Do you think Seattle is too isolated? (Tacoma, Vancouver: to live in, moving)
Seattle areaSeattle and King County Suburbs
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Anecdotal. I travel weekly across the country for my job. Last week I was in Austin. There were homeless people on nearly every on-ramp to 183 that I saw in north Austin the entire time. I live in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Supposedly one of the richer areas of town. In the park across the street there are 5 or 6 regular homeless people, 2 blocks away on a street corner there are places where 5-10 people normally sleep. Ever been to the civic center area of SF? Last year it was a mess. There are actual tent cities in golden gate park with homeless.
I was in Seattle 2-3 weeks ago and didn't really notice a homeless problem. The entire time I was there I saw maybe 5 or 6 homeless. So, I really don't see the reason for the complaining. A quick google search doesn't seem to turn up any hard numbers on homeless rates by city. The only thing I saw was this:
and it looks like CA and TX are both worse than WA state.
Being that I have actually LIVED in both Austin (1999-2001;currently) and Seattle (1985-1995;2001-2009), I will tell you the homelessness problems are about the same. The map you show gives gross numbers of homeless veterans for the entire states and considering TX and CA have the highest populations, you are going to have more homeless people total because of gross numbers (and again, this map is just a count of homeless veterans). I'd be more interested in seeing a homelessness rate.
BTW, go hang out down in Pioneer square to get of the homelessness problem. Take a walk up on Broadway sometime too or hang out on the AVE or at that park at the NW edge of Pike Place Market. As someone who was on the receiving end of aggressive panhandling numerous times while I worked down in that part of town, I will tell you, there are way more than five or six people. You just weren't looking in the right places.
Being that I have actually LIVED in both Austin (1999-2001;currently) and Seattle (1985-1995;2001-2009), I will tell you the homelessness problems are about the same. The map you show gives gross numbers of homeless veterans for the entire states and considering TX and CA have the highest populations, you are going to have more homeless people total because of gross numbers (and again, this map is just a count of homeless veterans). I'd be more interested in seeing a homelessness rate.
BTW, go hang out down in Pioneer square to get of the homelessness problem. Take a walk up on Broadway sometime too or hang out on the AVE or at that park at the NW edge of Pike Place Market. As someone who was on the receiving end of aggressive panhandling numerous times while I worked down in that part of town, I will tell you, there are way more than five or six people. You just weren't looking in the right places.
Well if you have to live in a place to notice it's homeless problem, I guess I'll have credibility next month when I move to Seattle. I'm sure there are parts of Seattle that are worse than others. But really, you can go to areas of Seattle to get away from the problem should you desire. I can't say that's the option in San Francisco.
According to coworkers who live in Austin the problem only recently got bad when Dallas banned panhandling, plus the bump post katrina.
and it looks like CA and TX are both worse than WA state.
Well yeah. The estimated population of California 2008 was 36,756,666 and Texas 24,326,974. The entire state of Washington has a population of only 6,549,224. It makes sense that states with four to six times the population of Washington would have a larger share of homeless.
Well if you have to live in a place to notice it's homeless problem, I guess I'll have credibility next month when I move to Seattle. I'm sure there are parts of Seattle that are worse than others. But really, you can go to areas of Seattle to get away from the problem should you desire. I can't say that's the option in San Francisco.
According to coworkers who live in Austin the problem only recently got bad when Dallas banned panhandling, plus the bump post katrina.
I don't live in Seattle, but we walked from Pike Market to the Coast Guard base to visit a friend there and we saw at least 20 different homeless people and many more tents and parked vans and such.
I asked my friend if the cops do anything about them loitering, and he pointed out an RV type vechicle that he said had been there the entire time he was stationed there (2-3 years at least).
This was along the Alaskan Way / riverfront area of course, perhaps it is the "bad" area when it comes to homeless though.
When we visited Albuquerque there was more homeless than seattle, I think... At least all in one place. We were walking around downtown and there were a group of about 50 homless people hanging out. I actually started walking up to them thinking there was something interesting going on... Scary.
and it looks like CA and TX are both worse than WA state.
That's a badly-made graph that doesn't really convey anything except that states with larger populations will have more homeless (duh). You can't even get the exact numbers per state to calculate percentages. How does the person who made that get to keep their job?
Oh, boy, go to Portland, OR. My wife and I were shocked at how much homelessness there was ... and how aggressive some of the panhandlers were, even right down in the center of the city, in the business district.
Portland is gross for this reason, they really have it backward down there. But they probably don't care about what non-residents think. So that is redeeming in a sense. I always notice the difference though, it's a real notch lower than Seattle when it comes to Portland's obnoxious drug users all over the place. And it is so ugly compared to Seattle, but in Portland they are proud of that dirty river. Like it is something to enjoy. No scenery.
That's a badly-made graph that doesn't really convey anything except that states with larger populations will have more homeless (duh). You can't even get the exact numbers per state to calculate percentages. How does the person who made that get to keep their job?
Like I said, it was the first thing that I could find via google. I doubt it was intended for any in depth analysis.
Being tucked away in a corner of the country no one thinks about is part of what appeals to me about Seattle. Out here on the East Coast, you can travel from D.C. to Boston and almost never leave an urban environment. I'd be happy for less of a crush of people for a change.
Got my fingers crossed that my wife and I can make the move to Seattle this year. We're all "peopled out" from being here in the D.C. area.
I wouldn't go as far as saying the drive from D.C. to Boston is like that. *Ex:95 after Baltimore to say Newark Airport is pretty dead as well as many parts of 95 after nyc and 90 heading into Boston.* I do see your point, however, and as someone who left D.C. for Seattle recently, it is nice to have a few less people around.
Oh and I have no clue why people complain about the traffic here, in comparison to the beltway/66 mess I have delt with, this is a breeze.
I've never really gotten an "isolated" vibe living here, even though Seattle is more or less the biggest city in the Pacific Northwest. I mean the Seattle metropolitan area is pretty big and diverse, and Vancouver BC is not too far away and is probably the closest "cosmopolitan" experience outside of Seattle (Portland is a nice city but nothing to Seattle in my opinion). Short trips to Arizona or California are really common too.
If you want to talk isolated, what about Bellingham? It's technically driving distance to a couple major cities, but living there I feel so isolated. Everything is so contained feeling up there. The sad thing is that there are plenty of folks up there who consider it the "big city", which of course is all relative.
Oh and I have no clue why people complain about the traffic here, in comparison to the beltway/66 mess I have delt with, this is a breeze.
I agree. Waiting 15 minutes to get on the 520 bridge is a pleasure compared to driving on the beltway or driving across the Potomac. I've wasted a lot of my life in a stopped car on I-95 near Fredricksburg too, trying to get INTO DC at 6pm.
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