Considering making Tacoma our new home, info needed. (Seattle, Bellevue: for rent, credit)

[DahliaDollface]

I'm a newly married lesbian who currently resides in the south and am ready to move to an equality friendly state so that my wife and daughter can have a better quality of life. After extensive research I've decided that Tacoma seems to be a lovely place for my little family. I know that in the past Tacoma has been viewed rather unfavorably and that some people still feel that Tacoma is not the place to be and often try and discourage people from moving to the city. I understand that, I live in Norfolk, Virginia and tell anyone thinking of moving here not to. But, despite what's been said I'm still drawn to the city.

So, that being said, I want to know what Tacoma is really like for young families just starting out. Where are the best places to live in your opinion? How affordable are things? What are some things that are important to know about the city that internet research won't tell you? Are there other cities in the area that we should consider?

We're planning on flying up this spring to get a feel for the city and make sure it's the right place for us, what are some things we should do while we're there to really get a feel for the city and what life will be like for us if we choose to move there?

I'm sure I'll have more questions later on but for now, I'll keep it short. Thanks for any help, it's greatly appreciated!

[pete98146]

I grew up in Tacoma. Like any town there are good areas and not so good. If you can afford it, I'd definitely recommend living in University Place. Here is an idea of what homes are going for at the moment.

$259,500 | 4908 93RD AVE W, University Place, WA 98467 | MLS# 539779 UP has very good schools. It's funny, I went back for a high school reunion and I was surprised how many of my fellow classmates still live in University Place 30 years after graduating.

A close second would be North Tacoma which is also nice.

Best thing to do is to drive around the area and get a feel for the quality of neighborhoods. Go look at the schools and parks and shopping centers.

[eccentricgal]

I also grew up in Tacoma, unfortunately. I will never consider Tacoma "home". In fact, when people ask me where I'm from I tell them I'm from Portland. I would never recommend raising kids in Tacoma.

Tacoma has a couple of nice areas, but for the most part it's quite ghetto. The only area of Tacoma I would ever consider living in would be the Proctor District, or maybe near 6th ave between Sprague and Union avenues. Those are the trendiest, and correspondingly most expensive, areas of Tacoma.

Do NOT send your kid to Tacoma Public Schools. I attended school in this district and overall it was not a good experience. My mother still works for a public school in Tacoma and it doesn't sound like things have improved since my school days. Tacoma families who can afford it send their kids to private schools, and there are good reasons for this. Clover Park School District in nearby Lakewood is even worse.

As the previous poster suggested, University Place is a nice area and I hear good things about the schools. This area is not very close to I-5, though, which could make your commute more inconvenient depending on where you work.

Speaking of commuting, do you have a job lined up in Tacoma? There really aren't that many living wage jobs there, so there's a good chance you could end up with a brutal commute to Seattle or Bellevue every day through the Seattle area's notorious traffic.

[mkarch]

I'm sure compared to Norfolk Tacoma will seem like a minor improvement. FWIW, pretty much everyone I know with young kids that lives in the area is either in University Place, Fircrest or Gig Harbor - not the city of Tacoma.

[Ira500]

I have a friend whose daughter goes to Mason Middle School within Tacoma, and they think highly of it. Stadium HS is also supposed to be good. And I'm sure there are a few other decent schools within Tacoma. But like everyone else is saying, there are also a lot of bad schools in Tacoma.
The Proctor District is a very cool area, as is Old Town and Ruston, all in the north end.
But if you want to live near Tacoma but not in it, and want good schools, University Place or Steilacoom are good places, as are some parts of Federal Way.
I like Tacoma. It does have large stretches that are run down, boring, and ugly, but you don't have to live in those parts.
Still, to get good schools, you'd either need to carefully navigate where in Tacoma you'd live, or live elsewhere.

[DahliaDollface]

Our daughter isn't old enough for school yet so schools aren't a huge concern at this point, we've got three more years until that's something we need to think about. But, Norfolk has the worst schools in the state so I suspect that Tacoma schools or schools in the surrounding area will be an improvement. Especially from some of the inner city schools around here, ones that if we stay here, our daughter will likely go to and where she will be a minority (caucasian with two moms and whose parents are of a higher socioeconomic and educational status than her peers).

Virginia bases it's funding for schools on a system called the Standards of Learning or SOL's and kids are only taught what is needed to pass the test and nothing else.They are not encouraged to be creative, think critically or think independently. We also have schools particularly in Norfolk that are routinely denied accreditation. Does Washington also have a system similar to the SOL system? Are there problems with accreditation?

From what I've seen/read/researched, Tacoma will be a vast improvement from where we live now. We currently reside in a completely African American neighborhood where we stick out like sore thumbs. We own a pit bull and we came to live in the neighborhood we do because it was the only neighborhood that would allow us to keep our dog due to breed restrictions.Unfortunately, she'll be given to friends if we move. Drug activity and sales, shooting, and just general facets of living in a predominately African American neighborhood that is poverty stricken and where most people don't have high school or higher educations is part of our every day life. So if we wind up in the "ghetto" in Tacoma, we can take anything that can be thrown at us. At least in the interim until I've completed school. Now, some might say we should just get rid of the dog and move to better neighborhood and not entertain the notion of an out-of-state move but even taking that into consideration, (trust me we have, ad nauseum) Virginia is just not the place for us.

Sadly though, we are lower income, making about 24,000 a year combined (not including grants,school loans and savings) right now because I'm in school. If we decide to move to Tacoma, I'll be trying to get accepted to University of Puget Sound as a first pick, University of Washington if that doesn't work out. My wife has a degree in IT and is currently a shift manager for a local pharmacy chain so she'd try and get a job in either of those fields. We're used to having to scrape by and live on a "non-living" wage so the fact that financially we'd be in the same situation there as we are here isn't a deterrent. We've been saving to make a move for some time now and to take trips up to Tacoma to secure employment and a residence and enough to live on in the event that we weren't able to secure employment right away, so we have that figured out at least.

Living in a more liberal state that recognizes our marriage really is the most important thing to us. Maybe that's not the best reason to uproot our whole lives and move cross country but where we are now isn't working and every other equality friendly state has astronomical costs of living in comparison to Washington State. Plus, we're tired of the weather and the scenery here and are much more suited to the rainy climate that is part of living in the Pacific Northwest (we're weird, I know).

[DahliaDollface]

How about Olympia and surrounding areas? Are things better there or is it pretty much on par with Tacoma?

[Ira500]

Originally Posted by DahliaDollface

How about Olympia and surrounding areas? Are things better there or is it pretty much on par with Tacoma?

Olympia has great public schools. It doesn't have as many "bad" areas as Tacoma. It does have the state capitol and the Evergreen State College, and has it's share of state bureaucrats and lefty radicals, not necessarily a bad thing.

[sll3454]

Originally Posted by DahliaDollface

Virginia bases it's funding for schools on a system called the Standards of Learning or SOL's and kids are only taught what is needed to pass the test and nothing else.They are not encouraged to be creative, think critically or think independently. We also have schools particularly in Norfolk that are routinely denied accreditation. Does Washington also have a system similar to the SOL system? Are there problems with accreditation?

Unfortunately, the attempt at a national solution for education has only resulted in nationalizing the problem. Most public schools throughout the country now teach to the test.

I don't have any great advice about Tacoma or Olympia, but I want to commend you for your savings! That's great that you have been able to save money on an income of $24,000/yr for a family of three.

[DahliaDollface]

That's good news! We have looked further into Olympia and are now seriously considering it (or possibly Lacey) instead of Tacoma. While we're rather used to "bad areas" it would be nice to move to a place where that's at a minimum. From what we've seen there are plenty of places for rent in Olympia that are comparable to or better than where we live now.

But now I'm wondering about commute times/difficulty. In the event that I was accepted to University of Puget Sound, what would my commute be like? I commute several days a week where I live now to go to class and it's about a half hour drive time wise but can be considerably longer during rush hour with the highway at maximum volume or when there is an accident. (even minor accidents for some reason can shut the highway down for HOURS here) Would I be looking at something similar driving from Olympia to Tacoma?