Seattle Area?

The whole area is nice. Look into Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland. Its about 15-20 mins from Seattle but thats where Microsoft and a lot of game companies are. The whole area is nice.

Seattle and its major suburbs are a fantastic place basically.

Well I've read some reports that Washington state tend to have some high crime areas. I'm not sure if Seattle is one, but you should check to make sure!

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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Well I've read some reports that Washington state tend to have some high crime areas. I'm not sure if Seattle is one, but you should check to make sure!

If you're coming from Atlanta, GA, you have nothing to worry about regarding crime rates. Atlanta has crime rates well above the national average, while almost all cities in WA have crime rates lower than the national average.

I'm also considering the Seattle area for many of the same reason's you are. Unfortunately it will be two to three years before we could realistically make the move.

Let's look at Seattle's most famous exports.

On one hand, Starbucks. This ranks it somewhere below Chernobyl. [grin]

On the other hand, Jimi Hendrix, Valve, Soundgarden and it's close to whistler/blackcomb. This makes it instantly awesome.

That's a good enough impression of the Seattle area, now for some details:

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Culture in general. Atlanta's is predominantly either rich white people trying hard to be sophisticated urbanites, or really, really poor people with a lot of crime - often within a stone's throw of each other. Suffice it to say I'm not a big fan of this arrangement.

-Along the I-5 corridor between south Seattle and Tukwila is basically the poor area with plenty of crime (see White Center and Rainier Beach) while Mercer Island is the rich area. Outside of those two areas, it's pretty varied...

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Weather. Believe it or not, Seattle's climate appeals to me, over the nightmarish oven that Atlanta becomes during the summer.

Just to make sure, here's a rundown of the general climate:
-General: Cloudy... except for the summer

-Winter: Wet, snows maybe a couple days of the year, except for the occasional snow storm every few years. Everett gets most of the snow if there is any because of the Olympic Mts. A warning though, an inch of snow on the ground causes almost every driver to panic and traffic grinds to a halt.

-Summer: Clear and cool, 75-85 day, 55 night, with some occasional rain and maybe a small heatwave or two. Heat waves tend to last at most 3 days and it's a big deal on the news because only 10-20% of households have air conditioning.

-Spring: Wet
-Fall: Wet, windy

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what areas should I avoid?

Crime reasons: Rainier View, Rainier Beach, White Center, south Seattle, Renton along Rainier Ave, Tacoma

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What kind of areas should I gravitate towards

Redmond, Kirkland, and Bellevue are the big ones for the software person, maybe Seattle too, however it may be a bit pricey. The general area east of Lake Washington is fine but it's recommended to move somewhere where you can avoid taking I-405 to work...

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Are there any massive downsides to the area to be aware of?

TRAFFIC: I-405 is horrible and I-5 in Seattle gets squeezed down to two lanes each way.

As for information on real estate and the like, I dunno, internet I guess.

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Original post by cutthepeace Quote: Are there any massive downsides to the area to be aware of? TRAFFIC: I-405 is horrible and I-5 in Seattle gets squeezed down to two lanes each way.

All highways around here suck. My main recommendation: live somewhere close enough that you can get to work without getting on a highway. Bonus points if you can walk or ride a bike. :)

I lived close enough to Seattle for a while (Vancouver) and I had a good impression of it. The city has a nice vibe to it (downtown anyway) and I love the west-coast fresh air. Plus its Shadowrun's main setting! I didnt like the techno-suburb (Redmond & co) tho... looks so artificial. And traffic did look like a pain.

While I think of it, if you like the north-west, you might want to consider Vancouver.

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Original post by NickGravelyn Quote: Original post by cutthepeace Quote: Are there any massive downsides to the area to be aware of? TRAFFIC: I-405 is horrible and I-5 in Seattle gets squeezed down to two lanes each way. All highways around here suck. My main recommendation: live somewhere close enough that you can get to work without getting on a highway. Bonus points if you can walk or ride a bike. :)

Alternatively, work somewhere with flexible work hours so that you can avoid rush hour traffic. For a while I wasn't even aware that traffic got bad until I regularly started working earlier in the day.

I used to live in Mill Creek (nice area a few miles south of Everett) and worked in Fremont. The commute distance was 17 miles, but took an hour during rush hour. The traffic isn't as bad as southern California, but it can get pretty obnoxious. Traffic police are always out in force with a vengeance, so everyone drives almost exactly the speed limit + 5mph.

I think Seattle is probably one of the best places for gaming and game dev. I'm not sure why...and I'm not going to attribute it to Microsoft. Maybe it has to do with the nearby University of Washington? We do host an annual Casual Connect Seattle event every summer. I think the organizers chose Seattle over all the other cities in North America because of the higher game developer density.
If you like PAX, it's hosted here every summer.

As for the culture, I don't really know. There's a lot of variety and it depends on what region of the Seattle area you're in. Fremont has a sort of hippy/artsy feel to it. Kirkland is full of well dressed rich people who can afford a house on Lake Washington. Everett is the Boeing/Navy town, a bit more blue collar. Bellevue, from what I can tell, is a city primarily built on finance and investment businesses. I recently moved out to Maple Valley. It's slightly southeast of Seattle and is hands down, one of the most beautiful regions I've found. It's tucked far enough away into the wilderness that it's been relatively untouched by development but close enough to Seattle and Bellevue to be a perfect location. Mt. Rainier is quite close by and there seems to be some pretty good hiking trails. If you're into skiing, Snoqualmie Pass is quite close. If you want to be closer to the action, Issaquah and the Lake Sammamish area are pretty good choices.

I think in general, Seattle has a strong liberal influence. That does cause a bit more tolerance and acceptance for differences in people. I guess that's a bit necessary when there are so many different types of people :P

I myself play chess at a starbucks in downtown seattle with a bunch of old retired guys. I've been playing for over three years and have seen quite a lot of the seattle culture...and tourists.

The weather is probably not as bad as the reputation makes it out to be. It's not constantly raining, though it probably does rain more frequently than other parts of the country. When it does rain, it's more of a drizzle than a downpour. What I like about the weather is that there's always some good variety. One day could be a beautiful sunny day and the next day could be a cool rainy day (which can be beautiful in its own way). Anyways, the air is almost ALWAYS clean (unlike california, where you get clouds of smog).

As for places to avoid... I'm not a very big fan of the West Seattle area and Mount Lake Terrace. Bothell is okay, Mill Creek and Lynnwood are decent (commute to seattle can suck). Whidbey island is nice if you don't mind taking a ferry to work.

As for IT work, the seattle craigslist has about 100 IT job posts every day, but not many game dev positions.

Oh, yeah. Some people say that people in seattle are distant (called the Seattle Freeze). Probably a legacy of the nordic roots? Anyways, it might be harder to make new friends in Seattle than other cities, but I don't know how true that actually is.

Cool... sounds like I'm on the right track then.

The Redmond area sounds like it's right up my alley. I'll have a poke around and bump the thread if I dig up any more specific questions.

Thanks all! In the meantime, if anyone has more input, feel free to dump it here.

Seattle is awesome. It gets a bad rap for the rain (and yes, it does rain quite a bit in these parts) but when the sun comes out, it's beautiful. Lots of outdoorsy stuff to do in the area as well: mountain climbing, hiking, skiing/snowboarding, rafting, kayaking, you name it.

Tons of IT work as well. I haven't checked in on game development gigs but there are plenty of business software development positions opening every day.

I live 60 miles south of Seattle in WA's capital (Olympia), but I go up there all the time as I have friends that are attending the uni (UW, a fantastic school). Pretty active night life too, if that's your thing. A lot of good bands come out of here as well, there's a pretty big music scene in these parts

My one big complaint about this area (besides the constant rainfall in fall and spring) was brought up a bit earlier in this thread: there's a bit of "social coldness". People tend to keep to themselves in these parts. It's not hard to get people to open up, but it can put you off a bit.