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Walla Walla, Quality of Life, Climate, Recreation - 3/8/2007 |
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| Great summer weather, warm and dry with plenty of sunshine! winter weather is dreary, cold with a lot of fog!, The good news is not much snow. If you can bear the dreary feeling of not much sunshine, you will be fine. This is an old town, this was previously a wheat farming community, now giving way to the production and growth of the wine industry due to the climate. This community tends to be VERY Conservative. If you enjoy any liberal ideals, be it religious, political,or recreational, this place is probably not for you. There is limited learning opportunities outside of the traditional College track. It is a wonderful place if you like solitude, and undisturbed small town life. There are an abundance of Banks and Churches in this town and these folks are very much into conservative religious ideals. The job market is fair, wages are fair to low. This has been an affordable place to live, until quite recently where home prices are continuing to rise.
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| Diversity Complaint????? - 5/1/2009
I found the statement about Walla Walla's so called lack of diversity to be unfounded. Frankly, having lived in small coastal towns for the last 30 years kind of biased me. Moving to, living and working in Walla Walla, I have seen persons of every ethnic background. More so than even many cities!
I guess one has to be open to people to see what is really there. As far as the wanna be comment, this person does not embrace history, farming, blue collar work, or what it takes to make a rural community.
Sure, there is no huge world renown Theater, or Bobsled team, but, spend a little time downtown meeting folks-like I have. Go to a church, a library, or to the colleges. There, amongst the people, the real folks, you'll find diverse persons of all walks of life.
If you are looking for "grungy street folks" like Portland or Seattle, that type of diversity is not in abundance, neither are haters, gangs, thugs and druggies-sorry you have tried to paint Walla Walla in a poor light. As a person of 'diversity' I feel quite at home here![read more...]
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| Big Hopes for a Small Town - 8/21/2007
We're looking for a retirement town to relocate Northern Calif. & Walla Walla, WA kept popping up on our web & magazine searches so we spent a few days visiting. These are the pros & cons we came away with based on our needs:
Pros - very friendly people; nice downtown with a free concert going on when we arrived; weather was in the mid 80's; 3-4 "new", very nice restaurants; new homes were abundant at approx $250K for 1600 sf; College Park had some very nice new homes with a local Gotchalks & K-Mart (I knew we were in trouble when I got excited about seeing those 2 stores)- few shopping outlets available.
Cons - Even though the downtown has it's charm, there really wasn't much of interest inside the shops - the biggest store, Macy's, was inside the old movie theater; once you got out of town, the neighborhoods, aside from those immediately surrounding Whitman University, had some depressed areas; there was only one public golf course, Veteran's Memorial G.C., that was nice but wouldn't hold my attention week after week; the only other course was Walla Walla C.C. but it was priced out of my budget; there were a few short trails surrounding Bennington Lake (very small) but the terrain had little of interest & the views weren't that great; the back yards in the nice, new homes in College Park were too small to support a medium sized dog; it's difficult to fly into Walla Walla as they're very few flights into the small airport so we rented a car in Portland & drove the approx 4hrs along the beautiful Columbia River.
So those were my first impressions of Walla Walla - they are mine of course & you may come away with different views & ideas about the town - I really did want to love it but just couldn't get beyond a warm feeling for the people.[read more...]
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| Wanna be - 8/7/2007
Walla Walla is full of "wanna bees." Seriously, the town is cute, quaint, nice scenery, however, there is no diversity and the downtown scene is just plain ridiculous. The town gets soooo hot in the summer and they do not even offer an aquatic center or a small public pool, unless you want to count the three foot pool for kids under ten. The town is basically retirees and people who want pretend that they are living in conneticut or something. They have no mall or good shopping areas, you have to drive an hour to get somewhere to shop. The town is isolated and very conservative. Lack of growth, diversity, and not very progressive sums it up! Also, the housing prices are inflated for a rural area that lacks recreation and opportunity.[read more...]
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| Some of the best weather in country BUT, - 5/8/2007
I was born and raised here. A clean and beautifully quaint town. The surrounding Blue Mountain range sometimes looks like a fresco painted in the distance. But it is not diverse and can have a clique-y feel to it. Lots of "haves" and "have nots". I think a bette place to visit than live if you like diversity and open- mindedness.[read more...]
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| Walla Walla is a great place to live - 4/10/2007
Especially if you like fine wine, because WW is becoming known as Washington's premier wine district, and Washington is the nation's second-biggest wine producing state. Several new wineries are under development. Think of it as Napa without the hype and high priced food and lodgings.
What's more, Walla Walls's downtown area has great Victorian character, wine bars, art galleries, a Starbucks, and a very classy restored flagship hotel (the Marcus Whitman). Also a beautiful University district with a lot of residential character. Good skiing and river sports are nearby.
If you need a break from small-town life, drive up to Spokane (a great mid-sized city 2 hours away, with Nordstrom, 2 Macys, and a white water river running through the downtown park) or hop a direct Horizon flight to Seattle (for your occasional dose of big city exposure).[read more...]
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| Walla Walla, Quality of Life, Climate, Recreation - 3/8/2007
Great summer weather, warm and dry with plenty of sunshine! winter weather is dreary, cold with a lot of fog!, The good news is not much snow. If you can bear the dreary feeling of not much sunshine, you will be fine. This is an old town, this was previously a wheat farming community, now giving way to the production and growth of the wine industry due to the climate. This community tends to be VERY Conservative. If you enjoy any liberal ideals, be it religious, political,or recreational, this place is probably not for you. There is limited learning opportunities outside of the traditional College track. It is a wonderful place if you like solitude, and undisturbed small town life. There are an abundance of Banks and Churches in this town and these folks are very much into conservative religious ideals. The job market is fair, wages are fair to low. This has been an affordable place to live, until quite recently where home prices are continuing to rise.[read more...]
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