Is it more expensive to live in Issaquah than Burien (excluding housing costs)? (Bellevue: rent)

[tiredtired]

If you exclude cost of housing, is it more expensive to live in the upscale eastside cities like Bellevue, Issaquah, Redmond than elsewhere in the Puget Sound?

If so, what about these cities costs more than elsewhere?

Is it more expensive to raise kids in Issaquah than Burien? (Public school, but do sports and stuff)?

I'm trying to weigh a move from Burien to Issaquah. Housing costs are easy to figure. The hard part is the soft costs like food, gas, costs of raising children (I have three), etc.

[Hemlock140]

Gas prices, and non-big box store prices, such as restaurants and barbershops are tied to the rent or cost of land. Just as housing costs more, so does commercial space. Add to that the perception by business owners that they can charge more because people can afford to pay more. Sammamish, Redmond and Issaquah generally have higher gas prices than even Bellevue, but much of that is less competition with fewer stations than Bellevue. My experience with youth sports is mostly soccer, and coaching in the Lake Washington Association (Sammamish, Redmond, Kirkland) I found that paid coaches for competitive leagues and owning property for fields, along with paid league staff means higher parental costs than my prior experience with all volunteer clubs using school fields. I'm not familiar with the Issaquah youth sports nor the costs of anything in Burien but I would expect many if not most costs to be higher in Issaquah if only because the median family income in Issaquah is $87,000 as compared to $50k in Burien.

[RustinginSeattle]

I grew up in Burien (and went to public schools there 30 years ago) and my best friend is still there raising her 3 kids. I would not elect to go with public schools in Burien, but I would in Issaquah. I pay more for my house, but she pays more for school, so it evens out. Also her kids are big into soccer and they pay a small fortune for that, so I'm not so sure that would be cheaper in Burien.

What would be easier in Burien than Issaquah is just driving around. Burien is not nearly as desirable an area, so it's not nearly as crowded. Going to soccer practice and the grocery store would be much easier in Burien.

[Kalex]

cost of extra-curricular and general kids stuff is definitely higher here (Issaquah) than where we moved from, but I'm not familiar enough with Burien to be able to give a comparison.