It's so odd to be a Washingtonian from Snohomish, and hear about what a shithole Seattle is. Everett has a lot of the same problems but nowhere NEAR as bad as I hear things get down there.
Broadly speaking I love Washington. I think the people are nice, I think the state is beautiful, I think the towns are generally clean. The experience that I hear Seattleites talk about is not in any way representative of what I see in the rest of the state. And that's crazy to me. It's like Seattle is its own little world, completely insulated from the outside.
It's probably not as bad as you hear. I think there are two fallacies one can draw: 1. Everything is rosy in the Emerald City 2. Everything is Mad Max in the Emerald City.
The corner by McDonalds on 3rd has always been bad, and truly these days it is worse. I was recently down that way and was pretty shocked. But that also isn't most of Seattle these days.
WA is beautiful. Every city has its good and bad areas.
Seattle may not be quite as bad as “dead”, but many of the descriptions are accurate *for a given neighborhood* — there far more crappy areas these days than there used to be.
I have hope it’ll get better one day. It’s a lovely place most of the time.
I think you and I are solidly in agreement on all points. When it’s good, it’s really good. But the bad is heartbreaking and does rather seem to have increased of late.
Broadly speaking I love Washington. I think the people are nice, I think the state is beautiful, I think the towns are generally clean. The experience that I hear Seattleites talk about is not in any way representative of what I see in the rest of the state. And that's crazy to me. It's like Seattle is its own little world, completely insulated from the outside.