Most overpriced places in 2004 (Seattle #1)

Forbes.com ^ | Betsy Schiffman

[Delmont]

Try buying health insurance in Washington State, it is almost impossible.

[cousair]

You lived in California...no wonder you feel the way you do. I moved here in 1988 from Texas...so my case is different. I used to own property in California also so I understand what happens when taxes and the fundamental cost of living keeps going up. Belt tightening is something libs have trouble with because in order to secure getting re elected, the give aways always keep the votes coming in. It is the OLD templet the DNC has always used. Trouble is today that lots of us folks have gotten smart when we learned how to read.

[CyberCowboy777]

Washington State Ping List

This is all known Washington State Freepers and interested parties as of 8/04/04 - 309 FReepers
Less those who opted out
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[Stoat]

I was born in Seattle and have lived here most of my life.

I am sick to death of the garbageman angrily and officiously taking me to task because I didn't properly seperate my refuse in the different recycling bins in the officially-dictated manner.

I am sick of the unfriendly women who will glare menacingly at you and make snotty comments (or worse) if you make the mistake of holding a door for them at the shopping mall.

Don't expect a second date if you make the mistake of holding a lady's chair for her at a restaurant, helping her on with her coat or open a car door for her.
Forget a date with any of her friends, either, as she will gleefully "out" you as "some kind of neanderthal Conservative".

I am sick of being unable to wash my car in my own driveway for fear of the neighbors ratting me out to the EPA.

I am tired of the Kerry supporters being able to drive around with Kerry bumper stickers while President Bush's supporters can't because they know that their car would be trashed if they parked it anywhere for more than ten minutes with a Bush/Cheney sticker on it.
Let's not even get into the added hazards of driving through Seattle with a Bush sticker on your car.....

You won't see many Bush yard signs because everyone knows that you'll get a rock through your window at 3AM if you dare to put one up.

I am tired of our gutless police department whose officers have their hands tied by an unbelievably Leftist administration. East Coast cities would never tolerate the protesters, "homeless" (bums) and other assorted crime that the current Seattle police administration does.
Don't get me wrong, I love cops, my dad was one. But they can only do as much as their administration lets them.

I am tired of having to drive 50 miles in order to find a place to shoot that allows me to put more than one round in the magazine at a time because Seattle doesn't want me to go on a mass-murder rampage.

I am tired of being limited to ONE Italian pastry shop (Borrachini's) and that it's always out of Cannoli and it seems that only the owner is Italian. Most of the people who work there are black kids and they all wear a scowl as standard equipment.

Sorry about this rant :-( (and I haven't even gotten into the economics LOL)

My Question:

Where is it better? I am forced to continue living here due to obligations but I hope to leave one day.

[malia]

you have mail

[Clemenza]

I am tired of being limited to ONE Italian pastry shop (Borrachini's) and that it's always out of Cannoli and it seems that only the owner is Italian. Most of the people who work there are black kids and they all wear a scowl as standard equipment.

AMEN! However, many of the Italian pastry shops in New York, while still owned by Italians, are staffed by Russian, Albanians and Latinos. Still, they BLOW AWAY Borrachinis big time.

Again, don't start me on the crappy pizza here.

[Billthedrill]

LIES! All LIES!!! Housing in Seattle is underpriced and anyone fortunate enough to purchase something in the area will be astonished at the value, the location, the scenery, and the access to everything that makes life worth living.

Coincidentally, I, uh...I have a condo for sale just outside of Seattle. But I'd have said the same thing even if I didn't stand to get filthy rich off some stupid Californian who doesn't know any bett...uh...never mind...

[Stoat]

Thank you for your reply. I was beginning to think that I was the only one in Seattle who cared about quality pastry.
I have become so incensed by this whole substandard pastry issue here that I have even threatened to LEARN how to cook my own pastry. I even found a source for cannoli forms

http://www.kerekesequip.com/detail.asp?id=373

However, even if I were to address this one element of my previous list, I would still have quite a few items on it that I can't do anything about other than to move, it seems "sigh"

<<<< adding your excellent comment about "crappy pizza" to my "reasons why I hate the city where I was born and have lived most of my life in" list.

(and I STILL haven't touched on the economics here or the Castro-loving Left-wing politics)

[4woodenboats]

Thanks for the ping cybercowboy!

fwiw, I live on the other side of the pond, just west of Gig Harbor, on the Key Peninsula. Rural areas in the Great North Wet tend to be more conservative, safer to raise our kids in, and the people one hell of alot more polite. It's a place where, once you do business with someone, be it at the bank, the lumberyard or one of the many tiny marinas around here, you greet that person everytime you see them for now on. There are still motorized offroad recreation opportunities in the area, though it's critical to stay abreast of and actively fight the constant assault from the enviro nazis to turn the whole damn state into a moss preserve.
My greatest fear here is ratbastards like Sims attacking us the way he did the rural residents of King County in his obscene land grab, not to mention Sims Tent Citys. I'm just barely inside the Pierce county line, so all our decisions are made for us on the other side of the bridge. I truly think Locke's legendary unbridled contempt for the voters of this state will pale compared to a Sims Socialized Society, and I am concerned that we are uncomfortably close to it being a reality.
Though I worked there for a bit, I never liked Seattle much other than the waterfront. From the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks to the marine chandleries and yards, to Fishermans Terminal, and the Aquarium, sailboat races on Lake Union & Washington, and Elliott Bay, its not too bad for someone who messes around with boats for a living. The commute is pretty much unbearable though.
For the most part, I like the weather. My son and I ride dirt bikes year round, and it's a heck of alot more fun to ride in the rain than it is in 90 degree weather. There really isn't a bad time to be in the forests here. Sailing isn't too great in the south sound, very little wind unless its winter, a victim of narrower waterways and taller land masses than Seattle area latitudes, but overall the Puget Sound is one of the most beautiful areas in the world to boat in.
So, I guess overall I'm kinda glad the report came out the way it did, it makes the state legislature look bad, and they're all libs, it'll scare people off from moving here - unless of course they're homeless - and of course there's the I Don't Live There PTL aspect to it.
:~)

[MD_Willington_1976]

Same thing over on this side of the state..it's like the blind school is building econo-box houses over here and blackmailing the buyers...They simply state now, well if you don't like it we'll just sell it to someone else, they don't have a problem with moving in to it...there is such a shortage of housing here that the builders can get away with extortion, and poor building practices ie. drilling through "paralam" beams that have "do not drill, use provided knock-outs" printed right on the side of them...

[Bush2000]

It has always been overpriced, and in today's Washington state, it is run by liberals. Remember libs?? They love taking from the (so called rich) and giving to all others. Seattle is high priced at every level. I live in the southern part of the state which enjoys the almost 8% sales tax rate.

Unfortunately, we live in a state in which the outlying counties don't contribute much politically to Olympia. King County is where elections are won or lost -- and we all know how liberal it is here. There are pockets of conservatism (ie. Issaquah, Bellevue, Medina), but they are few and far between. Liberals have pushed for an even higher sales tax. They've pushed for higher fees (ie. ferries, licensing, inspections, etc). Thank God for people like Tim Eyman. Liberals hate him with a passion. I don't mean they dislike him. They literally hate the guy. I've seen some of them reduced to blithering, spitting morons at the mere mention of his name.

Consequently, liberals (along with their co-conspirators -- the unions) have pushed for higher property taxes. They constantly harp on the education issue -- and most people are so misinformed about the lack of correlation between education expenditures and teacher accountability that most levies pass without even the slightest whimper. Sure, people like Tim Eyman rub the property tax growth restrictions in their faces -- but liberals don't care about the law. The law is an inconvenience for them (witness: WEA union contributions to liberal politicians in violation of state law) -- and really only applies cynically when their political opponents happen to cross the line.

I recently rode in the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride. Passed through countless towns in the southern part of the state. And, as I was riding, I thought about how far away Seattle was from that beautiful countryside. People like to stigmatize conservatives with stereotypes of uneducated rednecks and narrow-minded Puritans, but the fact of the matter is that Seattle is not America. It doesn't represent the rolling hills. It doesn't understand attitudes in those small towns. It doesn't contribute or care about our soldiers fighting and dying for our freedom in Iraq. It is wholly disconnected from (and uninterested in) the average American way of life that I saw on that bike ride. And all that you have to do is look at an electoral map from the 2000 election to see the stark map of politics. Democrats appealed to urban voters in densely populated cities. Republicans appealed to the rest of the country. The differences in politics couldn't be more stark, despite cynics' attempts to paint the GOP and Democrats as a single party.

Everyone, please support Dino Rossi for governor. I know him. He's a good man. The alternative is truly chilling: Christine Gregoire (who completely screwed up in her last job) and Ron Sims (who never met a tax hike he didn't like).

[RobRoy]

>>Like you didn't know ping.<<

Yeah, I saw the teaser and had to click on it. I figured
Seattle HAD TO BE on the list. And surprise, surprise - it was number one.

Real estate here is stupid expensive. It has GOT to be a bubble.

[RobRoy]

My son lives on queen ann hill. Thanks to the monorail, his license tabs are over $500.

Well, actually they are well under $100 because he has wisely chosen to license his car at my address - outside Seattle city limits. 8^>

Stupid libs just don't get it...

[cousair]

I will certainly do that. Your take on the state is exactly right as it seems to me. I live in the Columbia Gorge and you are right...the beauty is breath taking and I know I live in another world from Seattle and the other high population areas. We pay the taxes and are thankful we can do that. I just wish we had more say in how the money is used. PDX has high taxes most of which is poured into the Oregon school system, yet this past week showed PDX's schools below the national average...shameful, but thats liberal spending for you and believe it for sure, libs control the schools unions where a lot of the money lands.

[Bush2000]

The truth is that the libs in Seattle simply hate automobiles -- and the fact that people like to drive them, rather than be led by the nose to mass transit debacles like the emerging monorail disaster. Good for you and your son. I wouldn't pay them a dime in taxes, if I could avoid it.

[Bush2000]

PDX has high taxes most of which is poured into the Oregon school system, yet this past week showed PDX's schools below the national average...shameful, but thats liberal spending for you and believe it for sure, libs control the schools unions where a lot of the money lands.

There was a time in which unions were effective (and even necessary) in fighting unhealthy work conditions, child labor, etc. But those days are long gone. Now, unions only serve three [counterproductive] purposes: artificially driving up the cost of labor, lowering productivity, and evading accountability. It's pathetic. When teachers can strike for months on end over a pay dispute -- and then the taxpayers have nothing to show for the compromise -- there's something very, very, very wrong with this picture. And I see little evidence that taxpayers have learned anything from these year-in, year-out debacles. Like lemmings, they support the teachers because, God help them, "it would be wrong not to want to improve our edyookashun system..."

[McGavin999]

Did anyone notice something else about these cities? They all have extremely HIGH unemployment. I read the blurbs on each of them and UE was about 7%

[Joe Hadenuf]

I knew a gal that moved here from California in the summer of 98. That winter we had 93 days straight rain. She moved back to California shortly thereafter. I think that the population in Puget Sound actually dropped that year. All of those wonderful Californians moving back home.

We read a study that showed out of every 10 Californians that move out of state, 6 move back within 5 years. I would guess the other 4 want to but can no longer afford it.

93 days of rain, wind and cold? Been there done that, hehe. I'll stay put in Cali thanks....

You'll be OK, you still have another month or two before the dark days and freezing rains return......

[wyattearp]

"You'll be OK, you still have another month or two before the dark days and freezing rains return......"

I hate the summer. Too hot, and the days are too long. I long for those dark days, and even the freezing rain.