Basically it goes like this: the locals here (people who grew up/went to school here) are incredibly resentful of "transplants" who came from elsewhere, mostly to work in the tech industries here. We're blamed for anything from turning Seattle from a sleepy laid-back town into a monstrosity of big-city lights (it... isn't), to raising housing prices, to making everything suck more, to driving out the local music scene, etc etc (some of which have merit). In any case, Seattle's social scene is almost comically obviously divided into locals vs. transplants. I've been here for over a year, have made many friends, and only one of which is a local Seattleite.
Transplants are forced to keep to themselves, and I'll just add a slight note that the vast majority of the transplant population is male (software, surprise!)
People who visit Seattle often mistake our distant politeness and geniality as friendliness. It isn't. People will give you directions to the bus stop, we'll tell you the best places to get coffee, and we probably won't yell at you for cutting us off on the highway (much), but this is really just politeness, not friendliness. Culturally speaking people form social circles early on in life (high school or latest, college) and do not appear at all interested in expanding them. This is in contrast to some other cities I've lived in where everyone seems constantly eager to meet new people.
It's also one of the more racially homogenous places I've seen (granted, my history is in Vancouver and Toronto, where at last count half the population was immigrant). Good Japanese food? Few and far between, pricey to boot. Good Chinese food? Does not exist. Good Indian food? Maybe one place waaaaay over on the east side, and this is despite having MS and Amazon's Indian engineer population feeding the demand. Good food is basically limited to "pretentious fusion attempt" and "Northwest seafood". Ethnic foods? Fuggetaboutit. You have greasy stuff only a notch or two above Panda Express, and that's about it. The food scene in this city sucks.
Transportation? It's one of the few cities I've lived in (and I've lived in some shitty towns in the middle of nowhere, Ontario) where living in one of the central neighborhoods (Capitol Hill, for reference) makes me feel legless. The bus system sucks, the light rail is pathetic for any use except getting to the airport, and the "streetcar" can be beaten by a granny on a bicycle. Couple this with the fact that Seattle has no centralized city planning (it's a very loose collection of neighborhoods) and getting around without a car is a gigantic pain. Hell, it took me 45 minutes this afternoon to travel 1.0 miles on the bus (one of the most frequent routes, in fact). Mass transit effectively does not exist, and even when the government occasionally has a bright idea about effective, fast mass transit to finally connect all of the neighborhoods, the class-warfare-happy upper-middles on the east side are quick to attempt to torpedo anything. Our current initiative to make light rail finally useful, and for the first time get an effective mass commute option in the city is currently being fought tooth and nail by rich homeowners and builders fearing the "undesirables" will be able to move about too easily into their gated meccas.
Yeah, the summers are gorgeous, the beer scene is delicious, the availability of the great outdoors is incredible... but overall I find this city to be incredibly insular, completely antisocial, stuffed to the brim with pretention (yuppie urban high-rise style and pretentious suburban rich style all rolled up into one, oh boy!). The only good thing about this damned place is the employment.
So, if you want to make a fair bit of money, enjoy the weather, and hermit up writing code all day (or having beers with other coders... or having coffee with other coders... or going to dinner with other coders... or hitting the club with other coders, full of coders dropping mad dollaz trying to get laid...), come right on in. I'll even buy you a beer and start a pool on how long it takes for you to run screaming out of this town. The current average is 2 years.
Note: This is a very harsh post. But, if you are married (or seriously involved), ready to settle down in a nice, peaceful suburb with good schools, Seattle's not such a bad place. There is so much nature around for you and the kiddos - I wouldn't mind growing up here at all. If you are however young, possibly single, and looking to meet interesting folk from diverse backgrounds and enjoy the urban lifestyle... consider carefully.
Yes! Glad to see I wasn't the only one who felt this way. I moved to Seattle in 2008 and only stayed for about 7 months before I had to leave. The people were friendly and polite, but it was impossible to get to know people on more than a superficial level. There were a lot of activities going on -- concerts, summer festivals -- but they weren't good for meeting new people. I didn't have any trouble meeting people in other cities, so I do think it was the Seattle Freeze in action.
Seattle was a perfect city on paper. It's beautiful in the summer and there's waterfront views in every neighborhood. There's a good arts scene for a city of its size, and the cost of living is pretty reasonable. But without any way to build a core group of friends, it was really difficult to handle living there. I had to leave before I went crazy!
I don't think you're being totally fair to Seattle (but maybe it's because I came from SV).
Some ethnic food is well-enough represented. The Vietnamese food around 12th and Jackson is as good as anywhere (came here from SV and it matches up fine), there are significant Korean communities in the Lynwood and Federal Way burbs where that food is good, Ethiopian food is pretty good in the Central District, Indian food on the eastside isn't as bad as you imply, there are some great taco buses, etc. And on Chinese food, the restauraunt I would most miss if I moved away is Sichuanese Cuisine; it's dirty, spicy, greasy, and fantastic. There's a big step down from there though.
The homgeneity is split usually on neighborhood and economic lines; the rich neighborhoods are all WASPy but get down to the southside and it's generally all minority. That's what happens when housing prices are so disparate.
The styles you talk about are present in seemingly every major city that hasn't experienced complete suburban flight. It's the other ones that annoy me; Capitol Hill is like a lookatthisfuckinghipster theme park and everywhere else there's an obsession with appearing outdoorsy. For a fun time, count the number of North Face logos you see in a crowd at any time of year.
I like this city for staying down to earth. It's not perfect, it clearly isn't for everybody, but it ain't that bad. It's desperately alternative; so showing up as another one of an already huge crowd you shouldn't expect diversity.
Maaaaybe on the Vietnamese food, disagreed about all of the other ethnic foods. The problem with Seattle (as it is for many other cities) is that minorities are not economically well-represented.
For example, there are many well to do Chinese folk in this town working in white-collar tech jobs, yet the sort of Chinese food you'd see in this city wouldn't even be fit for a road-side stall in Shanghai. It's strictly greasy spoon, over-Westernized stuff with zero authenticity - head up to Vancouver sometime if you want to see "real" middle class (or upper-middle) Chinese food (and it's about the same price as the greasy spoon swill here). This entire category does not exist in Seattle. Hell, I've lived in cities of a mere 100,000 folk that have had better Chinese food.
My Indian colleagues complain of the same effect for them - a lot of marginally competent stuff that isn't downright nasty, but neither is it high-quality, nor authentic.
The same applies for every other ethnicity under the sun except the Japanese - Japanese food in this city is fairly decent and well represented, though much, much pricier than any other city I've lived in. It's the only cuisine that the population around seems sophisticated enough to discern good from bad.
Capitol Hill honestly doesn't bother me so much (probably why I live there). The hipsters may be desperately preening, but it beats the arrogant yuppies in Belltown aping Lil' Jon all day and night and getting krunk with their brahs, all the while spitting on the homeless drug-addled folk that fill the streets down there. Ugh, never living there again.
[edit] Honestly speaking, the food scene's quality is a relatively minor concern compared to just the sleepiness and insular antisocial-ness of the town. It's no food mecca, but it's good enough to get by if you had some interesting people to share it with - but as it is you'll be having greasy Chinese food with a lot of other hackers, and basically no one else.
I don't think it's the economic representation at all that causes mediocre food; I could also give two shits about the economic class targeted by some dish. The problem comes when they don't have significant heavily concentrated ethnic neighborhoods to sell to; when 70% of your potential customer base is people who have a problem ordering spice levels over 2/5 in one of the billion mediocre Thai restaurants around, you have to tone everything down. They don't have to worry as much about selling to these people in the CD or in the Rainier Valley since frankly a lot of people are scared shitless driving down E. Cherry St or past Franklin High on Rainier Ave S. I'm aware of the Richmond scene; that's the benefit of a city that's 45% Chinese people. The general Asian concentration isn't even remotely that high anywhere in the Puget Sound (it's less than 20% in every city I checked).
Sushi (I assume you mean sushi, since most Japanese restaurants I've been to here treat everything that isn't sushi as a distraction) is absurdly simple food (it was created to be fast food), governed mostly by fish quality. And guess what the fish is pretty good up here, big surprise.
I'm not convinced Belltown partiers actually live there. I'm about 80% sure it and Pioneer Square fill up with the Seattle version of the Bridge & Tunnel crowd; I guess they'd just be the bridge and bridge crowd but I've also heard them referred to as BARKers once or twice (Burien Auburn Renton Kent). But yeah it's a place to stay away from on party nights; the concentration of drunk morons makes it crime central. They've got some nice (not-ethnic) restaurants down there as its only saving grace.
I also disagree on the antisocialness of the town; if the only people you know are hackers that's your problem. For people who come here as a hacker and expect to be embraced for it, they should know that the locals have seen a hundred thousand programmers pass through on the MS/Amazon/Expedia/etc gravy train and it's kinda old hat. They don't think we're very interesting either; a hacker has to do something else to stand out from the 40,000 other people who are just like him/her.
> "I'm not convinced Belltown partiers actually live there"
They don't. The sadder part about Belltown is that without the annoying fratbros it's completely lifeless. Walk down 1st or 2nd on a weeknight to see what I mean. Compare this with, say, Granville/Robson in Vancouver, St. Catherine in Montreal, or Yonge/Queen in Toronto and the patheticness is magnified more.
It's part of why I moved up to Capitol Hill - despite the hipsters, at least people are out and about throughout the week. There's life on the streets, as opposed to Belltown and downtown where shops close at 5-6pm, and there's nary a soul to be found walking on the sidewalks (well, unless you count the coked out hobos and their dealers).
There is no energy in this city. It's as if everyone is constantly in an opium-induced haze, lazing about in the coffee shops, or at home. When I lived in Belltown I felt like a reverse Omega Man - in the daytime the streets would be full of people coming and going, but at night they'd slink back indoors as if the night is out to get them. This is part of the "antisocial" thing I complained about in an earlier post - but what can you expect when you stuff a neighborhood full of antisocial, overworked, overstressed hackers? Of course they just shut down on weeknights after work. Foot traffic in even the hottest neighborhoods is essentially zero except on Fridays and Saturday nights. The entire city is utterly lifeless throughout the week, and explodes into a flurry of sudden activity for a few hours (hilariously enough, mainly driven by people traveling in from the burbs... since when are the suburbs known for more activity than the city?), only to continue being lifeless as soon as Saturday rolls past.
Heck, the restaurant scene is the same. Take the hottest restaurants in the city in Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal, and they'll be packed no matter which day you go. Here? On a Tuesday or Wednesday night you can waltz into almost any restaurant, no matter how well-regarded or hip (the ones you can't hope to get into without a reservation on the weekend), and just plop your ass down because it's practically empty. It's as if life stops on weekdays. Goes extra for Belltown - I am unsure what Belltown residents do all day, because the only people seemingly taking advantage of their copious restaurants and entertainment are people from elsewhere.
In fact, take a look at your local restaurants - and see how many specials exist on Sundays. Sundays! In any (other) major city Sundays are still prime for going out, and business is still booming as everyone gets their last bit of fun in before returning to the grind. In Seattle the city's shut down even worse than weekdays on Sundays.
> "I also disagree on the antisocialness of the town; if the only people you know are hackers that's your problem."
Are you sure you're not a local? ;) I've seen this argument a million times over, but the result is the same: the vast majority of people I've met here (and not all hackers, but most) have a huge amount of trouble meeting varied people. If this sort of effect is isolated, I'd be more willing to blame the victim - but it's so pronounced that it's made our city infamous to the rest of the US, and there's not a single transplant I've met who doesn't acknowledge the problem is real.
Hell, the only people I've seen deny it are the locals - which is understandable, because they don't feel its effects daily.
Which isn't to say meeting people - non-hackers even - is impossible in this town, there are some interesting hacks around Seattleites' antisocial behavior. The problem is that it takes a huge amount of effort - never in my life has socialization required so much conscious and continued work. In other cities it just flows - people are always up for meeting new folk, and going someplace after work to maybe make a new friend or two is second nature.
This is exacerbated by the fact that Seattleites are notorious social flakes. I host a party in Vancouver, or Toronto, and almost all of the RSVPs will show. The ones that don't will probably text me at some point. Here in Seattle, your show-rate is well below 50%, and not a word to be heard from the flakes. I've seen this in multiple contexts: I'm involved in a volunteer group that constantly struggles with getting people who sign up (and get reminder emails the week before AND the day of) to show (<50% show rate). I've also been involved in local modeling/photography groups where the show rate is well below 25% for any of our events. My own get-togethers have a show rate of maybe 60%. People here don't take socialization seriously - possibly because most people aren't terribly arsed to expand their circles. It's the infamous Seattle noncommittal waffle.
Hell, we had a photographers' social a few weeks back. 15+ RSVPs and 4 showed. This is depressingly typical for Seattle.
> "a hacker has to do something else to stand out from the 40,000 other people who are just like him/her."
Agreed. It's what you get with a monocultural town with insane domination of one industry and no representation from any other. Seattle is software, and if living with an army of other nerdy hackers is your thing, it's great. If however you desire your social circles to be filled with diverse people doing different things, this city is a poor choice overall. Better off in a city with significant representation from multiple industries.
Not only are they less interested in interacting with us because of the city's already-insular culture, but we're also pretty old-hat, and there's really not that many people from other fields to begin with - there are no other industries with a huge presence in Seattle (a case may be made with biotech).
I'm from Austin and I've blamed transplants from other States for the exact same problems. I've decided if I can't beat them it's time to join them and I've got a long plan (years) to move up to Seattle and become a transplant myself!
I don't know what it's like in other big cities (SF or New York), but the traffic in Seattle sucks. Driving anytime between 8-10AM and 5-7PM is a surefire way to get annoyed at stop-and-go freeway traffic.
I avoid I-405/I-90 just so my commute's transit time can have lower variance.
I'm from central Canada, and traffic in Regina and Winnipeg is a breath of fresh air compared to how it is around here (a 30 minute drive is considered exceptionally long). I'm tempted to move back to a smaller city just because of how much time I waste driving around.
It's unavoidable - Toronto and Vancouver are much the same. That's also why you live in a city where driving is not a requirement - where you can reasonably live without owning a car, or at the very least get your daily commute done 100% car-free. Then you get the perks of a big city with none of the gas-brake-honk.
Seattle pretends to be such a city, but its transit is so ludicrously broken that it's actually a PITA. The buses are so notoriously bad that UW developed a mobile app (OneBusAway) that tracks where the buses actually are, as opposed to where they're supposed to be. It is pathetically typical for a every-15-minute route to have buses delayed by 14 minutes. And don't even get me started on the light rail line, ugh. Or worse, Paul Allen's pet streetcar.
FWIW, I've had extensive experience with transit in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, London (Canada), Windsor, and Montreal. None of the above are anywhere close to craptasticness that is King County Metro or Sound Transit.
Basically it goes like this: the locals here (people who grew up/went to school here) are incredibly resentful of "transplants" who came from elsewhere, mostly to work in the tech industries here. We're blamed for anything from turning Seattle from a sleepy laid-back town into a monstrosity of big-city lights (it... isn't), to raising housing prices, to making everything suck more, to driving out the local music scene, etc etc (some of which have merit). In any case, Seattle's social scene is almost comically obviously divided into locals vs. transplants. I've been here for over a year, have made many friends, and only one of which is a local Seattleite.
Transplants are forced to keep to themselves, and I'll just add a slight note that the vast majority of the transplant population is male (software, surprise!)
People who visit Seattle often mistake our distant politeness and geniality as friendliness. It isn't. People will give you directions to the bus stop, we'll tell you the best places to get coffee, and we probably won't yell at you for cutting us off on the highway (much), but this is really just politeness, not friendliness. Culturally speaking people form social circles early on in life (high school or latest, college) and do not appear at all interested in expanding them. This is in contrast to some other cities I've lived in where everyone seems constantly eager to meet new people.
It's also one of the more racially homogenous places I've seen (granted, my history is in Vancouver and Toronto, where at last count half the population was immigrant). Good Japanese food? Few and far between, pricey to boot. Good Chinese food? Does not exist. Good Indian food? Maybe one place waaaaay over on the east side, and this is despite having MS and Amazon's Indian engineer population feeding the demand. Good food is basically limited to "pretentious fusion attempt" and "Northwest seafood". Ethnic foods? Fuggetaboutit. You have greasy stuff only a notch or two above Panda Express, and that's about it. The food scene in this city sucks.
Transportation? It's one of the few cities I've lived in (and I've lived in some shitty towns in the middle of nowhere, Ontario) where living in one of the central neighborhoods (Capitol Hill, for reference) makes me feel legless. The bus system sucks, the light rail is pathetic for any use except getting to the airport, and the "streetcar" can be beaten by a granny on a bicycle. Couple this with the fact that Seattle has no centralized city planning (it's a very loose collection of neighborhoods) and getting around without a car is a gigantic pain. Hell, it took me 45 minutes this afternoon to travel 1.0 miles on the bus (one of the most frequent routes, in fact). Mass transit effectively does not exist, and even when the government occasionally has a bright idea about effective, fast mass transit to finally connect all of the neighborhoods, the class-warfare-happy upper-middles on the east side are quick to attempt to torpedo anything. Our current initiative to make light rail finally useful, and for the first time get an effective mass commute option in the city is currently being fought tooth and nail by rich homeowners and builders fearing the "undesirables" will be able to move about too easily into their gated meccas.
Yeah, the summers are gorgeous, the beer scene is delicious, the availability of the great outdoors is incredible... but overall I find this city to be incredibly insular, completely antisocial, stuffed to the brim with pretention (yuppie urban high-rise style and pretentious suburban rich style all rolled up into one, oh boy!). The only good thing about this damned place is the employment.
So, if you want to make a fair bit of money, enjoy the weather, and hermit up writing code all day (or having beers with other coders... or having coffee with other coders... or going to dinner with other coders... or hitting the club with other coders, full of coders dropping mad dollaz trying to get laid...), come right on in. I'll even buy you a beer and start a pool on how long it takes for you to run screaming out of this town. The current average is 2 years.
Note: This is a very harsh post. But, if you are married (or seriously involved), ready to settle down in a nice, peaceful suburb with good schools, Seattle's not such a bad place. There is so much nature around for you and the kiddos - I wouldn't mind growing up here at all. If you are however young, possibly single, and looking to meet interesting folk from diverse backgrounds and enjoy the urban lifestyle... consider carefully.