4 ms·

When I lived in the Bay Area, it was a ball of stress to "keep up" the salary to be able to enjoy anything, as I wasn't being paid those "top salaries" everyone

When I lived in the Bay Area, it was a ball of stress to "keep up" the salary to be able to enjoy anything, as I wasn't being paid those "top salaries" everyone uses in their data summaries. I couldn't ever purchase a home, and these were important things to my lifestyle. I moved to Seattle and now I'm seeing these obscene pricing trends happening here (and with the worse weather, too, sigh). I think the best city is the one where you find a sense of belonging and contentness. Data doesn't cover all the nuances of happiness.

carabiner 3y ago
Seattle is as expensive as NYC except everything closes at 9 and it has 1/100th vibrancy. It's basically San Jose North.
- lobsterslive 3y ago
  Seattle has better sushi though.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    The west has better sushi than the east in general, but SF still beats Seattle for sushi.
    - carabiner 3y ago
      California, really LA, has the best Asian food in the country. Seattle's food scene is, for lack of a better term, white.
      - jedberg 3y ago
        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.
      - astrange 3y ago
        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.
      - shawndrost 3y ago
        I would put Honolulu over LA, as a former resident of both.
    - adamredwoods 3y ago
      This is the true comparison I want to see in data and fancy charts.
- userinanother 3y ago
  Also homeless camping everywhere and complete city government dysfunction
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    Jeez. SV tech culture really is a deadly virus
    - astrange 3y ago
      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.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      It’s not SV, the entire West Coast from Vancouver to San Diego is like this now.
  - jkmcf 3y ago
    TBF, NYC has regular homeless public defecation based on my last 2 visits there.
- racketcon2089 3y ago
  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.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    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.
    - racketcon2089 3y ago
      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.
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  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.

carabiner 3y ago

Seattle is as expensive as NYC except everything closes at 9 and it has 1/100th vibrancy. It's basically San Jose North.

lobsterslive 3y ago
Seattle has better sushi though.
- jedberg 3y ago
  The west has better sushi than the east in general, but SF still beats Seattle for sushi.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    California, really LA, has the best Asian food in the country. Seattle's food scene is, for lack of a better term, white.
    - jedberg 3y ago
      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.
    - astrange 3y ago
      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.
    - shawndrost 3y ago
      I would put Honolulu over LA, as a former resident of both.
  - adamredwoods 3y ago
    This is the true comparison I want to see in data and fancy charts.
userinanother 3y ago
Also homeless camping everywhere and complete city government dysfunction
- dinvlad 3y ago
  Jeez. SV tech culture really is a deadly virus
  - astrange 3y ago
    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.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    It’s not SV, the entire West Coast from Vancouver to San Diego is like this now.
- jkmcf 3y ago
  TBF, NYC has regular homeless public defecation based on my last 2 visits there.
racketcon2089 3y ago
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.
- carabiner 3y ago
  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.
  - racketcon2089 3y ago
    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.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
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.