Interested in moving to Washington, looking for the right place. (Seattle: rent, crime rate)

[7.3 Liters]

Shadow,
Ventura is pretty great when it comes to low crime, but you can find it anywhere if you look - like the Avenue or Colonia over in Oxnard. The big problem up here seems to be meth. Just keep your eyes open and you'll be fine.
The local paper here has a crime log that can be rather humorous at times. "Car runs over chicken and left in the road" or "Local commissioner gets fined for harvesting road kill".


"Any man, who at age 20 is not a liberal, has no heart. Any man, who at age 30 is not a conservative, has no brain"
by Winston Churchill. -- Don't be blue Shadow, you're not 30 yet-you've still got time to grow up.

[scirocco22]

*lol* ...good thing you don't drink coffee! With a Starbucks or an espresso stand everywhere you turn around, you'll be broke in no time spending $4 a latte 4 or 5 times a day!

--'rocco

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by 7.3 Liters

Shadow,
Ventura is pretty great when it comes to low crime, but you can find it anywhere if you look - like the Avenue or Colonia over in Oxnard. The big problem up here seems to be meth. Just keep your eyes open and you'll be fine.
The local paper here has a crime log that can be rather humorous at times. "Car runs over chicken and left in the road" or "Local commissioner gets fined for harvesting road kill".

*laughs* I know what you're sayin', 7.3! I'm not in a town as small as Leavenworth but I still laugh at some of our headlines in the local paper here too.

I told a friend last month that you know you're in a small town when the headline and lead story in the local paper was a Greyhound bus breaking down at the local bus stop and leaving it's 30 passengers standing on the street for 15 minutes until a replacement bus could arrive!

--'rocco

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by ShadowXOR

EDIT: Also I'm a very BLUE (politically) person. Will the Seattle area hate me, love me, or remain indifferent to my political preferences?

Huh? In reality, probably remain indifferent. Aren't both Washington and California technically Blue states? Seattle proper is particularly Blue. Isn't Ventura County becoming more Blue? I really don't think it's going to matter.

That's what's so nice about the Seattle area is it's diversity and tolerance which, debatably, I'm sure, comes from it's Blueness(?).

--'rocco

[margo0645]

Oh, go to Bellingham. It is a really cool town. The population you're looking for is right, it's a University town, if you're interested, it's midway between Vancouver, BC and Seattle (about 1.5 hours) and close to the San Juan Islands and skiing at Mt. Baker. Check it out. I think it was one of the top towns in Money magazine or some such survey not too long ago.

[ShadowXOR]

Originally Posted by scirocco22

Huh? In reality, probably remain indifferent. Aren't both Washington and California technically Blue states? Seattle proper is particularly Blue. Isn't Ventura County becoming more Blue? I really don't think it's going to matter.

That's what's so nice about the Seattle area is it's diversity and tolerance which, debatably, I'm sure, comes from it's Blueness(?).

--'rocco

Yes, Ventura is very Blue thankfully.

Bellingham looks very nice but I don't think there are enough jobs in the area, plus it's a bit too far from Seattle for my tastes. But WOW is it beautiful.

EDIT: Put all my political views in a PM so that we can keep this thread on topic.

[ShadowXOR]

I'm confused...there must be some mistake. According to Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed the air quality in the Seattle area is four out one hundred, with higher being better. How could Seattle score so low? My area in California scores a twenty out of one hundred. There really must be some mistake right? I thought the air was better up there.

[compltlyme]

Originally Posted by ShadowXOR

I'm confused...there must be some mistake. According to Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed the air quality in the Seattle area is four out one hundred, with higher being better. How could Seattle score so low? My area in California scores a twenty out of one hundred. There really must be some mistake right? I thought the air was better up there.

from my experience... I can honestly say... the air quality is beyond MUCH better in Seattle than in So Ca... When in So Ca...one can "taste" the bad air and feel it on the skin...YUK!


AND

Originally Posted by scirocco22

*lol* With a Starbucks or an espresso stand everywhere you turn around, you'll be broke in no time spending $4 a latte 4 or 5 times a day!

--'rocco

I resemble that remark!!!

[CAmaverick]

New to this discussion... If interested in weather for any state, I use weather.com and it's pretty great about giving not only daily weather but also averages and history. Pretty handy for checking out new areas. Also having just moved from CA to the Eugene, OR area, the air up here is WORSE than Sacramento Valley over the past weeks due to fog and inversion from all the wood burning. I knew it was like this down in the Medford, Ashland valley areas, along I-5, but Eugene surprised me. I'm looking into a move to the Centralia, Chehalis, Olympia areas as the real estate is still sanely priced and it's 1/2 way between the Portland airport and Seattle's airport. And, there is good shopping in Centralia - Costco, etc. There's a Home Depot and Wal-Mart in Chehalis, I'm told. I am getting the newspaper for the areas I'm interested in and that helps too, some are on-line. Hope this helps.

[scirocco22]

Yup, I agree with compltlyme ...not as bad as SoCal but as CaMaverick referred to, the infamous inversion does take place in the Puget Sound area frequently in the winter. Sometimes on those rare clear days in the winter, you'll see the smog lingering over the area but as compltlyme has said, you won't taste it or feel it on your skin the way you can in the L.A. basin on a bad day. I remember my eyes burning profusely when I visted relatives in L.A. as a little kid and that was decades ago!

Don't most metropolitan areas suffer from smog? ...just from the sheer number of vehicles running around?

The Seattle metropolitan area still has emission checks in order to license your car although they've been less stringent in recent years and have relaxed a lot of the regulations and requirements because of the number of newer cars on the road which burn fuel much cleaner now.

--'rocco