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He obviously wasn't talking about number of foreign tourists.. Probably talking about polls / studies of surveyed foreigners experiences / perception or something.
Exactly. The only reason the cost of living is so high in the DC Area is because there are so many overpaid paper pushers and blood-sucking lawyers. DC offers nothing culturally to justify such a high cost of living. NYC is expensive for a reason. NYC is the capital of the world in many arenas. NYC is the fashion capital. There is always something going on in NYC. There is always a new nook or cranny to discover in NYC. A new deli or restaurant, a new bar, a new clothing boutique etc. NYC is full of beautiful women and interesting people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Similarly, SF is expensive for a reason. SF has some of the world's most beautiful scenery. SF is a world of its own that doesn't experience bitter snowy winters or sweltering humid 100 degree days of summer. You have the freedom to smoke some of the best of the best weed on the planet in public in SF without fear (can't even do that in NYC: the marijuana arrest capital of the world).
On the other hand, DC is sterile, bland and boring. The yuppified gentrified population in DC live to work instead of working to live. It wears people down. Ambitious 20 somethings look like 30 somethings and 30 somethings look 40 something in the DC Area. The constant pressure to be a "professional" at all times is not natural. DC sucks the life out of people. DC people, on average, are not attractive. DC yuppies aren't stylish either. They dress like overgrown fratboys with worn out curved brim baseball caps with boat shoes and pastel colored flat front khaki shorts and tucked-in oxford shirts with rolled up sleeves all year round or don't know how to stylishly dress down from business casual and dressed up work attire. Black DC natives do have a unique colorful urban style though. The weather is hellish in the summer and frozen hellish in the winter. You can see all there is to see in DC in a single weekend. Downtown, the museums, the monuments and a few clothing botiques and restaurants here and there and thats it. The rest of the city is a mish mash of houses with barred up windows, office buildings and the amenities of a sizable douchey playground for uninteresting self-important alcoholic yuppies (i.e. U Street, H Street) or ghetto sketchy no-go zone blocks and neighborhoods carved out for corner boys, jackers and career street hustlers.
The native black culture of DC is being displaced with generic chain store "culture". Go-Go music stores, clubs and venues and take-outs that sling Mambo sauce are being replaced with CVS and Walmart in the District. The most boring people from the most boring places are repopulating the District at an alarming rate as attractive interesting DC natives have long abandoned the area and moved to cities like Atlanta which still have a vibe of upscale blackness that is slowly dying in DC.
You sound like DC bent you over hard sometime in your past.
I will agree somewhat though. The main parts of DC felt very sterile in and around all the government buildings, museums, etc. It literally looked almost identical block to block, which is something I'm not used to living here in Philly. Although DuPont Circle was one of the nicest urban neighborhoods I have ever seen, and their subway is second to none in the US in terms of cleanliness and aesthetics. Going up and down those huge escalators at the subway stops was something very unique.
The weather in the summer sucks, but to call DC winters hellish would get you laughed out of any place that actually has serious winters. I grew up in the frozen depths of northern New England, so to call DC winters "hellish" is a joke. Also, I don't know why you think DC people are ugly and poorly dressed. Saw plenty of attractive and/or well-dressed people on my visit to DC.
You sound like you have a serious grudge against the city, which makes it hard for people to take you seriously because you are in no way objective.
Seattle is lovely and gorgeous; it's also wildly expensive.
I think one thing people fail to take into consideration is that the much-hyped $15/hr wage here has the spending power of - oh- $10/hr somewhere else. That is to say, it doesn't go far at all.
My fear is that people will move to Seattle without doing their research. EVERY SINGLE DAY people post wanting to know where they can find apartments for less than $1000/mo. Well, they exist ... but not in the city itself. You're committed to commuting if you live in this area, and that's a fact.
Ha! Just wait until that $15/hour actually goes into effect. It will have the spending power of $7/hour or even less.
EDIT: Wow, hate it when I respond to a post and then read through the rest of the thread and find it went in an entirely different direction.
Last edited by katygirl68; 06-18-2014 at 05:01 PM..
What are some cities that CvC often hold in high regard but are in reality bad places to live? I would say NYC. Most CDers give NYC a romanticized appearance that are depicted on Friends and Seinfeld. What they don't mention is how NYC is one of the most segregated cities in the country in terms of wealth and race. NYC has an overreaching police force that disproportionately target black and Hispanic men. There are 22,000 homeless children in the city alone. Now why is NYC always defended on CvC?
I lived in NYC for the first 13 years of my life. I lived in blue collar, middle class, and white collar neighborhoods at different points of those years. I loved living in NYC, and I still miss it sometimes. Now, I like the south better then the north, but NYC is definitely still the best city in the U.S.
All cities have their problems, but NYC is way better then Detroit, Memphis, Oakland etc... in almost every category, especially safety.
To me it just sounds like you are a far-left liberal who thought NYC was more of a leftist paradise then it is in reality.
What are some cities that CvC often hold in high regard but are in reality bad places to live? I would say NYC. Most CDers give NYC a romanticized appearance that are depicted on Friends and Seinfeld. What they don't mention is how NYC is one of the most segregated cities in the country in terms of wealth and race. NYC has an overreaching police force that disproportionately target black and Hispanic men. There are 22,000 homeless children in the city alone. Now why is NYC always defended on CvC?
These seem like pretty political, true leftist, anti-1% and anti-neoconservative/pro-civil libertarian statements to me.
What are some cities that CvC often hold in high regard but are in reality bad places to live? I would say NYC. Most CDers give NYC a romanticized appearance that are depicted on Friends and Seinfeld. What they don't mention is how NYC is one of the most segregated cities in the country in terms of wealth and race. NYC has an overreaching police force that disproportionately target black and Hispanic men. There are 22,000 homeless children in the city alone. Now why is NYC always defended on CvC?
IDK where you got the 22,000 number of homeless children but that is about 1% of children that are homeless in NYC.
It's funny because my great-grandparents were homeless and didn't speak any English when they immigrated to NYC.
You sound like DC bent you over hard sometime in your past.
I will agree somewhat though. The main parts of DC felt very sterile in and around all the government buildings, museums, etc. It literally looked almost identical block to block, which is something I'm not used to living here in Philly. Although DuPont Circle was one of the nicest urban neighborhoods I have ever seen, and their subway is second to none in the US in terms of cleanliness and aesthetics. Going up and down those huge escalators at the subway stops was something very unique.
The weather in the summer sucks, but to call DC winters hellish would get you laughed out of any place that actually has serious winters. I grew up in the frozen depths of northern New England, so to call DC winters "hellish" is a joke. Also, I don't know why you think DC people are ugly and poorly dressed. Saw plenty of attractive and/or well-dressed people on my visit to DC.
You sound like you have a serious grudge against the city, which makes it hard for people to take you seriously because you are in no way objective.
I'll second that, and to the point that when I visited the city last month I had wished I wasn't currently married with children, because there were SO MANY bonita senioritas there and I'd bet that less than 10% of them were actually local, making meeting them all-the-more interesting!!!
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DC offers nothing culturally to justify such a high cost of living. NYC is expensive for a reason. NYC is the capital of the world in many arenas. NYC is the fashion capital. There is always something going on in NYC. There is always a new nook or cranny to discover in NYC. A new deli or restaurant, a new bar, a new clothing boutique etc. NYC is full of beautiful women and interesting people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Similarly, SF is expensive for a reason. SF has some of the world's most beautiful scenery. SF is a world of its own that doesn't experience bitter snowy winters or sweltering humid 100 degree days of summer. You have the freedom to smoke some of the best of the best weed on the planet in public in SF without fear (can't even do that in NYC: the marijuana arrest capital of the world). 
