For those leaving Seattle or who have left recently? Why did you leave and do you have regrets? (Vancouver: quality of life, taxes)
Seattle areaSeattle and King County Suburbs
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[quote=Seacove;47599944]So strange that people that are so happy to have left Seattle are obsessed about talking about Seattle. One would think that if the move made them happy, they would be delighting in talking about their new home but instead, Seattle seems to be the place they just can't quit.
"So moved to Ohio, right? Ohio may appeal to others but no thanks, to each their own."
If you love Seattle, that's great. I used to but as I said, it's changed dramatically and is no longer appealing to me. Cleveland isn't perfect but the culture/museums are far superior, people are friendlier (you don't get that deer in headlights look if you attempt chit chat with a stranger), there's lots more room here, traffic isn't bad, COL better, huge metro parks system ringing the city.... Would I prefer the Seattle of 15-20 years ago? Yes...but it's gone and I don't like what took its place.
Last edited by october2007; 03-23-2017 at 05:51 AM..
So strange that people that are so happy to have left Seattle are obsessed about talking about Seattle. One would think that if the move made them happy, they would be delighting in talking about their new home but instead, Seattle seems to be the place they just can't quit.
"So moved to Ohio, right? Ohio may appeal to others but no thanks, to each their own."
If you love Seattle, that's great. I used to but as I said, it's changed dramatically and is no longer appealing to me. Cleveland isn't perfect but the culture/museums are far superior, people are friendlier (you don't get that deer in headlights look if you attempt chit chat with a stranger), there's lots more room here, traffic isn't bad, COL better, huge metro parks system ringing the city.... Would I prefer the Seattle of 15-20 years ago? Yes...but it's gone and I don't like what took its place.
So for some, Ohio is better than Seattle. I would strongly disagree but with the kind of growth Seattle is seeing, I'm very glad other places are appealing. I would not waste days negatively posting in Ohio, I want people to move to Ohio. But by all means, if it is satisfying to spend days insulting a former residence, do so, maybe it will help control our growth.
So for some, Ohio is better than Seattle. I would strongly disagree but with the kind of growth Seattle is seeing, I'm very glad other places are appealing. I would not waste days negatively posting in Ohio, I want people to move to Ohio. But by all means, if it is satisfying to spend days insulting a former residence, do so, maybe it will help control our growth.
Do you realize the intent of this thread is to find out why people left (which means that you will probably have to read some criticisms if you choose to visit here)? I don't exactly spend my days dissing my former residence but do enjoy reading about and sharing experiences with those who decided to leave. I see you've got the Seattle passive aggressive personality down pat anyway.
Do you realize the intent of this thread is to find out why people left (which means that you will probably have to read some criticisms if you choose to visit here)? I don't exactly spend my days dissing my former residence but do enjoy reading about and sharing experiences with those who decided to leave. I see you've got the Seattle passive aggressive personality down pat anyway.
Seacove is famous for this. He is still figuring out how the internet works and somehow thinks you need to be physically located in a place to post about it. I picture him to be a 70-year-old man that punches away on the keypad arrows instead of using his mouse.
This is a great thread that I have been remiss in adding to. I will do that soon, as I have some great insights to share. Even though I'm not physically in Seattle (crazy technology!).
I think it all comes down to being able to break out of what I've come to refer to as the "Seattle Trap". By that I mean that the idea of Seattle is a lot more romantic and interesting than the reality of Seattle. You're surrounded by this unimaginable beauty (the idea), which tends to mask the dreary grey backdrop that's always there (the reality). And the idea of all the outdoor activities you can go do and all the trails you can explore sounds great (idea), but most people don't realize that between the bad weather and the 2 hours it takes to get to them that most of us never go utilize them - we just like talking about them and talking them up (reality). Everybody here is real friendly in person (idea), but a lot of those same people tend to be very passive aggressive and backstabby behind closed doors (reality - and the larger reason why we're all so arms-lengthy with our friendships, I think). We're fed all sorts of column inches and media commentary about how hip and cool we are, but we're really a culture of brogrammers and introverts. It's reinforced to us how lucky we are to be here because "everybody is trying to move here", but "everybody" is largely "Amazon hirees and people being relocated here from Silicon Valley firms establishing an outpost", and most of the housing frenzy is being driven by foreign investment that has no intention of actually living here. We tout the idea of limited government oppression with no income tax, but ignore the reality that we're actually the most regressively taxed state in the entire country, and largely looking to double down on that.
Once you start to realize these things, you start asking questions - questions you didn't feel the need to ask when you were living in just another mid-major metropolitan area with a quirky vibe and a reasonable quality of life, but started to become important when you realized you were now in one of the most expensive places in the world. When you start asking questions, you start researching for answers. And once you start gathering answers, you start to question why it was you fell into the cycle in the first place.
Within 5 years, Los Angeles may very well be less expensive than up here (and LA pays better as part of the accepted reality that it's crazy expensive, something Seattle is sort of lagging behind in unless you're a shrewd negotiator). It already is, if you're down to live in the Valley where it's 10-15 degrees warmer. Denver - an even faster growing city with a significantly lower cost of living because the housing market there is driven by residents, not foreign investment - pays just as well, especially in the tech sector, but doesn't come with the added baggage up here, and all you're giving up is the water and a better hub airline (Alaska up here, United in Denver). Which you love the idea of, but the reality is you're never going to buy a boat. And for what? The city has no real identity other than a really bad sense of fashion and wimpy dudes with lumberjack beards who spend inordinate amounts of money on craft beers.
For us, the shattering of the mirror and the "what the hell are we DOING?" moment came during yet another weekend trip down to SoCal in order to try and get away from the grey for a couple of days - something we find ourselves doing 4-5 times a rain season depending on what sales Alaska has going on. We had extra trouble getting to our flight because of bad traffic caused by the usual "oh my god, my windshield wipers came on, we'd better drive 20 mph under the speed limit in the left lane, honey" traffic jam coupled with some stupid protest that was taking place at the airport (I think it was an anti-Trump thing as it was right around the time of the travel ban executive order, but who the hell knows....what everybody is outraged about up here changes on a near-daily basis). On our flight down, across the aisle from us, a woman clad in Seahawks garb just Would. Not. Shut. Up. about how she couldn't believe the first class meal menu didn't have more gluten free options. We're down in Santa Monica near the pier just soaking it all in, and commenting how nice it is to be on a sandy-instead-of-rocky beach without having to wear a jacket and how much more energy the place has and how it was nice how much more engaging the people were, and not in the scream-in-your-face-while-waving-a-placard kind of way. After a nice energizing weekend with sun, actually being able to go out and do things, and positively drowning in food options that didn't involve "small plates meant to be ordered by the dozen and shared at full plate prices", we hop back on a plane, trudge on our outerwear for the drizzle again, slog through inexplicably bad traffic to meet a friend for a longstanding dinner reservation who - in another very common/accepted and uniquely Seattle cultural phenomena - flaked at the last minute because she didn't want to bother leaving the house but didn't bother to say anything until 30 minutes prior to the agreed upon time, end up having to re-route through yet another demonstration downtown, get home after yet more inexplicable traffic under black skies because winter daylight only lasts 8 hours up here and a conversation about how this town has lost its damn mind....and our energy was already drained. We just looked at each other and were like "why are we subjecting ourselves to this?".
It was like snapping into perfect clarity after having been lulled into a daze. And once you start tugging on that one thread, it all just unravels.
I always read these "leave" or "relocate to" threads with great interest. Being as I'm in the position of wanting to leave my own city and want to know what the heck I may be getting myself into by doing so in search of a place that meets my Wish List....hoping we won't regret it.
I always end up coming back to the realization that every city has it's issues, ...it boils down to pickin' & choosin' what you *think* you can or can't live with. And while you may think you know that (as per, say, the weather issue in the PNW), you will never really know till you've spent a big chunk of time actually living it. Even if you do end up liking your new city, there will be some other issue that crops up, or you didn't realize would become such a big deal when you were merely in research mode.
Sometimes I wonder if I really want to move, or just take more vacations to experience what I don't get where I do live? heh heh Ever feel like that? If one of my main motivating factors is TREES (and it is), wull geez, maybe I should just invest in importing a bunch of damn full grown pine trees to plant in my yard! LOL!
Fact of the matter....some of those big reasons for leaving WA, like the weather, unless you really enjoy frying, you have to research sunnier climates carefully (and with current city data spec.s) as so many of them do not have summer just 2-3 months a year anymore....summers (like our's last year in San Diego was 7 months) and easily topped over 100 degrees many of those days. It's miserable. You might think, no biggy, just crank on the A/C. Cities like ours, if you use A/C as much as you truly need it to cool a modest 3 bedroom home can run you easily $700 - 800 a month. Or, suffer. Suddenly a beautiful sunny climate isn't so attractive anymore.
Do you realize the intent of this thread is to find out why people left (which means that you will probably have to read some criticisms if you choose to visit here)? I don't exactly spend my days dissing my former residence but do enjoy reading about and sharing experiences with those who decided to leave. I see you've got the Seattle passive aggressive personality down pat anyway.
I determined long ago that Seacove is just somewhere "on the spectrum", and stopped interacting. Life's too short and all that. I mean, you're arguing with somebody who came to a thread that states right in the title that it is going to be about reasons you *don't* want to be in the area, and then acts shocked when it's an open and frank conversation about reasons why people didn't want to be in the area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmswazey
There's no such thing as a Seattle passive-aggressive personality. That is a universal archetype.
That is absolutely not true. I've lived - and continue to travel - all over the world, and the only places I've ever experienced this type of social defect is the corridor between Seattle and Eugene and - to a lesser extent - San Francisco (though they're more aggressive aggressive than passive aggressive).
Quote:
Originally Posted by carolochs
I always read these "leave" or "relocate to" threads with great interest. Being as I'm in the position of wanting to leave my own city and want to know what the heck I may be getting myself into by doing so in search of a place that meets my Wish List....hoping we won't regret it.
I always end up coming back to the realization that every city has it's issues, ...it boils down to pickin' & choosin' what you *think* you can or can't live with. And while you may think you know that (as per, say, the weather issue in the PNW), you will never really know till you've spent a big chunk of time actually living it. Even if you do end up liking your new city, there will be some other issue that crops up, or you didn't realize would become such a big deal when you were merely in research mode.
No place is going to be perfect, but you balance whether anything becomes a deal breaker. For example, New Orleans? The heat/humidity is an automatic deal breaker. I need look no further. It's a one-shot. Seattle was somewhat interesting in that it always had its warts, but none of them by themselves were inherently dealbreakers until the cost of living shot up to something like 9th highest in the world or some such and the activists turned marching into a full-time job. It was akin to putting marbles on a scale with a weight on the other platter. Eventually, one marble too many got added.
It's all a balance game. On the weather, one of the things that we discussed was why were we flying to sunny spots 6-10 times a rain season in order to escape the grey (which is like a millstone - it doesn't get to you too much initially, but after a few years it really starts to wear you down and just gets increasingly more problematic every year thereafter) so that we could enjoy the superior Jul-Oct summers when it would be easier to live in the sunny spot and fly to Seattle once during the milder summer to hang w/ trees and get a break from some of the warmer heat? It's a simple efficiency equation.
when it would be easier to live in the sunny spot and fly to Seattle once during the milder summer to hang w/ trees and get a break from some of the warmer heat? It's a simple efficiency equation.
Which is why I posed:
Sometimes I wonder if I really want to move, or just take more vacations to experience what I don't get where I do live? heh heh Ever feel like that? If one of my main motivating factors is TREES (and it is), wull geez, maybe I should just invest in importing a bunch of damn full grown pine trees to plant in my yard! LOL!
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I do think it's easier or a tendency for many once they've made up their mind to leave a place, to then amplify all the things they didn't like about it, perhaps even larger than they really were. Maybe to keep justifying in their own minds, take the sting off realizing their new location has problems too.
(I find it pretty hypocrite-much-comical, too, when WA-tonians ***** n moan about CAians at-large coming up and *ruining* WA, yet when those WAtonians are sick of WA and move to CA, um, that's OK. No state has EVER been the recipient of more newcomers at-large than CA, so if anyone deserves to complain, it's CA.)
Last edited by carolochs; 03-23-2017 at 06:01 PM..
I determined long ago that Seacove is just somewhere "on the spectrum", and stopped interacting. Life's too short and all that. I mean, you're arguing with somebody who came to a thread that states right in the title that it is going to be about reasons you *don't* want to be in the area, and then acts shocked when it's an open and frank conversation about reasons why people didn't want to be in the area.
That is absolutely not true. I've lived - and continue to travel - all over the world, and the only places I've ever experienced this type of social defect is the corridor between Seattle and Eugene and - to a lesser extent - San Francisco (though they're more aggressive aggressive than passive aggressive).
No place is going to be perfect, but you balance whether anything becomes a deal breaker. For example, New Orleans? The heat/humidity is an automatic deal breaker. I need look no further. It's a one-shot. Seattle was somewhat interesting in that it always had its warts, but none of them by themselves were inherently dealbreakers until the cost of living shot up to something like 9th highest in the world or some such and the activists turned marching into a full-time job. It was akin to putting marbles on a scale with a weight on the other platter. Eventually, one marble too many got added.
It's all a balance game. On the weather, one of the things that we discussed was why were we flying to sunny spots 6-10 times a rain season in order to escape the grey (which is like a millstone - it doesn't get to you too much initially, but after a few years it really starts to wear you down and just gets increasingly more problematic every year thereafter) so that we could enjoy the superior Jul-Oct summers when it wo[/b]uld be easier to live in the sunny spot and fly to Seattle once during the milder summer to hang w/ trees and get a break from some of the warmer heat? It's a simple efficiency equation.
Exactly. I call it The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back. No one factor alone causes the leaving, but a myriad of undesirable aspects (that keep getting worse) combined with attraction to somewhere else that *doesn't* have such a boatload of negatives.
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