When I lived in Washington, Kent was always the butt of jokes on Almost Live, the local version of SNL.

 

Ravensdale has an good amount of wheelin' spots for the most part covington and stuff to the east/southeast is a great area to be.

 

Kent is actually getting better...They have been cleaning that area up. lotta new stuff going in there. Kent station is actually pretty nice spot. nice new 14 screen movie theater there with imax. new shopping center around it. 5-guys burgers, big parking garage. Hell Tukwila is coming up in the world too...they remodeled SouthCenter mall and made it 2-story throughout most of the mall, and put a 16-screen with imax movie theater on the 3rd floor above the new food court that's on the 2nd floor. mall has 2 parking garages now with sky bridges. South King County is developing like crazy.

hell Covington has a Costco now (with costco gas station)! 4-corners in Maple Valley has a Fred Meyer now apparently. haven't drove that way in a while.

 

My brother has been working at that Costco since it opened

Fred Meyer in 4 corners?? News to me...



East hill in kent, last I knew, is still a pretty rough area. Especially the north side of it...

 

crazy huh? like they really needed one there when there's one just down the road in covington...

I don't go to fred meyers anyway...why bother when there's a wally world in covington!

oh yeah you can buy booze in costco now...and grocery stores....we done passed that law to do away with state regulated liquor sales (FINALLY!)... we now actually have 1 stop shopping! woot! oh and north bend has a drive thru liquor store/smoke shop!!! ahahahaha! if you're ever too drunk to get out of your car, you can go through the drive through! lmao...(like we really needed one of those...lol)

 

^^^ Figures that it would be in North Bend of all places. The little redneck town that everyone and their sister stops in at when travelling

 

Hey again. To recap, my acquaintance, TJ, has been talking me into moving to Spokane for a few years now. We have a mutual friend, Jim, who TJ convinced to move to Spokane a little over five years ago. Jim grew up in Port Hueneme, California and live quite a bit of his life in the San Diego area. Spokane was quite the change, both culturally and environmentally. I can deal with snow and other inclement weather since it's not as harsh as what we get slammed with; however, Spokanites seem to have a bit of a dim view of minorities and people like Jim, whose wife is Hispanic. It seems the skinheads from Idaho have also spilled over into Western Washington. I've been engaged in online discussions about Spokane with Jim lately and he confirmed two points that I've been finding in my research: 1) crime is a big problem in the Spokane area, and 2) there aren't very many good paying jobs there. My research has also shown that while Spokanites, in general, are fairly polite people, they seem to be distrustful of outsiders (meaning anyone who isn't lily white). I'm not too keen on that. Jim has a son who lives in Vancouver, Washington, which is another of the areas I've been considering.

TJ is really anti-Seattle due to the cost of living there, plus I'm not too keen on Seattle due to what appears to be a problem with gun violence and a police department that thinks it is above the law and that the Constitution is merely a suggestion not to be taken seriously. Olympia, Washington is another place I've been considering, which Jim is as well. He's pretty much decided he and his wife will be leaving the Spokane area in the next few years.

Meanwhile, I'm also considering the Oregon coastal area, which is said to be much nicer than the Washington coastal area. Does anyone have any information they can share regarding that?

Worse case scenario, I'll stay in Oklahoma until/unless I decide to expatriate. The economy is very strong here, I have a decent support network, and my house is almost paid off. Granted I hate the wind and the extreme summer heat, but overall I'm fairly comfortable.

 

Did you mean to say Eastern WA when you mentioned "skinheads" spilling over? Spokane is like 11 miles away from the ID border, so it's about as far east as you can get.


Washington coast is mostly rocky, while the Oregon coast is much more sandy. Once you get close to the Columbia on the Washington side the beaches are sandy as well, but farther north that is not the case. One thing to consider is that there is no state income tax in Washington, and there is in Oregon. So keep that in mind. Also, our vehicle regulations concerning emissions are pretty relaxed, and there are no safety inspections. I don't know about Oregon on that, but I have a feeling the regs are tighter.

All that being said, I would be happy living in the mountains of central Oregon, it is beautiful countryside. But, that goes for most of the PNW.

 

Yeah, I slipped up there.

The problem isn't so much income taxes is the various tax rates. Washington seems to be full of tan-n-spend Democrats and union thugs (Boeing).

Agreed. Still in the air on what I consider to be important. Portland seems to have an excellent public transit infrastructure, yet I recently caught wind of some kind of race riot or confrontation there. Odd, considering the PNW is full of the hippy-dippy types.

 

Boeing provides a TON of jobs and great benefits to Western WA residents. I don't know anything about the way they run their company, but I've never met a disgruntled Boeing employee, presently or previously employed.


Excellent public transportation at the extreme expense of the tax payers... Yes, Hippy-dippy is the stereotype we get stuck with, but drive past the big-city limits and you will find- Oh wait, I think it was already said in post #3


Oh, and another plus: Sarcasm is the humor type of choice in the NW, so people will actually appreciate your dry sarcastic sense of humor, vs down here everyone think's I'm really a complete *******, because they don't get sarcasm in the slightest.