downside - traffic is horrible.
That is my take as a long time Seattlite.
-Traffic is quickly becoming worse than all cities in the US and the tunnel nightmare will not solve that (many projections say it will make it worse)
-Local and regional bureaucracy is far worse here than comparable west coast cities
-Massively regressive taxes due to no state income tax (consumption taxes disproportionately levy the burden on poor people, and regional small business taxes/fees/etc are incredibly bureaucratic here in comparison to other areas, though the state laws are favorable)
-NIMBYism is just as bad here as it is in SF, and worse in some areas
-As a result of the above, property values are skyrocketing at rates faster than some areas of SF. My $230k townhome in the middle of a "bad area" bought 4 years ago is worth $500k+. This is ridiculous. There is no reason I should have experienced a 100% ROI windfall for simply accidentally timing the market for housing.
Heroin epidemic is especially bad here, Seattle City Police have been investigated and busted by the US DOJ in the past, high school education has serious redlining going on which encourages private schooling (which is insanely expensive here), and so forth.
I love it in Seattle but it's very much moving the same way SF is, and in many ways, trending much worse.
Coming from LA, I'm looking forward to cheaper housing prices when I move there next month.
That's the issue. It's all urban flight to suburbs. I live in the inner city and see it every day.
Nothing new with east and north side schools being better than Seattle schools. It was that way in the early 90s when I was in HS.
Seattle is very progressive, and highly in favor of income tax.
We always exaggerated the rain and the people just kept coming. So there must be something else going on.
Also, motorcycles aren't exactly a large block of votes. And, many lane splitting bills include helmet provisions which are a non-starter for some riders.
Source: watched as attempts failed multiple times in Texas.
[1]http://lanesplittingislegal.com/assets/docs/CHP-lane-splitti...
However the rain and lack of sun kills me. I could handle year round rain if it meant it's at least sunny a lot too. It would suck, but personally the lack of sun affects my mood too much.
Otherwise especially with the no state income tax, if I'm making pretty good bank, and moving isn't an issue, moving to Seattle would be a top choice. Instead, the people who do move for tax reasons have almost all moved to Florida/Miami. Two to Austin and one to Vegas.
SF has about 60 days more of sun per year: https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/California/annual-day...
Personally, I find the weather quite nice in the PNW.
The traffic though... it's really the worst. Traffic is constantly bad during business hours.
Yeah it isn't too bad. But I get seasonal depression on top of issues already. So it would be hard for me personally. Weather is great though.
Generally, the weather is Seattle is heavily influenced by Puget Sound and the rain shadow east of the Olympic Peninsula (parts on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula are actually classified as rainforest). So we get less rain than you would think and it's fairly moderate.
Pretty sure I hear that downside for every major US city.