Joe Stump: Your city sucks (And so does mine)

In Portland you can go out for a wonderful $50+ per plate meal in t-shirt, jeans, and a multi-inch-long beard. In Minneapolis the only other bearded guy in the bar I was at was the drunk that wandered in off the street and promptly got thrown out, and I think his beard was better groomed than mine. Definitely the cleanest city I've ever been in.

However, when I asked for local beer, I was given a bottle some fairly unexciting porter from New York for $8. A 22oz bottle of Deschutes Abyss costs $11 in Portland...I didn't want to become a beer snob; it's just hard not to.

Minneapolis is (or at least seems) far more diverse than Portland. Except for certain areas in North and far SE, Portland is excruciatingly white.

There may not be any 14k foot mountains in the Midwest, but pretty much the entire northeast corner of Minnesota is covered in forests, lakes, and parks. Not the Pacific Northwest but still impressive. Minneapolis also recently stole Bicycling Magazine's #1 Bike City award from Portland. I think that was enough to scare our mayor into raiding the sewer fund to improve the bike infrastructure.

I saw a hipster in Minneapolis riding his fixie in just a hoodie (no gloves) in sub-20 degree weather with snow on the ground... It may be cold there, but the natives don't seem to mind.

Basically it goes like this: the locals here (people who grew up/went to school here) are incredibly resentful of "transplants" who came from elsewhere, mostly to work in the tech industries here. We're blamed for anything from turning Seattle from a sleepy laid-back town into a monstrosity of big-city lights (it... isn't), to raising housing prices, to making everything suck more, to driving out the local music scene, etc etc (some of which have merit). In any case, Seattle's social scene is almost comically obviously divided into locals vs. transplants. I've been here for over a year, have made many friends, and only one of which is a local Seattleite.

Transplants are forced to keep to themselves, and I'll just add a slight note that the vast majority of the transplant population is male (software, surprise!)

People who visit Seattle often mistake our distant politeness and geniality as friendliness. It isn't. People will give you directions to the bus stop, we'll tell you the best places to get coffee, and we probably won't yell at you for cutting us off on the highway (much), but this is really just politeness, not friendliness. Culturally speaking people form social circles early on in life (high school or latest, college) and do not appear at all interested in expanding them. This is in contrast to some other cities I've lived in where everyone seems constantly eager to meet new people.

It's also one of the more racially homogenous places I've seen (granted, my history is in Vancouver and Toronto, where at last count half the population was immigrant). Good Japanese food? Few and far between, pricey to boot. Good Chinese food? Does not exist. Good Indian food? Maybe one place waaaaay over on the east side, and this is despite having MS and Amazon's Indian engineer population feeding the demand. Good food is basically limited to "pretentious fusion attempt" and "Northwest seafood". Ethnic foods? Fuggetaboutit. You have greasy stuff only a notch or two above Panda Express, and that's about it. The food scene in this city sucks.

Transportation? It's one of the few cities I've lived in (and I've lived in some shitty towns in the middle of nowhere, Ontario) where living in one of the central neighborhoods (Capitol Hill, for reference) makes me feel legless. The bus system sucks, the light rail is pathetic for any use except getting to the airport, and the "streetcar" can be beaten by a granny on a bicycle. Couple this with the fact that Seattle has no centralized city planning (it's a very loose collection of neighborhoods) and getting around without a car is a gigantic pain. Hell, it took me 45 minutes this afternoon to travel 1.0 miles on the bus (one of the most frequent routes, in fact). Mass transit effectively does not exist, and even when the government occasionally has a bright idea about effective, fast mass transit to finally connect all of the neighborhoods, the class-warfare-happy upper-middles on the east side are quick to attempt to torpedo anything. Our current initiative to make light rail finally useful, and for the first time get an effective mass commute option in the city is currently being fought tooth and nail by rich homeowners and builders fearing the "undesirables" will be able to move about too easily into their gated meccas.

Yeah, the summers are gorgeous, the beer scene is delicious, the availability of the great outdoors is incredible... but overall I find this city to be incredibly insular, completely antisocial, stuffed to the brim with pretention (yuppie urban high-rise style and pretentious suburban rich style all rolled up into one, oh boy!). The only good thing about this damned place is the employment.

So, if you want to make a fair bit of money, enjoy the weather, and hermit up writing code all day (or having beers with other coders... or having coffee with other coders... or going to dinner with other coders... or hitting the club with other coders, full of coders dropping mad dollaz trying to get laid...), come right on in. I'll even buy you a beer and start a pool on how long it takes for you to run screaming out of this town. The current average is 2 years.

Note: This is a very harsh post. But, if you are married (or seriously involved), ready to settle down in a nice, peaceful suburb with good schools, Seattle's not such a bad place. There is so much nature around for you and the kiddos - I wouldn't mind growing up here at all. If you are however young, possibly single, and looking to meet interesting folk from diverse backgrounds and enjoy the urban lifestyle... consider carefully.

Did you miss the word "hiding"? It doesn't seem to be much of a way to "solve it".