Good place, depressing winters.
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8/1/2015
I've lived in Snohomish for 22 years, WWA for 29, WA for 34.
It's a nice place to live & raise your kids.
Housing is high due to proximity to a lot of high-paying jobs Ike Boeing and electronics/ software, but there are plenty of modestly priced homes too.
Downside is weather. While it's much better than many areas of the country which get suffocatingly hot and humid in the summer yet subzero bleak windy and snowy in the winter, we have depressingly dark, damp, rainy winters which can last from October to May. Summer & fall tends to be very nice, but some years we don't get a summer at all! Spring is a tease - warms up and everyone gets excited only to revert to another month of dreary, rainy weather.
If five straight months of dark, 40° and raining weather with only eight hours of sunlight per day doesn't depress you, wait until next winter.
Western Washington has periodic booms with influxes of people from around the country – however, people moving here from California, Colorado and other places with lots of sun tend to make it through two or maybe three winters and then they go home. They run home.
People moving here from places like Chicago think they have died and gone to heaven. Hardly any snow! No ice storms! People are friendly! There are few flying bugs in the summer and there are NO cockroaches! Whoo!
Have you heard of the "Seattle freeze"?
I guarantee you it is very real. People who say it doesn't exist are people who have lived here their entire lives and clueless about their own behavior. If you are coming from the south or the Midwest, you will think people here are stunningly superficial and shallow in the personal relationships -- they actually hang out with people they've known since they were 10 and don't want or need any new friends. They are unaware of this behavior, it is not personal or calculated.
Snohomish is friendly – lots of family run businesses and plenty of very good people.
It's just rural enough to make you feel like maybe you're living somewhere near Mayberry, but it's 15 minutes away from Everett with high quality medical care and pretty much all the shopping you would really want.
Because Western Washington is an affluent Place, housing can be a surprise and don't be surprised to see BMWs and Mercedes in the parking lot of Kelso's meat market, mixed in with the Ford F150s and Toyotas.
To summarize: the weather sucks unless you are used to a place with terrible weather.
The people are friendly unless you're from the south or the Midwest in which case they will seem somewhat aloof.
All of my neighbors are wonderful people.
Politically, you have to choices: you can be a liberal or you can shut up.
If you are conservative, don't bother to register to vote.
We have a really excellent public library. I mean, kind of amazing.
Esteban | Snohomish, WA