Confused in Seattle (Vancouver, Bellevue, Rainier: apartments, houses, neighborhoods)

[movingwiththewind]

I've been thinking about moving from NYC to Seattle for some time. I'm in Seattle right now exploring neighborhoods and looking for places to live and am not sure anymore I want to move. Where are kids, where are playgrounds? I have 2 playgrounds and a nice park 5 minutes walk from where I live. Some of my friends in Seattle saying NYC is not a good place to raise kids. Are they joking? Seattle is?

I'm driving like crazy all around the town trying to find something attractive, but other than natural setting... nothing. I have a couple of friends who live in Seattle with whom I'm staying and they say that it's not the city but natural setting. I do like some things like nature and climate, but freeways and single houses are killing me. Seattle looks to me not like a single city, but a collection of villages full of houses connected together by freeways. Is that not depressing? Now, instead of bringing my whole family, I'm planning to move alone and try it out for a month or two. I'll probably do it this January / February to "enjoy" the place during winter months.

Ballard, Capitol Hill... what is so special about them? Capitol Hill has Broadway, which is a bad version of Vancouver's Commercial Drive and 15th Ave and other than that houses... houses... houses. Even Belltown is dead after dark.

It's not the first time I'm in Seattle, but first time not as a tourist. Am I missing something? Other than nature, what else does Seattle offer? If nature is taken away, can it stand alone as a city? For now, it looks to me like a couple of skyscrapers in the downtown and the rest are houses and freeways. I'm really confused.

[toughguy]

There's essentially only one major freeway running through the city: I-5 (I-90 and 520 both end at I-5, and 99 isn't a traditional full-sized freeway). None of the neighborhoods you have referenced are connected by the freeway, they are connected by surface streets and run directly into each other (not to mention Ballard is very far removed from the inner-core neighborhoods, and if you are looking for "urban", Ballard is not it). You seem to be very confused by the layout of Seattle and have a very limited perspective- you need to get off the one freeway and drive on the major surface streets. You must have been in a different Belltown than the one in downtown Seattle, because there are 0 single family homes in Belltown. Most of Capitol Hill is high density mid-rise apartments.

Also - You need to realize that Seattle is not NYC. The lifestyle is very different, and the urban form is different. It is not as dense or urban as NYC, not by a longshot. It has solid urban qualities and the density you would expect for a metro of 4 million. You are not going to find 24-7 hoods or vast residential high rise blocks like you have in Manhattan. There are plenty of parks around - Check out Volunteer park on Capitol Hill, Sculpture park on the waterfront, Green Lake, etc.....but you aren't going to find parks like Washington Square or Union Square in Seattle.

[orangeblossom]

Have you tried Ravenna, Northgate,Greenlake,Phinney area? What are your "must haves"?

[azoria]

You're confused because the hype about Seattle doesn't seem to be meeting up with what your first person observations are telling you?

I hope it has occurred to you that your perceptions are accurate and valid, and that the ballyhoo splash you've seen about Seattle is misrepresented and exaggerated.

In other words, you are right that this place is a dead zone and the Seattle myth is a lie.

Believe yourself first. What you see is what you get.

[movingwiththewind]

Originally Posted by toughguy

if you are looking for "urban", Ballard is not it

No, not completely urban, but with more amenities and little more density.
With houses only, Seattle neigborhoods look empty and boring, especially during the wintertime.

Originally Posted by toughguy

You must have been in a different Belltown than the one in downtown Seattle, because there are 0 single family homes in Belltown

.
I'm staying in Belltown and know perfectly well what Belltown is. I never said Belltown has houses. I just said it looks dead and empty.

Originally Posted by toughguy

You need to realize that Seattle is not NYC.

Believe it or not, I do. I'm not looking for NYC in Seattle. I want to leave NYC behind. However, I'm not looking to move into a huge village full of single houses. Other than downtown, Seattle doesn't look urban at all. It doesn't look like a city as a single entity. Vancouver does. San Francisco does. Seattle doesn't.

Originally Posted by toughguy

There are plenty of parks around

I like that a lot. Thanks, Toughguy.

[toughguy]

Originally Posted by movingwiththewind

No, not completely urban, but with more amenities and little more density.
With houses only, Seattle neigborhoods look empty and boring, especially during the wintertime.

.
I'm staying in Belltown and know perfectly well what Belltown is. I never said Belltown has houses. I just said it looks dead and empty.


Believe it or not, I do. I'm not looking for NYC in Seattle. I want to leave NYC behind. However, I'm not looking to move into a huge village full of single houses. Other than downtown, Seattle doesn't look urban at all. It doesn't look like a city as a single entity. Vancouver does. San Francisco does. Seattle doesn't.



I like that a lot. Thanks, Toughguy.

There are single family home dominated neightborhoods (like Ballard), but thats not the entirety of Seattle. First Hill, most of Capitol Hill, Lower Queen Anne, Denny Triangle, parts of Fremont are the neighborhoods you should be looking at. Belltown is Belltown - it is not loved by many Seattleites. mod cut:

[xcalgal]

I can't quite get a grasp of what you are picturing that you want. I wrote down your descriptions of what you want and it sure seems like you would like a city called New York.
kids
playgrounds
not single housing-you like apartment like housing
amenities
densitiy

Seattle is definitely not NYC. It is much quieter and people are not on the go, go, go. Here on Bainbridge (don't know about the rest of the Seattle neighborhoods) but they roll up the sidewalks at 6pm. People go to one another's homes for get togethers so you hardly ever see anyone out on the town.

[reD2dryout]

Please don't move here. Seattle is not like NYC or SF or Chicago or LA. It is what it is. You will end up like other disenfranchised folks who have unrealistic expectations. If you need all you have in NYC you will have to stay put. There really isn't anywhere else like it, not even SF, Chicago or LA matches up.

[jenlion]

Funny, I'd noticed that there were fewer neighborhood-type playgrounds in the Seattle neighborhoods we've driven through. We're confirmed suburbanites at the moment, and have a backyard and a very nice neighborhood park, so I'm not thinking about us. But I have wondered, when I see the strollers out in Ballard or other neighborhoods we drive through on a lazy day, where exactly the playgrounds are. When I see them, they're usually at as a school. But what it lacks in neighborhood playground-type parks, it makes up for in natural-type parks. Discovery Park. The others mentioned above. Most people might have to drive to get to them, but digging for clams beats monkey-bars hands down.

I have heard jokes that people would rather see you coming with a dog than with a kid. Woman walking a dog is allowed to cross the street, woman with a stroller is nearly run over. We've seen it happen sitting and watching an intersection, I'm starting to think there's some truth to it. In some neighborhoods in Seattle itself, kids are not the accessory to have.

You can't entirely separate Seattle from its surroundings. So much of its history comes from the water. You wouldn't have Pike Place, the underground, any of that without the Sound. It is, after all, a port city. Just a small one.

Also, it's relatively young. Drive through Boston, NY, Chicago, places that were already well in place before the automobile, and you get a much different vibe. Even SF is different-feeling; they had a gold rush, so there were a lot of folks there sooner than other cities on the west coast got the same population. I don't think it could have the same feel as an older city with narrower alleys every which way, with tendrils of odd development of varying ages in unexpected places. It's just not that kind of place; it's too young.

Belltown isn't really dead after dark. But I've seen police and bouncers harrass people outside who make any noise. There are apartments all around, and they say to the kids making the noise that the people in the apts are complaining, and they move them along. INSIDE, there's clubs and drinking and all that stuff I'm too old for now (I tried to go with a friend on her birthday, and it was, um, a mistake). You get people moving from one indoor place to another, rather than hanging out outside.

The freeways are like Toughguy said; you really don't need the freeways to get around, and the neighborhoods aren't connected by freeways so much as by surface streets. There are people on this board that will tell you that they don't ever go on I-5, period.

What I might do if I was you? Go to the grocery stores. If you're looking for an urban lifestyle and you have kids, it will probably revolve around mundane things like grocery shopping. Find some, then drive or walk around and look at the housing nearby, especially if you're planning to try this sans car. If you're outgoing, find the mommies in the grocery store, and ask THEM what they think about living nearby. I'm thinking of the Metropolitan Markets and a Safeway in (I think) Ballard; when I go in to those stores, I see people who are literally buying a day or two's worth of groceries and walking home.

If you don't get a nice vibe, then pull the plug. I fell in love the first day I was here. To see mountain ranges looking east or west, and Rainier south and Baker north, and the ferries, and the water, and the eagles... it means something to me. It clicks. But if you're not seeing or feeling what makes a city "home" to you, then don't waste your time or money. Find some place that works for you.

[W & C]

What freeways are you talking about ? Seattle has one freeway running through the city. Also, I live in First Hill and there are zero single-family homes anywhere within a two-mile radius.

Are you sure you didn't venture into Bellevue by mistake ? It sounds like that's what you're describing.