When people make these comments, do they mean median rent for a 2 bedroom, or price per sq ft of a 4 bedroom home, or median home price, or what? Because any of those can distort the reality quite a bit, depending on what someone is looking for.
Sure the 'average' apartment in NY might be similar to the average apartment in Seattle, but does the latter have a full kitchen in a safer neighborhood while the former is a half kitchen in a rough neighborhood?
Is the average home price both 2M but one of them gets you a 4 bedroom house and the other gets a 2 bedroom condo?
Not to say that there isn't better reasons to live in NYC, but 'CoL' is hard to meaningfully capture by service level stats.
Tech didn't cause this, homeowners did. If it didn't have a high paying industry you'd see blight and disinvestment instead, as you're only left with retirees who don't care about that stuff.
Seattle has unusually good building codes (single-stair is allowed) but no income tax, so in that way it might not benefit from tech as much.
South Lake Union, West Seattle, and Bellevue must be the totality of your experience. Go up the hill and you’ll find a lively scene till about 3am year round, head downtown and you’ll see a dozen cultural events a week. I’m blown away by how many people project their depression and anxiety onto a large metro area without realizing it.
I live in Fremont. Can't make it to cap hill unless I spend $30 on Uber or parking, or take transit which will be 1.5 hours to go 6 miles (includes a transfer or two running late during a busy night). Or bike on the streets after sunset on our crazy hills.
Fremont is definitely its own thing which can really charming, but covid + the natural aging process definitely hit them hard.
Just a decade ago Fremont was a kind of cultural retirement community for the professional class in their 30s and 40s with an older generation of artists and small business owners. But now it's a retirement community for a lot of people in their 40s and 50s with school-age kids, and that older generation are either dead, retired, or priced out.
It's about an hour walk to Capitol Hill from Fremont and the walk around Lake Union is pleasant most of the year, but not so much in the winter. Driving to Ballard is probably your best option for nightlife around now, which I admit is pretty hit or miss.
So yeah, your perspective makes sense to me. Seattle has "at least one" year round nightlife neighborhood, but you're right that it's nothing like NY or Berlin where you have both full transit coverage and multiple districts to choose from.
I will agree that for the most part LA has SF beat on Asian food, but Cantonese/HK style Chinese is better in SF, and the rest is probably on par, just fewer options in SF.
But you nailed in on the head -- you have to find ethnic food made by people who know how it's supposed to taste and making it for people who know how it's supposed to taste. If I go into an ethnic restaurant I know it's good if the majority of the customers are that ethnicity.
Seattle seems to be more authentically Japanese than other places. I found a ramen booth place in Capital Hill like Ichiran where everyone eats inside a curtain.
SF Japantown feels old and rundown like nobody's moving there anymore.
