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Lol do people have conversations about other cities/regions very often?
Do you hear tons of conversation about New England? The Midwest? The Gulf Coast?
Trust me, no one in Seattle talks about LA or Arizona either. Except when they show that Arizona is 120 degrees on CNN and everyone in Seattle gets a good chuckle.
I agree with that, except it's not just Seattle residents who chuckle.
Maybe you should look into Tacoma or Vancouver, WA they are cheaper. Or maybe even some of the smaller towns such as Eugene or Bellingham.
Perhaps, I'd consider them, it is finding employment that's the tough part. Most of the jobs I would be looking at are centralized to Portland and Seattle only. I guess that's why those smaller towns are so much cheaper, yes?
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Originally Posted by Tex?Il?
Another poster mentioned Arizona. Arizona, like the Pac-NW has also seen the similar huge influx of transplants other western states have, but since there is less of a critical mass of long time natives in AZ, there is less cold shouldering, etc.
Arizona is not as transient as you think. Summers tend to weed a few people out but those who can handle the summer whether they enjoy it or not end up staying here due to the benefits of other things like a decent COL. Summers in southern Arizona are really the only downside to living out here and I really do mean that. Some people are more heat-adapted than others, even though I am a native to Arizona I definitely am NOT a heat person and am looking to live somewhere colder in the near future. But those heat-tolerant people thrive here.
Proof of summers being the only downfall to Arizona is almost a 500k increase in population during the fall/winter/spring months. People take part in everything we have to offer in this time frame with a big grin on their face. It's about April or May or so when they start heading out and they start returning around October. Imagine taking all of Mesa out for the summer that's how big of a population drop that we see.
The PNW has only just recently seen a boom if I recall correctly. It's just that the cities in this region and their infrastructure, along with rent increases, aren't able to handle this population boom. So this is a government management issue here. Arizona despite booming for a few decades now has managed to control COL increases and infrastructure quite well.
1) Long wet/gloomy winters running from November through March - I'd guess that half the people who move here flee in terror after a couple of our winters. We lead the nation in vitamin D deficiency.
2) Increasing hot/humid summer heat-waves. Seattle hit the mid-90s and Portland 100, in June, with virtually no A/C anywhere - not in apartments, houses, businesses, restaurants, schools, hospitals, cars, buses, etc. With the temperature in the mid-to-high 90s, Seattle and Portland are among the last places you want to be. The bleating of newcomers from A/C-dependent states when temps top 90 can be deafening. You'd think they were being forced to SWEAT for the first time in their lives.
3) World class traffic - the Puget Sound Corridor (I-5) is one giant clog, with low traffic periods reserved for 9pm to 5am. Light rail is being built out in the Seattle area, but is 40 years behind the curve, due to voters rejecting building a BART-like mass-transit system in the 1970s. Portland is a little better, but made the mistake of building "at grade" surface light-rail. Because of geography, large lakes and hills in Seattle and rivers in Portland, traffic is funneled through narrow zig-zag corridors and across a few clogged, and increasingly tolled, bridges. Half-hour commutes have turned into 3/4 of an hour, hour commutes into an hour and a half.
4) Skyrocketing real-estate prices. Buying a house is akin to playing roulette, with a dozen or more offers, half all-cash, for $60k-100k over ask, for undersized houses on small lots, being common, as families are fleeing into the cities, rather than from them, in order to shorten murderous commutes and live closer to work.
5) Massive rent increases. Seemingly, every "hipster" and "metro-sexual" in the country dreams of moving, not to New York, L.A., S.F., or Chicago, but to Seattle and Portland, which are many times smaller and, thus, many, many times less able to absorb the onslaught. Of course, the life-style they so want to share, so ably showed on PNW-themed national-hit movies and TV series (almost all filmed in Vancouver B.C., however), is being killed off by the first waves to get here.
6) Boom or massive bubble? In Seattle, add a tsunami of tech-workers crushing into the central areas of the city, driven by a company, Amazon, that has only recently showed a bare sliver of a profit. As a result, long-term renters are routinely suddenly being hit with rent-increase notices of hundreds of dollars, forcing them to contemplate 1) moving to, horror of horrors, Lynnwood, Federal Way, or Tacoma (egad), being forced into "postage-stamp"-sized apodments and micro-apartments (in many cases, smaller than their childhood bedrooms, or 3) pitching a tent in "the Jungle", Seattle's massive homeless encampment, or into other "greenbelts" turned into "drugbelts" blighting the landscape. Seattle is rapidly becoming its worst nightmare - San Francisco. Portland is becoming San Jose.
I lived there for just over five years. You don't really realize it until you get there, then you get the freeze.
The irony of it all is it's the headquarters for liberal amnesty for "outsiders" coming into America, but eff outsiders from two states over. I've just come to the conclusion that everyone is hypocritical judgemental tribal bulls**t trash for one reason or another, and the asteroid can't hit us soon enough. Yeah, I'm a cheery sort these days.
An even bigger irony is that for all the free press Washington and Oregon get for being bastions of left-wing politics, and for as much as Seattle and Portland pat themselves on the back for it, the rural areas and small towns in both states are full of rednecks. Seriously, if you want to find rednecks outside of the South, the rural Pacific Northwest is as good as anywhere to find them. Over the Cascade Mountains from Seattle and Portland is every hipster's worst nightmare.
An even bigger irony is that for all the free press Washington and Oregon get for being bastions of left-wing politics, and for as much as Seattle and Portland pat themselves on the back for it, the rural areas and small towns in both states are full of rednecks. Seriously, if you want to find rednecks outside of the South, the rural Pacific Northwest is as good as anywhere to find them. Over the Cascade Mountains from Seattle and Portland is every hipster's worst nightmare.
You can find those types in downtown Portland and Seattle too.
An even bigger irony is that for all the free press Washington and Oregon get for being bastions of left-wing politics, and for as much as Seattle and Portland pat themselves on the back for it, the rural areas and small towns in both states are full of rednecks. Seriously, if you want to find rednecks outside of the South, the rural Pacific Northwest is as good as anywhere to find them. Over the Cascade Mountains from Seattle and Portland is every hipster's worst nightmare.
Rednecks reside in any rural outskirt of any metro, even in California and the Northeast. That's not unique to the PNW. But yeah, the area is overrated. Only reason I am thinking of going back is because I love the oceanic maritime climate. But I won't be going back to the city of Seattle or Portland, that's for sure.
I've been to Portland once and if I could afford to live conpfortably I would be in Seattle but I'm not . Overcast and rain doesn't bother me as I'm use to -20 and overcast with snow and ice
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I've just come to the conclusion that everyone is hypocritical judgemental tribal bulls**t trash for one reason or another, and the asteroid can't hit us soon enough. Yeah, I'm a cheery sort these days.
