Since it's getting Almost as Crowded and Expensive, how is the central Puget Sound area Better than CA? (Seattle: houses, neighborhoods)

[Cinema Cat]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I never thought I'd say that about Seattle's weather, but you people really need to start counting that as a blessing, because the alternative is to have your agricultural sector dry up, along with municipal water supplies. This is what CA is facing.

Not really. CA's municipal water supplies are not drying up, because CA HAS no municipal water supplies. Never did. CA (at least SoCal, where most people live) steals its water from the north. Water from the mountains up north, from the groundwater up north, from the Colorado River up north.

And CA has the political clout to steal even more water in years to come, should it need it.

Reminds me of a joke I heard from a stand-up comic.

A Canadian asked him, "No, really. What do you Americans think about us Canadians?"

The comic replied, "We don't think about you. Until we run out of water. On that day, watch out!"

[thedonwind]

Seattle is nowhere near as expensive or as crowded as SF or LA...Nor do I believe it will be. So I don't know what you're talking about. I've lived in both SF and LA before.


In SF and LA, you can't just drive into the city without encountering traffic or a cluster of crap going on. In SF you have to pay 4 dollars to cross the bridge into the city and to cross it to go out. Do you have to do that in Seattle?


You can take the bus and light rail in Seattle. Can you do that in LA?


On Friday nights, or pretty much any night, I drive into the city and the freeway's are ghost towns. There are no cars around. Can you say the same for LA? I've been stuck in LA traffic plenty of times on Friday and Saturday nights.. even at 11PM.


WA state doesn't have income tax. California does.


Seattle has an unemployment rate of 3% last time I checked. SF has a similar rate, but I think LA has 6% or something close to that.


The Seattle metro area has a total of 4.4 million people. SF has 8 million and LA has 18 million. So... Seattle is crowded right?


Along with the advantages already previously stated, the main advantage Seattle has over SF and LA ... is that it's not SF and LA lol....

[thatguy950]

Originally Posted by thedonwind

Seattle is nowhere near as expensive or as crowded as SF or LA...Nor do I believe it will be. So I don't know what you're talking about. I've lived in both SF and LA before.

SF no, LA I find cheaper than Seattle now. I keep my primary residence in the Seattle area to avoid income tax, but beyond that Seattle offers no real benefit. I'm not sure it'll ever catch up to SF, but I don't know why people say it's "significantly cheaper" than LA. Outside of Beverly Hills, don't expect to save anything by moving to Seattle.

In SF and LA, you can't just drive into the city without encountering traffic or a cluster of crap going on. In SF you have to pay 4 dollars to cross the bridge into the city and to cross it to go out. Do you have to do that in Seattle?

Same goes for Seattle. Oh and there is a toll on 520, and pretty much guarantee we'll get one on I90 soon enough. Let's not forget the tolls lanes on 405, seeing as how those made 3x more money than expected since they opened we can expect to see those start popping up all over the city. When is the last time you saw a liberal shut off a tap of money to the .gov?

I commute when in Seattle, I find it about equal with LA and worse than Honolulu now (simply because of distances). Driving 20 miles at rush hour in Seattle takes just as long as 20 miles at rush hour in LA, and now Seattle pretty much has traffic all day, every day...including weekends, thanks again, in part at least, to those moronic and expensive toll lanes on 405 causing spill-over into all the surface streets and clogging up the GP lanes.

You can take the bus and light rail in Seattle. Can you do that in LA?

Metro Rail vanish in the last 3 days since I left? The bus in Seattle is horribly over-crowded and pathetically unreliable as it pertains to on-time, save for the odd route to the Eastside

On Friday nights, or pretty much any night, I drive into the city and the freeway's are ghost towns. There are no cars around. Can you say the same for LA? I've been stuck in LA traffic plenty of times on Friday and Saturday nights.. even at 11PM.

I'm routinely stuck in traffic on 405 NB at 9pm. Sure it's not quite as bad as LA in that regard, but who the hell wants to go out when it's raining 85% of the time?

WA state doesn't have income tax. California does.

It gets closer to passing each election cycle, it's coming sooner or later.


Seattle has an unemployment rate of 3% last time I checked. SF has a similar rate, but I think LA has 6% or something close to that.

Seattle has the same problem with underemployment as LA. Unemployment numbers are misleading, I work on statistical analytics and we're seeing some of the effects, not to mention that moronic $15/hr minimum wage is showing to be a job killer. Expect that to get worse.

I know Boeing is cutting jobs. People get hung up on Seattle as a tech town, but let's not forget another powerhouse industry; aerospace. As Boeing goes, so does much of Seattle. Speaking of tech, I think Microsoft has also laid off about 10k people over the last year or so.

The Seattle metro area has a total of 4.4 million people. SF has 8 million and LA has 18 million. So... Seattle is crowded right?

Sure, but LA is 500 sq.mi, Seattle is 83....

Along with the advantages already previously stated, the main advantage Seattle has over SF and LA ... is that it's not SF and LA lol....

Hard to argue that one I guess.

Believe me, I'm not saying LA is great by any means; it's not. I don't really like either city to be frank, but because of my career I have to bounce back and forth. I would much prefer to just spend all my time in Honolulu, and I'm hoping to do so in the near future, but LA and Seattle also have great rental markets if you're a land lord with a decent amount of liquidity, so it's hard to turn my back on them completely.

People seem to still have a "90's" view of Seattle, but the reality is things have changed, A LOT, in recent years. The weather is getting worse, the COL is going up faster than anywhere in the country, and the already-unpleasant native Seattlites have reached a new level of "frozen" due to "their fair city" undergoing changes pretty much any major city does.

[Just.No]

The Puget Sound area isn't better.... If you're willing to pay Seattle prices, there are tons of cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, parts of Oakland, Eastbay, (and outside of CA), Chicago, Minneapolis, NYC (only 17% more expensive than Seattle), Miami, Atlanta, Denver, and Boston that have far more to offer.

[cmswazey]

NYC is a lot more than 17% more expensive than Seattle. I'm originally from the state capital there and went to NYC all the time. My grandpa built 2 houses on Long Island and my uncle lived and retired out there. I know what it costs. Much higher property taxes, much higher rents and home prices and a high state income tax.

San Francisco and LA are high high high!

MN has a very high state income tax though housing is cheaper.

Yeah, Seattle's housing has gone up but your examples do not work. It's like you pulled a bunch of city names out of a hat.

[Cinema Cat]

Originally Posted by cmswazey

NYC is a lot more than 17% more expensive than Seattle. ... Much higher property taxes, much higher rents and home prices and a high state income tax.

You forgot to add that New York City also has a city income tax.

Not many cities can brag about having their own income tax, but NYC rises to the challenge!

And there are plenty of other additional taxes and fees that NYC imposes on residents, some hidden, some more obvious.

[nja2016]

Seattle has better weather if you're like me and don't like being broiled alive when you go outside 300+ days a year. It's way way too hot in L.A. (I live in the city, add 10-15 degree for valley temps) -- it's been over 80 degrees for the past 2 weeks and I feel like we're being cheated out of the winter we deserve after our typical long, hot summer which lasts until December. I went to school in Eugene and thought it had fantastic weather.

[homesinseattle]

My sister in law just bought a $3mil 3 bedroom apartment, about 1900 SF, in Manhattan. Property taxes are outrageous there. Seattle isn't even close to that expensive.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by nja2016

Seattle has better weather if you're like me and don't like being broiled alive when you go outside 300+ days a year. It's way way too hot in L.A. (I live in the city, add 10-15 degree for valley temps) -- it's been over 80 degrees for the past 2 weeks and I feel like we're being cheated out of the winter we deserve after our typical long, hot summer which lasts until December. I went to school in Eugene and thought it had fantastic weather.

I agree, I can live with 80 in July and August but today is perfect February weather here, mid 30s at 6am, supposed to be 55 in the afternoon. Even in the east Bay Area, where it's not as hot as L.A., I used to hate 80s in April, and almost always 100-105 in September when school started.

[thedonwind]

Originally Posted by thatguy950

Believe me, I'm not saying LA is great by any means; it's not. I don't really like either city to be frank, but because of my career I have to bounce back and forth. I would much prefer to just spend all my time in Honolulu, and I'm hoping to do so in the near future, but LA and Seattle also have great rental markets if you're a land lord with a decent amount of liquidity, so it's hard to turn my back on them completely.

People seem to still have a "90's" view of Seattle, but the reality is things have changed, A LOT, in recent years. The weather is getting worse, the COL is going up faster than anywhere in the country, and the already-unpleasant native Seattlites have reached a new level of "frozen" due to "their fair city" undergoing changes pretty much any major city does.

OH lord here we go with the typical anal-retentive arguments.


Only people who are originally from Seattle will deny all the good things about it. Whereas people who are obviously coming from brutally more expensive cities like LA and SF and NY and pretty much any other city on the east coast know that Seattle is great because of the lack of rape taxes and also Seattle doesn't have a drought problem nor does it have blizzards and snowstorms or tornadoes like the central US does... Or pretty much anywhere else in the USA. Freaking appreciate it already. So the hell what if it rains. It's not raining 85% of the time so quit exaggerating. And the statement that Seattle has traffic "all day" and every day is laughable. There is so much untruth in that statement it's hilarious. I've also never had a problem going out on weekends because of the weather. It doesn't matter if it's raining. People will still go out and have fun instead of stay inside and watch TV.


Seattle is only slightly cheaper than LA but LA is the true definition of overcrowded. There is a damn stereotype labeled on LA for it's traffic, and it's there for a reason. The main stereotype labeled with Seattle is rain.. not traffic. The traffic in Seattle is no different than any standard big city (Boston, Chicago, DC, whatever) All these over-analytical drivers picking apart the traffic like it's some kind of science are wasting their time. There's nothing else to it. There's traffic in Seattle. There's traffic in LA. Who the hell cares. They're both the same. The only difference is that LA has a crap ton more people.

YES WE KNOW THAT IT SNOWS 1 DAY OF THE YEAR, don't barf all of the damn example. The Seattle natives really don't know what it's like outside and think anything will be better in comparison. It's kind of cute to be honest when people here complain about "crowded". Tell that to any Californian or New Yorker and he will laugh at you.