It’s just as expensive as Canada, yet we get none of their benefits like more accessible health care. Big cities in the Midwest are just as cheap as small towns in the West to buy a home in, often much cheaper. Even most of the Northeast is cheaper than the West.
It isn’t just the actual coast and the “sunshine tax” either, the places with continental climates like SLC and Denver are also overpriced. Even Montana is expensive compared to comparable places.
The schools are bad in western states and economic inequality seems deeper than it does anywhere back east that’s not in the BosWash. It just seems like people are uneducated here. There’s also way too many snobs on the west coast, I feel like the east coast is snobby in its own way, but in a more genuine way. Most of the region lacks water and I notice out West many people lack basic utilities like air conditioning that would just be taken for granted in say the South.
Having said that, I love living in the San Francisco Bay Area, despite the high cost. The weather is the best I’ve experienced, and there are tons of jobs in my field (software).
Yeah, every time western Washington state hits 75 degrees, I’m complaining about my lack of A/C. The weather here is so miserably hot! Every once in a while it even gets up in the 80’s, and our summers make us suffer through 16 hours of daylight. Those people in the South are so spoiled.
Also, water is truly a problem. I hear that people in Boston store their extra water in snow drifts on the side of buildings, but it’s just too warm here for snow. We have to rely on reservoirs up in the mountains… which generate the cheapest power in the country. (Not that we can benefit from all that cheap power because none of us have A/C to combat our oppressive 75-degree heat waves).
You can tell just how bad it is here when you look at real estate values too. I would barely get $400,000 for my 1600 sqft house. I probably couldn’t afford to move to the South, right?
Well not so much Washington, but Oregon and California as well as pretty much every other western state (including eastern Washington), it gets very hot; 100 degrees at least once or twice most years and tons of 90+ days.
Except for maybe parts of the People’s Republic of Santa Monica I can tolerate California. Washington and Oregon a pretty nice. Alaska is a beauty; odd politicians always but a terrific place.
I kind of hate LA but I’ve quite liked every other area of the West Coast I’ve been to, from Vancouver down to San Diego. The cost of living is high but so are the salaries and the quality of life. It’d be hard to move a few thousand miles from everyone I know, but there’s half a dozen places out there I’d gladly live for a few years if life turned out that way. I’m sure you’ll get many happy denizens defending it even more vigorously!
I lived in the Bay Area for a couple years and would never do so again. I don’t like even going to SFO for a day. I think Nevada should annex everything from the Nevada border westward to at least Alturas and Placerville. Northern Nevada has open space and a good standard of living for the money.
That you ask if the West Coast is the worst part of the US at the same time you note its high cost of living reminds me of Yogi Berra’s comment about a restaurant, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
You’re right. The West Coast is absolutely a terrible place to live. The worst. Please stay in whatever paradise your current dwelling abides; you’re sure to be much happier there.
Yes. Yes, it’s beyond horrid here in Oregon. Don’t think of moving here. It’s a total rip-off.
No telling what the weather is going to do, the scenery is monotonous, people are intolerant of simply everything (ignorant bastards), there’s nothing to do, the beer sucks and the wine is worse. No one understands why the real estate prices are so high compared to the east and mid-west.
If you value quality of life, stay far, far away.
I’ve lived on the west coast for most of my life in California and Oregon. I must be some kind of stupid to stay so long.
I lived in Omaha for a little while, and I remember looking out at my yard one chilly day in March, and realized that I was looking at the same snow that had fallen in November of the previous year. That’s when I said to myself “time to get my ass back where I belong.” Now back in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Whew!
Air conditioning… heh. Don’t have it, don’t need it. I remember in Omaha we ran the furnace for 6 months of the year, and air conditioning for the other 6 months. For about 2 weeks every spring and fall, we ran the furnace at night and the air conditioner during the day. If your idea of a great climate is one in which you are always either heating or cooling the house, well Omaha is the place for you! (and lots of other places, too.)
That’s not to mention the culture. I was raised in the west, and I am solidly and comfortably left-coast in my attitude and outlook.