Pros and Cons of Yakima (Seattle, Spokane: crimes, salaries, living)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was born and raised in Yakima, moved to Seattle for 30 years, and have been back in Yakima for over three years. Although the Hispanic population has grown by about 40 percent, the city remains largely the same, except that it is much bigger and the major shopping area is in Union Gap rather than downtown. The downtown area, however, has seen many of it's lovely historic buildings and areas refurbished and great wine tasting spots and funky coffee houses have sprung. It is becoming a place where tourists enjoy visiting.
I absolutely LOVE living in Yakima, as do all of the many people who I know who live here.The valley is incredibly beautiful and sunny most of the year. Lovely lakes, pine covered mountains, and rivers are just a short drive away. Commuting to work is normally less than 15 minutes with a very brief rush hour. The people here are generally warm and friendly. All the major store chains are close by. There are many things to do with your children in this city...very family friendly. Great theater, both local and traveling shows, and very inexpensive tickets. There are regular professional musical presentations at The Seasons performance hall, too.
Yakima has many, many homes built before 1940. They are beautiful and generally kept up on the outside, even in the poorer areas of the community. As you go west, you will find homes built after 1940, except for the occasional old farm house. There are also many mansions up on the hills. The housing prices here are cheap compared to just about anywhere else in the State (anywhere you'd want to live, that is). So many retiree's make their home here.
Anyone living on the east side of 16th Ave. will probably have increased crime rate...especially as you continue to go further east. Most middle and upper class families prefer the west side of the city. I am not afraid to be on the east side of the city...there is a lot of nice things to see and do there... I just don't usually go to certain neighborhoods at night.
Anyway, if you are planning to move here, I highly recommend my city to you!
There's more Yakima talk on the Tri-Cities forum for Yakima vs. Tri-Cities. I chose not to move back to Yakima despite its beauty, knowing good people there and having family there. Mainly due to crime. My husband is in the security industry and backs that decision because he traveled there for work, not just bad neighborhoods either. I even lived deep in West Valley attended their schools at one time, but still wouldn't want my children going to school in an area where the gang mentality sucks so many in, and if that doesn't get them meth does. I also grew up in a bad neighborhood in Cali, the worst in the town and had a dead body in front of my neighbors house, but Yakima's bad gets way worse and usually it doesn't even make the news because its so routine. This is in all areas of Yakima, I have friends and family that live throughout the area and get reports all the time, and most of them would move away if they could or haven't already. The things they've seen would normally belong on Dateline but don't even make the news. If you have to live there just be choosy about neighborhoods, don't expect back-up in the event of being a victim to a crime, and really get to know your children and what they experience at school. Also the police are overloaded and some are corrupt. Yakima DSHS Child Protective system is so overloaded they don't do any good. One set of children weren't removed from their parents until over a dozen CPS complaints, by then there was psychological damage from multiple molestations by older kids and adults, exposure to meth, witnessing stabbings and beatings, having guns pulled on them, used to getting any toys they owned stolen etc. It took forever to get the child to not run everytime he saw a hispanic person with baggy pants, heard rap music, or saw a tricked out car, duck for loud noises, forbade me to go there because he thought I'd be raped. And the child is hispanic as am I. And the child was returned to the parents so DSHS could get it off their work load and because they are so overloaded they keep on some incompetent social workers, ok at least one I know of. Yeah sure this trauma to a child can happen anywhere, but as commonplace as this is for Yakima I'd expect it from a larger LA metropolitan area. It may seem I'm jaded since I saw this through the child's eyes, but my choice to not go back was made a long time before I knew what I know now. I won't raise a family there. Hopefully things will improve there, there's been talk about it, the city does great promotion for the wine industry there, and the place is beautiful.
There is a lot of whitetrash in Yakima who live on welfare and are too lazy to work. Especially need to watch out for those white people who like to beg for money on various street corners, lock your doors!!
Born and raised in Yakima for 20 years... well soon to be 20 years this month as well as family working in lawenforcement.
It's great that you'll be working at Memorial hospital OP. It's a nice hospital (place I was born)
Major issues in Yakima:
Illegal Immigrants- speaking Spanish will definitley get you higher on the list for a job.
Panhandlers- Although the city says they'll be cracking down on it, not much has been done. Most major intersections are crawling with them.
Drugs- I've seen drug busts, I've been to the schools where it seems everyone is doing them. The news is riddled with stories... it gets kinda old.
Sounds like you're over 21 so you should find something fun and recreational to do. Like Wine tasting, heard it's quite the vacation place for that... nice bars. Upper class resteraunts... it seems they're trying to turn Yakima into a retirement community for the old rich people. If you're under 21 there is not much do to. I usually go out wheeling/quading with friends, or to TriCities or Seattle for dance clubs, hiking and camping are big here too.
If you have an import car (Honda (Acura), Toyota, Nissan etc...) make sure you have an alarm, don't leave you stereo faces in your car when you're not in it, and also buying a steering wheel club will help although I've heard recently those aren't doing much good eithor. Never leave your car unlocked, and don't leave anything valuable in it.
I have to say for me, Yakima has more cons than pros. I might be biased seen as I was born and raised here, and have an import car lol but still. There is not much to do here in the city limits.
Yakima literally sucks,and wanting to get out of here.I live out in west valley but you can tell its starting to move out this way.The schools are not that great so I pulled my child out and homeschool and he has learned alot more than what he would in public. The gangs have taken over Yakima, and ya you don't dare go out anywhere cause you either get robbed at gunpoint (like my brother did and cops said "well what can I do about it")or shot at.I would not reccomend Yakima to anyone and I've lived here for 15 years. Yakima is drug capital of the northwest.
I've been pouring over these threads and posts about Yakima until I'm nearly cross-eyed. What has previously been said seems to hold true - you either lover the place or you hate it, and there is nothing in between.
There's also not too much "recent" info in this thread which makes me wonder, so........
A little about me:
I'm a 57 year old, white male, single, no kids, gun owning Republican and NRA Life Member, 32 years in the automotive repair industry (all in the greater Los Angeles area) that has been unemployed for the last 6 months and is rapidly running out of options.
I was recently contacted by a headhunter about a position available in Yakima. The money looks good, the cost of living difference is a definite plus, and I've been threatening to exit LA for years. My sister lives in Klamath Falls and that town is perfect if I was retired but I still need to work, so I figured I might as well like where I'm living even if I don't really like what I'm doing for a living. The 200K population numbers look right to me and big-city life is close enough that I won't feel isolated. The weather is something that I'm sure I could learn to adjust to and I'm really, really tired of the (seemingly) neverending heat of So CA (it's really only nice during the Rose Parade and I hate that because there is an influx of people afterwards for the next 90 days ).
My biggest area of concern is your depiction of your level of crime. I currently live in a suburb of LA that earned the title: "All American City of 1990-something". We have our share of yahoos, drug dealing, and gangs, too. An older acquaintance of mine was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting a block from where I lived a couple of years back - it was a Black/Brown thing that started stupid and got out of control. We're still a bit more "civilized" than some of the more "urban areas" (shall we say?) but crime is still crime, even in the most affluent of areas about 2 miles from my house.
I've managed to acquire some material possessions that I have worked hard for and that I'd like to keep; including a very expensive european motorcycle in the Sureno's color of choice: blue . I like to ride anywhere and everywhere that my heart desires but I also don't like the idea of being shot at while I'm riding it if I happen to stray too close to one of the "undesireable areas" you all have so graciously pointed out.
I also would like to feel secure enough in the rented home that (I hope) I get that everything will be there at the end of the work day or after I return home from a three/four/five day ride. Burglar alarms and renter's insurance will only afford me so much peace of mind.
I have enough liquid assets to allow me to move to the Yakima area if the job is offered to me (with a pinch left over), but if the whole deal goes south in 6 months I am stuck, literally and figuratively; and I'm not real fond of the idea of becoming a street urchin to survive.
This job offer is starting to have all the connotations of: "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is...." and I have been bitten by that once before and learned a very painful and expensive lesson. This time I'm doing my due dilligence and homework and trying to make an informed decision that I can live with, one way or the other. I have a friend that travels for business and passes through Yakima once a year, and another that was a letter carrier up there for 18 years - they're both telling me to consider "other options".
I've been pouring over these threads and posts about Yakima until I'm nearly cross-eyed. What has previously been said seems to hold true - you either lover the place or you hate it, and there is nothing in between.
There's also not too much "recent" info in this thread which makes me wonder, so........
A little about me:
I'm a 57 year old, white male, single, no kids, gun owning Republican and NRA Life Member, 32 years in the automotive repair industry (all in the greater Los Angeles area) that has been unemployed for the last 6 months and is rapidly running out of options.
I was recently contacted by a headhunter about a position available in Yakima. The money looks good, the cost of living difference is a definite plus, and I've been threatening to exit LA for years. My sister lives in Klamath Falls and that town is perfect if I was retired but I still need to work, so I figured I might as well like where I'm living even if I don't really like what I'm doing for a living. The 200K population numbers look right to me and big-city life is close enough that I won't feel isolated. The weather is something that I'm sure I could learn to adjust to and I'm really, really tired of the (seemingly) neverending heat of So CA (it's really only nice during the Rose Parade and I hate that because there is an influx of people afterwards for the next 90 days ).
My biggest area of concern is your depiction of your level of crime. I currently live in a suburb of LA that earned the title: "All American City of 1990-something". We have our share of yahoos, drug dealing, and gangs, too. An older acquaintance of mine was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting a block from where I lived a couple of years back - it was a Black/Brown thing that started stupid and got out of control. We're still a bit more "civilized" than some of the more "urban areas" (shall we say?) but crime is still crime, even in the most affluent of areas about 2 miles from my house.
I've managed to acquire some material possessions that I have worked hard for and that I'd like to keep; including a very expensive european motorcycle in the Sureno's color of choice: blue . I like to ride anywhere and everywhere that my heart desires but I also don't like the idea of being shot at while I'm riding it if I happen to stray too close to one of the "undesireable areas" you all have so graciously pointed out.
I also would like to feel secure enough in the rented home that (I hope) I get that everything will be there at the end of the work day or after I return home from a three/four/five day ride. Burglar alarms and renter's insurance will only afford me so much peace of mind.
I have enough liquid assets to allow me to move to the Yakima area if the job is offered to me (with a pinch left over), but if the whole deal goes south in 6 months I am stuck, literally and figuratively; and I'm not real fond of the idea of becoming a street urchin to survive.
This job offer is starting to have all the connotations of: "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is...." and I have been bitten by that once before and learned a very painful and expensive lesson. This time I'm doing my due dilligence and homework and trying to make an informed decision that I can live with, one way or the other. I have a friend that travels for business and passes through Yakima once a year, and another that was a letter carrier up there for 18 years - they're both telling me to consider "other options".
So I ask: "what's the real deal with Yakima??"
I think you'd do ok providing you keep your job. Like many areas of Washington if you lose a job your chances of finding another, or another that pays the same is slim. My advice is give it a shot, but if you get fired, laid off, downsized etc get out fast or you could literally be trapped there with no money and little options
Yakima has a gang problem among the Surenos and Nortenos, with other smaller gangs also playing a role. The problem is only going to get worse because the authorities in Yakima and the state are totally ill-equipped to fight the problem. I used to work with gangmembers from the area in a state correctional facility and from what I experienced the gangs have a free reign to recruit and use violence at will.
Still its nothing compared to LA.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yakima -- Best Kept Secret!
More Yakima talk
as well as family working in lawenforcement.
).
. I like to ride anywhere and everywhere that my heart desires but I also don't like the idea of being shot at while I'm riding it if I happen to stray too close to one of the "undesireable areas" you all have so graciously pointed out.
