Born, raised and went to high school here. Town was pretty sleepy, lovely and had solid core values. Went away to college, grad school, lived in 'big' cities. Returned for family reasons a couple of years ago.
The sad news: the city is actually worse than it was when I left.
How can this be? With all the favorable press out there, you'd think this city would be nirvana to a returning 'local'.
I'll keep this short unless anyone wants more details.
Seattle as a city is way, WAY ahead of itself. It's a provincial burg run by natives for natives, with all that entails. Liberal politically, but in all other respects, conservative and pretty surprisingly passive. I really liked it when (during the Dec snowstorm) there was a furious woman on the local news saying 'this place is a joke...in new york when it snows, the supers come out and sweep the sidewalks!'
So if the people are too stupid/lazy/selfish to sweep sidewalks after a snowstorm, how do you explain the fact that the average joe and josephine are really pretty nice?
Politeness, never calling someone on something dishonest or cruel, true passivity in the worse sense.
Contrary to reputation, Seattlelites are not that smart, and certainly have no political will or leadership except to fall in line with cherished 'liberal' causes.
So why is there so much apathy and anomie among this well-educated population? First, of course, I thought of the weather (which is truly dreadful unless you like gray). Then I thought, a tragic intersection of Nordic stoicism and Asian passivity. Then I moved on to the quasi-police state run by truly ill-qualified city workers and the huge, huge policeforce which is getting paid to be our nanny and is self-funding with its tickets and multiple violations of everything minute legal issue in the code. Why they even give tickets for not signalling 100 feet before a turn! Yes, Virginia, to put it crudely, this city is a municipal cesspool run by a likely very corrupt local government which everyone is too de-energized to even challenge.
As for the surrounding communities like Shoreline -- God help you, please don't go there. Way too many rednecks in the SPD (including black rednecks believe or not) --- all passing out citations to drum up the revenue mill. Their city council acts suspiciously like South Orange, NJ in its Mafia-infested heyday.
As Dante said, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"
He was referring to Hell, I'm referring to Seattle/King County.
Don't even get me started on the dullness of the quality of life (unless you're in drugs or low-brow music) here. It's a perfect match to the leaden quality of the skies.
