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

[misscross]

from personal experience, it's easier to get around here than LA or SF. It's simply less spread out and/or smaller in size. In LA and SF bay area it often took too much planning and 1 hour drives to see friends and family regardless of traffic things are just so spread out.

We like being able to go downtown or see friends or go to many events in less than 25 minutes on a weekend. The housing prices here are still significantly cheaper than LA or SF. Consider it the weather discount.

FWIW there are in fact people who are willing to pay SF and LA prices to be in those climates, so not everyone thinks Seattle is better. They cannot imagine living here, just as I cannot imagine having 1.5 hr commute. To each their own.

[87112]

Originally Posted by perigee

OP, you mention "lousy weather" twice, for you I doubt Seattle is any better then CA, it's probably worse, why not move, life is too short to spend in an area you hate. We have a great thread about why we love the area:

https://www.city-data.com/forum/seatt...e-what-do.html

I am from CA and you couldn't pay me to move back. No judgement on those that can't stand our weather up here, but seriously weigh the pros and cons of living here and if you need the sun then move.

Cut the guy a break, If its was not for not liking/liking an area threads the forums would be dead. From what I have seen Seattle lovers are the most defensive on this site.

[Gardyloo]

Well, having grown up in LA, lived in San Francisco for years, also Eugene, Portland and Anchorage before moving to Seattle many years ago, I'll just say that no place is perfect, there are tradeoffs, and if you don't like it, the roads go everywhere and the planes fly every day.

All the major west coast cities have their pluses and minuses, and they're not frozen in time. When I was a kid in LA (just after the mastodons got stuck in the La Brea tar pits) we didn't think anything about driving from the South Bay (where we lived) to Hollywood for a movie. Would I do that now? As if.

When I was living in SF I felt like I was in competition with 700,000 other people for a parking space, but I lived on Russian Hill and my friends who lived in the Sunset thought I was nuts; they had no trouble parking.

Weather? June gloom at the LA beaches and October days when it was so hot the goldfish died and you could read a book by the light from the brush fires in the Santa Monica mountains? Or July at 6 PM in San Francisco when the fog comes over Twin Peaks like a freight train and by 6:30 you're running for a jacket?

Skiing in two hours from SF? Really? Where would that be? Most days it takes two hours just to get to Sacramento. 45 minutes to Big Bear? Maybe if you live in San Berdoo and own a helicopter.

Sure, you can go surfing in Huntington Beach or Half Moon Bay, or spend lovely weekends in Carmel or Palm Springs or Santa Barbara. California is full of fabulous destinations.

But so is Washington, and using Seattle (and really not all of Seattle, mainly the central parts) as a basis for comparison is not really fair. Yeah, traffic is the pits on I-5 through the middle of town, and housing is expensive. But it's not in Bremerton or Everett, any more than it is in Pomona or Vallejo. These are all big metropolitan regions and too broad a brush is a bad tool for painting.

I like it that I'm able to see the mountains in three national parks from the grocery store where I shop. I like it that a half hour on a ferry lands me on an island with berry farms, country stores and hippies. Or that there's a family of bald eagles living in the park across the street from my house.

Find a comparable scene in LA, I dare you:

[cmswazey]

Lower taxes.

[PanapolicRiddle]

Originally Posted by ryanms3030

... I feel like the only places left to really escape all the negative stuff is someplace like Idaho or Montana where of course there is no economy to speak of so not an option if you need a job

Yeah, that really seems to be the problem. There don't seem to many -if any- areas that have most of the the best of all worlds: decent jobs, good weather, mid-size population, and a laid-back lifestyle that are also at least somewhat affordable. If there are they're a well-kept secret because I've been trying to find such an area for years.

San Luis Obispo is about as close to an ideal area I know of. It's mid-size (about 50K pop) and the weather and topography/geology are as close to perfection as it gets. There are decent cultural amenities, but it's not crowded and congested. It's near the coast and there are mid-elevation mountains and rolling hills just outside the city, so there's ample outdoor recreation as well. Unfortunately the cost of living is fairly high relative to income.

Sadly, that's indicative of how things seem virtually everywhere. If you want an area with decent job opportunities, then you have to live in a populated urban area where quality of life is generally low. If you want good quality of life, then you have to live in a smaller area where wages are low.

[modc]

Public schools in northern Seattle and surrounding suburbs seem, to be better than those in LA and San Francisco. So, you can send your kids to public school and your house costs less than in California- sounds good to me.

[cmswazey]

Originally Posted by PanapolicRiddle

Yeah, that really seems to be the problem. There don't seem to many -if any- areas that have most of the the best of all worlds: decent jobs, good weather, mid-size population, and a laid-back lifestyle that are also at least somewhat affordable. If there are they're a well-kept secret because I've been trying to find such an area for years.

San Luis Obispo is about as close to an ideal area I know of. It's mid-size (about 50K pop) and the weather and topography/geology are as close to perfection as it gets. There are decent cultural amenities, but it's not crowded and congested. It's near the coast and there are mid-elevation mountains and rolling hills just outside the city, so there's ample outdoor recreation as well. Unfortunately the cost of living is fairly high relative to income.

Sadly, that's indicative of how things seem virtually everywhere. If you want an area with decent job opportunities, then you have to live in a populated urban area where quality of life is generally low. If you want good quality of life, then you have to live in a smaller area where wages are low.

CA has extremely high state income tax. And higher property tax.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by PanapolicRiddle

Considering how crowded and expensive the Seattle area has and continues to become, is there much of anything that makes it more appealing than a large CA city like LA or San Fran? To me it really seems like Seattle is becoming very much like the Bay area or LA, but with lousy weather 6 mos of the year.

Despite the dreary weather, at one time the central Puget Sound area had significant advantages over CA. It was less crowded, less expensive, more relaxed, but still had most of the amenities of a larger city. Seattle now just seems like another large urban area, but with lousy weather half the year. It's crowded, congested expensive, and stressful just like LA or San Fran, but at least those cities have decent weather. All of these areas have natural beauty, but it's necessary to go further outside the city to escape the crowds (just like LA and San Fran).

So how is the central Puget Sound area significantly better than LA or the Bay Area? It's getting more and more difficult for me to discern how we're more appealing, and since our weather is so much worse, might we now be less appealing?

Allow me, as a born-and-raised Californian who has always wanted to move back to CA after living in Seattle for 20 years, but hasn't been able to swallow the high COL in the Bay Area, to enlighten you. It's helpful here to take the long view.

Count your blessings about the lousy weather. Bear in mind that CA has been in a very serious drought for years, and the small amount of rain they've received this El Nino year won't make a difference. CA is stuck with global warming for the foreseeable future, if not for good, until the planet goes up in toast. it could be the global warming trend that's causing the stubborn high pressure ridge over the state, keeping most of the El Nino rains away.

I spent a few weeks in the Puget Sound region last fall. As September turned to October, first the misty drizzle, then out-and-out rain began. It was heaven! 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. Give it a couple more years, and it won't be pretty down there. Expect more climate refugees headed your way.

I know the constant grey can be a drag, I've lived with it myself. But looking at the Big Picture, projecting out the next 20 years, you'll find yourselves awfully glad you have that. Water is precious. Cloudy skies keep the moisture in the soil and waterways. Pray that it keeps up during your lifetimes. IMO, CA as we knew it is in serious danger and may be mostly over at this point. You're not missing anything, except a lot of excessive heat, and a water and food supply at risk.

And while I'm on this topic, the farmers in your area should start expanding agriculture now. We've already seen the beginnings of an ag collapse in CA; last summer Whole Foods stores in the West ran out of bagged salad mix for over a week, because CA wasn't able to deliver. That is a harbinger of things to come.

You have been warned.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Expect more climate refugees headed your way.

My fear.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Seacove

My fear.

I hope to be one of them. I was up there checking out Pt Townsend and Bellingham as possible locations. Don't worry, I'll stay out of your way.