kylehnat
The tradeoff is our horribly miserable winters, which typically last from mid-October to mid-April.
What are you talking about? I Love PNW winter weather. Actually I love the weather here year-round, it usually doesn't get incredible cold nor incredible hot.
Kylehnat pretty much got the general feel of Seattle area right. I live in Bellevue (one of the richer suburbs directly east of Seattle), and nice cars and big SUVs driven by middle aged women while on cell phones abound. For example, BMW M3: the car is not rare at all here, I see one almost everyday.
Traffic here during rush hour can be horrific. In Bellevue, in the morning, don't drive North. In the afternoon, avoid going westbound on the freeways and southbound on the streets, otherwise you could be sitting in traffic for 20 minutes when it usually is a 5 minute trip.
The Metro bus system here is pretty good. Although waits could be relatively long, I live 5 minutes away from a bus stop on a major street, and once I take a bus to Bellevue Transit Center, I can pretty much get to anywhere in Seattle. According to Wikipedia, it apparently is also one of the largest systems in the nation.
According to [WIKIPEDIA]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_Seattle[/WIKIPEDIA], Seattle area is home to: Microsoft, Starbucks, Paccar, Amazon.com, Real Networks, Costco, Weyerhauser, T-Mobile America, Nintendo of America, Alaska Airlines, Safeco Insurance and bleh, too much to list. Oh yeah, Boeing and UPS both use to be here too. Not too bad for a city that ususally isn't associated as a powerhouse US city.
Kylehnat is right, Seattle is one of the most liberal places, even on the West Coast. Due to its overwhelming liberalness and sheer population size, Seattle single handedly has been able to tip the past governor election in favor of the Democrats even though whole of Eastern Washington and the rich Seattle suburbs tend to be conservative. Bellevue here is really conservative (compared to Seattle), although I think it's getting more and more liberal too.
People here like to do outdoor stuff, whether it's biking, hiking or skiing in the winter. I think Seattle is suppose to be one of the fittest cities in the nation? I've read that somewhere before.
Otherwise, living in Bellevue is nice. Bellevue schools are pretty good, even though our superintendent's sole goal is a load of AP, AP, AP and more AP bs. For colleges, UW is one of the best public colleges in the nation, so that's always nice. The "city" (I think we're the fifth largest city in Washington in terms of population) is generally pretty quiet. The local hangout places are pretty much the malls, the theaters and Starbucks. Otherwise, Seattle is a short distance away.
I've been living here for the past 10 years, and all in all, I love it. I'll probably go out of state for college in a year and I know I'll miss this place.
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GRR.
If the traffic lights don't make me late, it will certainly be the uber high amount of slow drivers on pudlic roads, not the highways. The speed limit is the normal 65mph, when i come home from school i will be doing 75 or 80mph, and i get passed as if im hitting my brakes, the bridges are the best though, no place for a cop to hide, and everyone does over 100mph, especially with the early morning commuters.
