of industrial and lower income housing, and had a fair number of drunks hanging out.Now many of the older buildings are gone, it has lots of new high tech businesses,a new streetcar line to downtown, Whole Foods, new apartment buildings, and younger, wealthier drunks
Why you'd choose SLU or Queen Anne over Capitol Hill? Both are less dense/less crowded than Capitol Hill. Lower QA might be very lively when events are going on at Seattle Center, but is not normally just buzzing with people, where the Pike/Pine corridor of Capitol Hill to me is the most urban residential neighborhood in Seattle with a ton of apartment buildings and people hanging out even fairly late at night.
South Lake Union is still " getting there", but I think has a greater concentration of professionals and newer buildings.

[movingwiththewind]

Originally Posted by elasticman

Re: NYC walking, I was comparing how easy it is to walk all over the entire city of Boston, while you have to take the subway to get around all of NYC. Try walking from the north end of Manhattan to the southern tip!

Yes, but this is not what walkability means. NYC is one of the most walkable cities in the world. Saying that NYC is totally unwalkable is a joke! For example, NYC is much more walkable than Seattle, although Seattle is much smaller.

This is from Wiki:

"Walkability is a measure of how friendly an area is to walking. Walkability has many health, environmental, and economic benefits. Factors influencing walkability include the presence or absence and quality of footpaths, sidewalks or other pedestrian right-of-ways, traffic and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety, among others.[2] Walkability is an important concept in sustainable urban design."

Walkability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The way you use the word "walkability" means all big cities in the world, European cities included, are not walkable, which is completely wrong.

[elasticman]

Does Capitol Hill have a great concentration of young professionals or students?

In Boston I lived near Boston University and Fenway park. I don't want to get stuck in a building filled with students, etc. and not be able to function, set a reasonable sleep schedule, etc.

[LookinForMayberry]

Sounds like downtown Seattle is for you, or Fremont if you want to avoid the stadium crowds. Both will give you lots of foot traffic, young people, and good intercity transit. It isn't as congested as Boston around Fenway, and there aren't as many schools, but otherwise it is comparable.

Best wishes!

[415_s2k]

You will definitely have to adapt to the social climate of Seattle. I was born in Seattle, spent much of my childhood there, and spent most of the rest of it in Cambridge, then spent six years in California before heading back up to the PNW... man, what a different animal it is.

In Boston, my experience was that people tended to be more standoffish or cold when it came to your initial interactions, but ultimately, people have eachothers' backs; people aren't flakey; when you have a friend, you really have a friend... and you also have their family and friends as yours, as well.

In Seattle, people come across way more agreeable and pleasant initially, but from there it cools down. I had a very difficult time meeting people in Seattle.

*cue people telling me that I'm wrong, there's something wrong with me, etc.*

There's a thread here about the vaunted "Seattle Freeze" that documents this phenomenon, and if you type it into google, you'll find numerous articles and op-eds about it on both sides of the argument. All I can tell you is that it most certainly does exist, and after a year, I found myself high-tailing it back to California. It definitely does depend on your personality and what you expect to get out of life or a particular place.

Specifically versus Boston, I found it exponentially easier to meet people, which could be a result of my having grown up there. If you want to talk to someone, you talk to them; if you don't want to, you don't. In Seattle, if you want to talk to someone, you probably won't because you don't want to intrude upon their personal space and freak them out; if you don't want to talk to them, well, problem solved.

Someone who was arguing the case for Seattle pointed out that you can meet "situational friends;" the guy who's always at the treadmill next to you at the gym who you talk about sports with; the lady on the bus back home who you chat about how awesome Seattle is with; the people in your office who you have various interests and hobbies in common with. The hard part is getting them to socialize outside that situation. IMHO, this is vividly reflected in the nightlife: Boston's is way more vibrant by my measure.

It's a hard nut to crack for a lot of people. I couldn't crack it and know of at least four major cities I haven't had an issue with, and having a strong social network is a big deal to me, so I couldn't justify living there any longer to myself.

Now, all that aside...

- You should probably think of getting some wheels. Yes, you can get around Seattle via bus. There are busses in the AM/PM to most neighborhoods, and all-nighters to the more major neighborhoods or arteries, and more busses that will connect you to the outlying areas, but you will very, very quickly find yourself wanting to go visit other neighborhoods and whatnot and won't want to have to make three connections to do so. A lot of people bike in Seattle. Which leads me to my next bullet point...

- Seattle is probably the most outdoorsy major/secondary city in the US, save for maybe Denver or Boulder. Biking, jogging, kayaking, and canoeing 365 days per year rain-or-shine is a way of life. Driving out to the mountains and day hiking is also a way of life... if this is your kind of scene, there are few better places to be.

[elasticman]

Thanks for the input 415.

Perhaps you or someone else can help me wrap my head around this freeze issue as it might pertain to me. If I move to Seattle, I won't know a soul. I will definitely attempt to make friends through work, and specifically try to network with friends for activities, career stuff, and dating.

I understand what you say about Boston. My first day of work, people were all about going out and hanging out outside work.

So, is making friends and finding people to date hard for everyone in Seattle? I'm pretty good at getting out there and making friends without any existing network, but if people are hostile (or indifferent) to making new connections this could be taxing.

I'm 26. It seems weird to me that young professionals wouldn't want to make friends.

I'm not trying to start a new freeze thread, I'm just trying to figure out if this phenomena would be a serious issue for my social and dating potential.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by elasticman

Thanks for the input 415.

Perhaps you or someone else can help me wrap my head around this freeze issue as it might pertain to me. If I move to Seattle, I won't know a soul. I will definitely attempt to make friends through work, and specifically try to network with friends for activities, career stuff, and dating.

I understand what you say about Boston. My first day of work, people were all about going out and hanging out outside work.

So, is making friends and finding people to date hard for everyone in Seattle? I'm pretty good at getting out there and making friends without any existing network, but if people are hostile (or indifferent) to making new connections this could be taxing.

I'm 26. It seems weird to me that young professionals wouldn't want to make friends.

I'm not trying to start a new freeze thread, I'm just trying to figure out if this phenomena would be a serious issue for my social and dating potential.

I'm an east coast guy so I understand what 415 meant about making friends with someone and immediately being welcomed by that person's friends and family. Nothing scientific here, but I've found that to be most prevalent in areas with a high concentration of huge (often Catholic) families - you know, the places where sunday dinner means 50 cousins are coming over. There's not a lot of that in Seattle I don't think.

That said, I moved there at 24 without knowing anyone except for one person, who had just moved there himself. He and I quickly made friends and established a nice crew for friday/saturday nights, bbqs, days at the park, etc. Yes, it was a different way of making friends than I was used to (which was make one friend and gain 10), but I adapted.

I also made some great friends at my job, a job which I got just to make ends meet upon arriving. Even though I've been gone about 3 years and have only been back to visit once, these are friendships I keep. With one guy, I'll be traveling west for his wedding later this year and he'll be traveling east for mine next year.

I think that if you are willing to be open and start a conversation (steering it through the awkward part) you will have no problem making friends. Just be willing to be the one who breaks the ice and the one who goes out on a limb and suggests an activity.

[AlohaHuey]

I moved here at 29 not knowing a soul, and made great friends at work and neighbors. I found native Seattlites more than willing to show a new arrival spectacular sights like Mt. Rainier, a favorite hiking trail, a campsite on the ocean. But you have to make the effort. Some people attribute their inability to connect as a "Seattle Freeze" when the reality is more complex.