Do we need our own POC area?

[jabogitlu]

Those problems are not at all singular to Washington state.

[DallasYankee]

You all have made many pertinent points about the not so edifying issues surrounding the (mainly) Seattle area, but I think a few deserve further comment.
The remarks about this region consisting of more than 8 or so cities is spot on for example, IMHO. For me, Issaquah has far more to offer than the justly ignored Fairwood/Renton/ Lake Desire enclave.
It is simply wonderful to find higher quality restaurants in a well-developed downtown only 5 minutes from our new rental, when we are used to needing to drive 25-30+ minutes for a nice meal among a multitude of other things like a decent gym, real shopping centers, movie theatres and other grocery stores besides one older Safeway.
This clean and apparently safe 'little" town even has a cozy new movie theatre, The Big Picture, which we look forward to experiencing once we are finally settled into our new house. The downtown library there even looks appealing in contrast to the nearby Fairwood branch which was recently vandalized and is awaiting a tentative reopening.
Fairwood seems very lower middle class with little to recommend it other than cheaper, denser housing. I have to wonder where all these crammed together households find work because of the frustrating remote commute to more attractive amenities located elsewhere. The crime as detailed in I love Renton (on FB) is both sobering and irritating and has made me want to leave this area for the better part of the year we have lived in our very comfortable current rental.
I have hardened my heart to the homeless/drug issues because nothing is going to change and to me it is pointless to even discuss that.
One thing no one mentioned is the eternal bottleneck of traffic, which like homelessness and drug use, will never be addressed here and will continue to worsen to the point that roads will one day become impossible to navigate at all, relegating this region to a high-tech back water when people finally stop moving here for anything other a job with Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, etc.
Medical care here is shockingly abysmal, and I believe the dismissive attitude of the subpar physicians towards less healthy patients fuels the very real Seattle Freeze stereotype.
I do love the mild, temperate climate for now, but definitely foresee a day coming when we will say, as many others before us have, "Enough!" and quietly move on to even greener pastures elsewhere.

[SusVelo]

There’s good and bad to every state. Some are so embedded in an echo chamber they can’t even get that simple point. Anyone who can’t find positive things in Washington is delusional.

[DallasYankee]

Well for me, the cultural and ethnic diversity, along with the temperate, predictable weather and accompanying lush green landscape, are the main positives.
Everything else, not so much!