Do you like Lynnwood? (Seattle, Everett: neighborhoods, high school, community college)

[Botev1912]

Do you like Lynnwood. I have heard that a lot of people don't like it and I can't understand why. It has Fred Meyer, Safeway, QFC, Costco, Wal-Mart, Albertons, Best Buy, Circuit City, Walgreens, Car Toys, Alderwood Mall and almost every store in the USA. It has Edmonds Community College and Lynnwood High School. It also has very good carpool access to I-5 and terrific Park And Ride and it's a safe city. What do you think about that

[mayfair]

Lynnwood is not as bad as people make it out to be. It's easy to stereotype a place off the freeway that is loaded with chain stores and a major mall and has Hwy 99 cutting through it. Lynnwood has some nice parts.

[redrum]

I think Mayfair hit the nail on the head. Lynnwood is an easy target because it's not really known for anything besides its retail shops, even though there are places in Seattle (like Lake City Way and Hwy 99 as it runs through North Seattle) that are much worse than anything Lynnwood has to offer.

[Botev1912]

How about North and South Seattle

[glazeddonut]

I've been in Lynnwood for about 7 years now. My impression is that any bad reputation that Lynnwood had is probably outdated. It sounds like Lynnwood wasn't a great place to be 15-20 years ago, but has been cleaned up since then, as new retail businesses and housing development have moved in. Crime-rate here is pretty low, and while some of the older areas still appear to be a little run-down, much of the city is relatively new.

Lynnwood has become a major shopping hub for the north end of the Seattle metro area, and serves as a bedroom community between Seattle and Everett. If there's one complaint that I have about Lynnwood, it's that there really isn't a sense of community here. There's no central core, or "downtown" area, and most Lynnwood residents commute elsewhere for work, so the City really has no identity.

Overall, not a bad place to be...much more desireable than some of the other local suburbs, but not as upscale as some of the eastside suburbs.

[Aquajox]

I lived in Lynnwood for 8 years. Traffic is not bad IN Lynnwood, it's bad getting THRU Lynnwood. That's why people who have never lived in Lynnwood think that traffic is bad there. If you live IN Lynnwood, and you HAVE to use I-5, then you jump off the freeway at either end of the city. But I rarely had to use I-5, since I worked at Boeing. I loved living in Lynnwood. It has all the amenities you could ask for without the traffic others have to deal with.

[fairy-tale]

I think it's because it's just so darn ugly. I'm sorry, but it is. Lots of prettier places around like Bothell and Mill Creek.

[olynative]

I moved to Lynnwood about two years ago, It's great here. It's close to Seattle. There is almost no crime. The only thing that I find weird about Lynnwood is that people who don't live here seem to think it is rundown?????????? Come on, 90% of the buildings in lynnwood are less than 20 yrs old. I have noticed that most of these people are from Everett though(which, if you can call anything on the north end rundown it would be north everett) either way, Lynnwood is a very conviently located town and is very safe. To the person above, how can you call anything in western washington ugly, with our never-ending greenery and mountains? Go live in Reno for ten years and talk to me about ugly.

[sean98125]

There are nice pockets of residential streets in Lynnwood, but the commercial strips around Alderwood and 99 are uninspiring at best. There are plenty of big chain restaurants and stores, but there really isn't any charming, interesting walkable shopping district like Queen Anne or Wallingford in Seattle. There aren't any small business districts with great restaurants with folks sitting outside like Madrona. There are very few sidewalks conducive to evening walks with the family. It's hard to even walk from store to store along 196th or 44th, since you have to cross parking lot after parking lot to get from place to place.

Lynnwood misses out on having great little restaurants that are owned by the people who prepare your food, and who got into the business because of their passion for cooking. You've got Red Lobster and Olive Garden and Applebees, but those are just upscale fast food places that get their ingredients from some big warehouse some miles away instead of from fresh, local sources. Lynnwood has no Tom Douglas.

Why don't I like Lynnwood? Lynnwood has nothing like a Ballard, a Madrona, a Wallingford. It doesn't have a waterfront, a Pike Place Market, a Pioneer Square. There is no shopping district as interesting as the few blocks around Westlake.

As some wag commented years ago about another suburb, "There's no there there."

[olynative]

I agree that Lynnwood lacks specific character like the different neighborhoods in seattle, but I think that is simply because it is so new. those above mentioned neighborhoods date back to the early days of seattle so have had a lot more time to grow into themselves. I would prefer to live in a place with more character, but lynnwood is far from being a bad neighborhood or ugly and i get tired of people judging places. lynnwood is what it is, a bedroom community with real people living there that don't want narrow minded people bashing it.