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Seattle's housing costs are definitely rising but Washington's lack of an income tax is a boon for software engineers. Also, many of the big players in tech wil

Seattle's housing costs are definitely rising but Washington's lack of an income tax is a boon for software engineers. Also, many of the big players in tech will pay within 10-20% of their bay area total comp packages in Seattle, so your take home pay might be almost the same, but of course your dollar is going to go a lot further. I ran some numbers comparing Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis, and found the descending housing prices and ascending state income taxes more or less cancelled each other out in my situation. Of course everyone's circumstances are a little different, so this may not be true for everyone. Seattle definitely seemed to have the best opportunities at the big players in tech outside of SF/SV.

shostack 11y ago
And how do you cope with the weather and lack of sun? One big draw for me about the Bay Area is the weather. I realized how important nice weather was for me to be happy, so I consider the sunshine tax a sunk cost for my mental and physical well-being.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  I grew up in Cupertino and live in Seattle now. I used to live in an apartment with very little natural light, that was awful. Now I live in a condo with tons of light and feel better. Also fly down to Bay Area once a month for work. Seattle weather isn't that bad. During June through September it's the best in the country. Just gray in the winters, doesn't really rain much. Some other cons. Negligible start up scene. The Indian and Chinese food stinks. Really homogenous for a coastal city. No NBA team.
  - calbear81 11y ago
    Where are you going for Indian and Chinese food? There's Din Tai Fung / Facing East in Bellevue and some of my old haunts in the International District are passable. Not as familiar with the Indian food scene outside of some places in East Bellevue/Redmond but you should also try Edmonds/Lynwood for Korean food.
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      hello fellow Cal Alum. Go bears! DTF is overpriced. Facing East is standard Taiwanese which means tons of sugar. I used to drive to Lynwood and Federal Way for Korean, but my girlfriend doesn't really eat meat so we don't eat Korean as much. The only good Indian restaurants are in Renton.
      - whitegrape 11y ago
        Sichuanese Cuisine in Redmond near the Sears / Overlake Fashion Plaza is the best I've had in the area. Health code violation shutdowns of the past just make it more delicious.
        Hydraulix989 11y ago
        Seconded. These are good recommendations.
        mkching 11y ago
        Sichuanese Cuisine is very good. La Bu La in Bellevue is also good. Dough Zone is worth trying if you like DTF, but not as good imo.
    - grogenaut 11y ago
      Facing east, the prices are great because we don't pay our taxes (apparently)!
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    So far the food scene in Seattle hasn't been all that people have made it up to be.
    - Hydraulix989 11y ago
      Surprised. I'd say it's pretty comparable to SF, and that's probably one of the FEW plusses of Seattle IMO. Source: Lived there for 2 years.
      - placeybordeaux 11y ago
        It's possible I still am having trouble finding good places. But coming from Atlanta I was kind of disappointed. Some of it was just that everything is a couple dollars more expensive for the same quality. The seafood is obviously a lot better. Could you make some recommendations for chinese, ramen (not a daily special) and burgers (other than lil woodies)?
        grillvogel 11y ago
        >ramen there's no good ramen in seattle, people may claim otherwise but they don't know. I'm not too fond of lil woodys either. Seattle food is not unlike seattle itself: overpriced mediocrity. For whatever reason many in seattle are convinced that all of their mediocre offerings are "the best", I think this may be due to the fact that seattle is the first big city some of these people have lived in. Top Pot donuts is a good example of this, $2 each and would be unacceptable anywhere on the east coast, but seattlites are convinced they are the best donuts in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta has much better food overall
        kelukelugames 11y ago
        Totally agree. Only locals and people from the Midwest think Seattle has good food.
        placeybordeaux 11y ago
        I am bias, but I'd say Atlanta has great food. Growing up in Atlanta I even trusted yelp to find decent food. I am completely losing faith in yelp in Seattle.
  - jjtheblunt 11y ago
    Seattle supersonics ?
- hosh 11y ago
  I lived there for a year. I'm living about an hour and a half north of Phoenix, just below the Rim. Sometimes, I miss those dreary storm-grey clouds of the Pacific NW. "Nice weather" is subjective, and it isn't necessarily "sunny". I have a friend who burns badly in any kind of sunlight -- Seattle is where she makes her home. Flagstaff, AZ, oddly, is like a miniature Seattle, though the tech scene isn't as happening. My family and I are planning to move there this summer.
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    Nice weather is certainly subjective. Seattle doesn't really freeze and it stays below the temperature that you have to buy an AC unit. It rarely deals with substantial flooding and it rarely rains enough that a simple rain coat/umbrella won't deal with.
    - hosh 11y ago
      Exactly! And with the high humidity, at 40-degrees in the winter, Seattle feels more comfortable than 40-degrees of dryness out here in the desert. Here in the high desert, when the sun goes down, you go from baking to cold very quickly.
  - vogt 11y ago
    Your sentiments about Flagstaff are so funny to me because my wife and I thought the exact same thing as we passed through from TX on the way to Las Vegas. My whole life (originally from New England) I thought Arizona was all desert, so when we wound up in Flagstaff in July to 60 degree rainy weather I was taken aback. I plan on moving there as soon as I wrap up things here in NV. By the way unfortunately the tech scene being "less happening" is a bit of an understatement. I welcome it for the interim though.
    - hosh 11y ago
      When I looked around, they do have a small startup scene. So when I move up there, I'll be seeking them out. NAU is not known for engineering or tech though. I walked around campus to get a good feel for it. The engineering building is a single building that covers all the engineering disciplines, including computer science. What is big at NAU is forestry science. That makes sense. A lot of people come out there to get training to work as forest rangers, or in forest management. The forestry science building is larger than engineering building (in contrast with University of Washington, with that computer science edifice dedicated to Paul Allen). When I walk down the halls and look at the research projects of students, if there were computational projects, they were all geared towards forest management of one kind or another. Northern Arizona is beautiful. The high desert there gives you a much better appreciation of this contrast between desolation and abundance. July was what the locals call "monsoon season". Both Sedona and Phoenix get hit by that during July -- but because of the presence of the San Francisco peaks, and being up around 7000 feet, you get alpine biomes around Flagstaff. Add in the hipster culture and outdoorsy folks in Flagstaff, the people reminds me a lot of Seattle -- minus the passionate activism I see fired up in Seattle folks.
- drblast 11y ago
  Seattle weather is horrible. Traffic is horrible. Housing prices are rising to insane levels. Everyone is depressed. Please don't come here.
  - SeaDude 11y ago
    \Second that
    - grogenaut 11y ago
      Third that. There's nothing good about Seattle. Stay out. It's a small stupid city don't know why anyone comes here ever. Stop coming here. Except for PAX, you can come then. Actually no, too many people at PAX too, stay away. Sasquash will eat you.
- giaour 11y ago
  I grew up in reclaimed swamp land (Houston), used to live in NYC, and find Seattle weather delightful by comparison. It's never unbearably hot or cold, and I have lush flowers outside my door thanks to all the rain. I live in a bungalow with a ton of natural light; I imagine I would feel differently about the weather if I had fewer windows and/or no garden.
grimberg 11y ago
They say Seattle is like a beautiful women (or man) who is sick 9 months of the year.
- whitegrape 11y ago
  They say that just to keep the bastards out.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    Why would they care how many parents you have?
    - whitegrape 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Bastards_Out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Bastards_Out
- grogenaut 11y ago
  Seattle is ugly and garbage. It rains 100% of the year and there is never sunlight. It's full of homeless heroin addicts and has a super huge crime level. Stay very very far away.
  - brewdad 11y ago
    Same for Portland. Also there are birds on literally everything.
Hydraulix989 11y ago
I moved away from Seattle to the Bay Area partly because it was so damn depressing. My company-sponsored doctor gave me a bottle full of two _GRAM_ pills of Vitamin D, and she said she has had to give it to most of her patients. In the dead thick of the winter, it gets dark at 3 PM (after a 10 AM sunrise), and the rain literally never stops. When it's not raining, it's misting, and it will go weeks on end with everlasting gray skies and no sunshine. Pittsburgh, comparatively speaking, was better because it snows off-and-on instead of constantly rains, and in January, the sun starts to come out again with blue skies, whereas Seattle stays dark, gray, and gloomy until summer. Pittsburgh also wasn't as high up of a latitude either so the sunset would never happen earlier than 4 PM, instead of 3 PM.
- sitkack 11y ago
  Having just moved from Seattle to Chicago, and having returned for a long weekend during "the grays" cemented on of the reasons for the move. Beautiful place, but unless you actually get above the cloud cover and go skiing or snow shoeing, the overcast will kill your soul. It doesn't take that many people to make a place amazing. Make amazing where you are.
- Johnny555 11y ago
  Vitamin D is typically dosed in I.U., not grams. 2000 I.U. is 50 micrograms. The max recommended daily dose is 10000 IU (but people have taken higher doses). 2 grams would be 80 million IU.
  - Hydraulix989 11y ago
    Good catch, units must have been IU then and not g.
- ctstover 11y ago
  This peaked my curiosity since I'm considering moving there. You must be exaggerating a bit since I just looked it up, and around the winter solstice the sun rise set times are like 7:55 - 4:20.

shostack 11y ago

And how do you cope with the weather and lack of sun? One big draw for me about the Bay Area is the weather. I realized how important nice weather was for me to be happy, so I consider the sunshine tax a sunk cost for my mental and physical well-being.

kelukelugames 11y ago
I grew up in Cupertino and live in Seattle now. I used to live in an apartment with very little natural light, that was awful. Now I live in a condo with tons of light and feel better. Also fly down to Bay Area once a month for work. Seattle weather isn't that bad. During June through September it's the best in the country. Just gray in the winters, doesn't really rain much. Some other cons. Negligible start up scene. The Indian and Chinese food stinks. Really homogenous for a coastal city. No NBA team.
- calbear81 11y ago
  Where are you going for Indian and Chinese food? There's Din Tai Fung / Facing East in Bellevue and some of my old haunts in the International District are passable. Not as familiar with the Indian food scene outside of some places in East Bellevue/Redmond but you should also try Edmonds/Lynwood for Korean food.
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    hello fellow Cal Alum. Go bears! DTF is overpriced. Facing East is standard Taiwanese which means tons of sugar. I used to drive to Lynwood and Federal Way for Korean, but my girlfriend doesn't really eat meat so we don't eat Korean as much. The only good Indian restaurants are in Renton.
    - whitegrape 11y ago
      Sichuanese Cuisine in Redmond near the Sears / Overlake Fashion Plaza is the best I've had in the area. Health code violation shutdowns of the past just make it more delicious.
      - Hydraulix989 11y ago
        Seconded. These are good recommendations.
      - mkching 11y ago
        Sichuanese Cuisine is very good. La Bu La in Bellevue is also good. Dough Zone is worth trying if you like DTF, but not as good imo.
  - grogenaut 11y ago
    Facing east, the prices are great because we don't pay our taxes (apparently)!
- placeybordeaux 11y ago
  So far the food scene in Seattle hasn't been all that people have made it up to be.
  - Hydraulix989 11y ago
    Surprised. I'd say it's pretty comparable to SF, and that's probably one of the FEW plusses of Seattle IMO. Source: Lived there for 2 years.
    - placeybordeaux 11y ago
      It's possible I still am having trouble finding good places. But coming from Atlanta I was kind of disappointed. Some of it was just that everything is a couple dollars more expensive for the same quality. The seafood is obviously a lot better. Could you make some recommendations for chinese, ramen (not a daily special) and burgers (other than lil woodies)?
      - grillvogel 11y ago
        >ramen there's no good ramen in seattle, people may claim otherwise but they don't know. I'm not too fond of lil woodys either. Seattle food is not unlike seattle itself: overpriced mediocrity. For whatever reason many in seattle are convinced that all of their mediocre offerings are "the best", I think this may be due to the fact that seattle is the first big city some of these people have lived in. Top Pot donuts is a good example of this, $2 each and would be unacceptable anywhere on the east coast, but seattlites are convinced they are the best donuts in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta has much better food overall
        kelukelugames 11y ago
        Totally agree. Only locals and people from the Midwest think Seattle has good food.
        placeybordeaux 11y ago
        I am bias, but I'd say Atlanta has great food. Growing up in Atlanta I even trusted yelp to find decent food. I am completely losing faith in yelp in Seattle.
- jjtheblunt 11y ago
  Seattle supersonics ?
hosh 11y ago
I lived there for a year. I'm living about an hour and a half north of Phoenix, just below the Rim. Sometimes, I miss those dreary storm-grey clouds of the Pacific NW. "Nice weather" is subjective, and it isn't necessarily "sunny". I have a friend who burns badly in any kind of sunlight -- Seattle is where she makes her home. Flagstaff, AZ, oddly, is like a miniature Seattle, though the tech scene isn't as happening. My family and I are planning to move there this summer.
- placeybordeaux 11y ago
  Nice weather is certainly subjective. Seattle doesn't really freeze and it stays below the temperature that you have to buy an AC unit. It rarely deals with substantial flooding and it rarely rains enough that a simple rain coat/umbrella won't deal with.
  - hosh 11y ago
    Exactly! And with the high humidity, at 40-degrees in the winter, Seattle feels more comfortable than 40-degrees of dryness out here in the desert. Here in the high desert, when the sun goes down, you go from baking to cold very quickly.
- vogt 11y ago
  Your sentiments about Flagstaff are so funny to me because my wife and I thought the exact same thing as we passed through from TX on the way to Las Vegas. My whole life (originally from New England) I thought Arizona was all desert, so when we wound up in Flagstaff in July to 60 degree rainy weather I was taken aback. I plan on moving there as soon as I wrap up things here in NV. By the way unfortunately the tech scene being "less happening" is a bit of an understatement. I welcome it for the interim though.
  - hosh 11y ago
    When I looked around, they do have a small startup scene. So when I move up there, I'll be seeking them out. NAU is not known for engineering or tech though. I walked around campus to get a good feel for it. The engineering building is a single building that covers all the engineering disciplines, including computer science. What is big at NAU is forestry science. That makes sense. A lot of people come out there to get training to work as forest rangers, or in forest management. The forestry science building is larger than engineering building (in contrast with University of Washington, with that computer science edifice dedicated to Paul Allen). When I walk down the halls and look at the research projects of students, if there were computational projects, they were all geared towards forest management of one kind or another. Northern Arizona is beautiful. The high desert there gives you a much better appreciation of this contrast between desolation and abundance. July was what the locals call "monsoon season". Both Sedona and Phoenix get hit by that during July -- but because of the presence of the San Francisco peaks, and being up around 7000 feet, you get alpine biomes around Flagstaff. Add in the hipster culture and outdoorsy folks in Flagstaff, the people reminds me a lot of Seattle -- minus the passionate activism I see fired up in Seattle folks.
drblast 11y ago
Seattle weather is horrible. Traffic is horrible. Housing prices are rising to insane levels. Everyone is depressed. Please don't come here.
- SeaDude 11y ago
  \Second that
  - grogenaut 11y ago
    Third that. There's nothing good about Seattle. Stay out. It's a small stupid city don't know why anyone comes here ever. Stop coming here. Except for PAX, you can come then. Actually no, too many people at PAX too, stay away. Sasquash will eat you.
giaour 11y ago
I grew up in reclaimed swamp land (Houston), used to live in NYC, and find Seattle weather delightful by comparison. It's never unbearably hot or cold, and I have lush flowers outside my door thanks to all the rain. I live in a bungalow with a ton of natural light; I imagine I would feel differently about the weather if I had fewer windows and/or no garden.

grimberg 11y ago

They say Seattle is like a beautiful women (or man) who is sick 9 months of the year.

whitegrape 11y ago
They say that just to keep the bastards out.
- seanp2k2 11y ago
  Why would they care how many parents you have?
  - whitegrape 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Bastards_Out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Bastards_Out
grogenaut 11y ago
Seattle is ugly and garbage. It rains 100% of the year and there is never sunlight. It's full of homeless heroin addicts and has a super huge crime level. Stay very very far away.
- brewdad 11y ago
  Same for Portland. Also there are birds on literally everything.

Hydraulix989 11y ago

I moved away from Seattle to the Bay Area partly because it was so damn depressing. My company-sponsored doctor gave me a bottle full of two _GRAM_ pills of Vitamin D, and she said she has had to give it to most of her patients. In the dead thick of the winter, it gets dark at 3 PM (after a 10 AM sunrise), and the rain literally never stops. When it's not raining, it's misting, and it will go weeks on end with everlasting gray skies and no sunshine. Pittsburgh, comparatively speaking, was better because it snows off-and-on instead of constantly rains, and in January, the sun starts to come out again with blue skies, whereas Seattle stays dark, gray, and gloomy until summer. Pittsburgh also wasn't as high up of a latitude either so the sunset would never happen earlier than 4 PM, instead of 3 PM.

sitkack 11y ago
Having just moved from Seattle to Chicago, and having returned for a long weekend during "the grays" cemented on of the reasons for the move. Beautiful place, but unless you actually get above the cloud cover and go skiing or snow shoeing, the overcast will kill your soul. It doesn't take that many people to make a place amazing. Make amazing where you are.
Johnny555 11y ago
Vitamin D is typically dosed in I.U., not grams. 2000 I.U. is 50 micrograms. The max recommended daily dose is 10000 IU (but people have taken higher doses). 2 grams would be 80 million IU.
- Hydraulix989 11y ago
  Good catch, units must have been IU then and not g.
ctstover 11y ago
This peaked my curiosity since I'm considering moving there. You must be exaggerating a bit since I just looked it up, and around the winter solstice the sun rise set times are like 7:55 - 4:20.