Whats up with the crime in Concrete? (Anacortes, Pacific: low income, incomes)

[MarciaMarshaMarcia]

*Sedro*...spellcheck, arrgghhh!

[elkotronics]

I would agree with the posters who suggested Sedona Woolley, it's worth a look.

Yeah...your misspell got me thinkin' of Prescott, AZ, because it's by Sedona, AZ. And those fires! I have a possible job on the line in Prescott right now. Oh, our active minds, eh?

[fromatimbertown]

Originally Posted by dcisive

This is so very ironic. The land there is so affordable yet near some superbly beauty. If I recall there are less then 800 residents in all of Concrete. They have a good artist colony there and a few interesting restaurants. But I can certainly see what you mean regarding the drug issues. If you do the search on the internet for crime ratings they are very high on the list as strange as it may seem. Lot's of assaults.....very strange in an area you would expect to be "quiet". They have a Chamber of Commerce you'd think would foster better safety for the residents. I suppose the fact it's OUT there and quiet may be a reason some drug manufacturers and dealers might find it more appealing, which is sad. I'd prefer REAL people would find it appealing more so, but alas that's the new world we live in. if it's remote and quiet it equates to drugs. Around the country this applies not just in Washington that's for sure. Guess I'll have to wipe Concrete off my list....I'd prefer to be nowhere near that junk. I just ran through that movie. So depressing I can see why anyone would end up on drugs if they lived that life. Yikes.....

I am from the area and know it well, the drugs aren't a big deal. Lack of employment is though as are transplants who want to kill all remaining timber jobs. What you actually are feeling as negative is just the feeling you get because you don't fit in and you expect the indigenous population to conform to your idea of what is normal. BTW that cheap land is cheap because it is in a the Skagit flood zone.

[Neerwhal]

Eh, small sample size, small town cops... small towns are hit and miss. Concrete seems to be a miss, but I haven’t been. I have seen small towns reinvent themselves but they need to drive that from within.

Good luck, OP. We have many small towns in WA that are lively, not perfect but great small town vibes if that is what you want.

[homesinseattle]

Go east of Sedro to Lyman, get more for your money.

[Blondebaerde]

OP and Concrete WA: Well, right: if you know WA and Oregon, and parts of CA, it tracks.

In the 1990s, due to work, I spent a fair amount of time in Humboldt County, CA. Pot capital of the world, probably. Lot of low hills or small mountains, thousands of square miles of mixed forests, not a lot else. Oh, giant redwoods, too, the only claim to fame I know of in the area.

Town of Weott, I never figured out how or why could exist. Filled with shabby homes, trailer parks, and one gas station, plus a rip off "pay phone" which I figured out was skimming calling card numbers (remember those?) and redirecting to fraud "operators" for tons of money per minute. See, that's what goes on these shabby small towns, like Weott, Trinidad (Humboldt County) and Concrete for that matter: there is no opportunity, so if you actually live there and try and make a living, well, you can't. You operate heavy machinery by the hour, barely scrape by, drink beer, and brood over how the government or flying saucers or other dumb crap are "out to get you." And, your kids plot a way to get the hell out, like forty miles west and sixty south into Seattle.

The only thing I know Concrete for is a police department that scoops up speeders. For awhile there, they'd net bikers (sport bikes) six at a time with heavy fines. Good luck getting out of that one. I missed one dragnet by sheer luck, being sick that day. Other times, I slow it waaaaaay down in a part of the road where you should really be doing 80-100 mph to just get the hell away from the place ASAP. No idea if that still goes on, but you can bet I pay close attention to speed up there.

So, think about scumbag cookers and other criminals for a minute. They aren't real bright, per se, but are cunning enough to keep it on the down low. Granted, they're always found out eventually, but until then they need a place to setup shop. The back woods of WA there are perfect. It's low and swampy ground, all of it, hard to get in and out without 4x4. Dirtbags move in with their operations and start the (whatever). Being dirtbags, they rob and shoot one another, and any humans nearby, to feed their needs because they're too stupid to hold down normal jobs. Shoot back and drop a few of them, you're inviting a whole other mess of trouble as friend of a friend found out, because now you're drawn into the dirtbag world of courts, "contact" with the police, and all of that. Some retirement, huh? Another friend of mine actually married someone from the scumbag tribe, and dealing with him enough makes you want to vote them all into labor camps. Like, tomorrow.

The third group in places like that are retirees, who think "wow, look at the mountains and chirping birds." I went through this earlier in the summer, sharing some choice words with a vagrant/burnout meth head in Skykomish, WA, an equally stunning town that is inhabited full-time by poor people, part-time by vagrants/bums/addicts, and seasonably by humans from the big city wanting to fish, whitewater raft, and hunt. I was just blowing through, in my P-car, when the meth head vagrant sidles up and says, "y'aint' from around her, are you?" Guess where the conversation went from there. Who needs that crap?

So, no: when I choose to retire, it won't be to someplace with "cheap real estate" that attracts pissed-off and permanently stuck locals, bums, vagrants, meth-head customers, survivalists, meth cookers, scumbags, and second-story men. Even someplace as scenic as Concrete, mere miles from some of the most spectacular Cascades mountain driving in the Lower 48 up on Hwy 20 (east of Rockport). Quite the opposite, probably a planned community with other affluent retirees who have no time for dealing with the previous, like say Poulsbo or Sequim. That's just the way the world seems to be going.

[dcisive]

Well, that does indeed depict a very sad scenario, but i suspect more true then most wish to admit to. I had a long conversation with a gal at the City Hall in Concrete at one point. She was very nice and informative, but didn't quite elude to what you mentioned on THAT scale. She DID mention a particular neighborhood area to perhaps avoid, but otherwise didn't dive too deeply into the local issues. But like you said, the areas that are more beautiful and remote tend to attract these losers sadly. Ironically I fully admit I got sucked into thinking and feeling those places would be like a dream come true to live in. I had illusions of moving to a place such as that, in a wonderful new and nice quality manufactured home, being not horribly far from shopping but far enough away as to be OUT of the metro world. Sadly these days it's as you described and NOT the dream I conjured up. Unfortunately I'm NOT one of the richies coming up from California with their boatload of cash from having sold their overpriced homes and taking advantage of the lower prices in your beautiful state, driving the prices up like heck making it near impossible for those of us who are wishing to live mostly on our Social Security check and have an honest retirement with fairly low costs of living. Alas once again it seemed to come more and more as a dream and NOT reality as I dove into the particulars of it. You either get a affordable manufactured home but then get stuck paying a lease/rent in a packed in manufactured home park for some absurd monthly fee (not owning the land) and struggle just to get the loan because lenders do NOT like signing up people buying just the home and NOT the land it's on. The list is endless so I'll just leave it there. But once again your assessment is right on and sad as it is. You'd have to be one heck of an individualist and strong willed to put up with such garbage.

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by dcisive

I had illusions of moving to a place such as that, in a wonderful new and nice quality manufactured home, being not horribly far from shopping but far enough away as to be OUT of the metro world. Sadly these days it's as you described and NOT the dream I conjured up.

Thank goodness for city-data to give the "insider's perspective" about a place beforehand.

[MarciaMarshaMarcia]

Originally Posted by dcisive

Unfortunately I'm NOT one of the richies coming up from California with their boatload of cash from having sold their overpriced homes and taking advantage of the lower prices in your beautiful state, driving the prices up like heck making it near impossible for those of us who are wishing to live mostly on our Social Security check and have an honest retirement with fairly low costs of living.

Those damn Californians, it’s all their fault...oh-oh, I gotta go, my boat is capsizing, all my cash is falling out! Help!

[dcisive]

Like it or NOT Marcia, it's NOT a lie nor imagination. It's rather well documented.