You can find better
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6/16/2016
I have lived here for about 11 years.
I'll start with what I like about Spokane:
Greenbluff- cute family owned farms where you can pick your own produce. Lots of fun activities mainly in the Autumn.
Manito Park- Has several gardens that are all very pretty. Great place to take a nice walk and have a picnic.
There are a lot of parks. You can pretty much find a park in every neighborhood, or really close by.
Things I don't like about Spokane:
The weather. It can get nice and warm during the Summer which is great....though sometimes it can get a bit hot (90s-100s). People always say there is all 4 seasons, but I have to say that's kind of a lie....unless you consider a season to be only a couple weeks long instead of 3 months.
Winter takes over half of fall and half or more of Spring (most years, this year for Spring has been different, which has been nice). August is always considered the warmest month in most places (and for some reason even Spokanites claim this about Spokane).....maybe the first week of August is warm, but after that it gets cold, fast. Winters drag on and on. It seems like every year the city of Spokane is not ready for winter, like they have no clue how to clear off a road and de-ice it. There are never enough snow plows and all the side streets are ice rinks. You would think with such long winters every year that the people here would know how to drive in the snow...nope. In fact, they can't even drive on dry roads. In a single trip to the store and back you will get to meet the slow grandma driver, the tailgater and the person who almost clips your bumper while passing you. I don't know what has been up with all the crazy wind lately, but it seems to be getting more and more frequent to have wind storms that tear out trees by their roots, damaging property (homes, vehicles...). It took up to about a month for some people to get their power back from the last big storm that was right before Thanksgiving.
There really isn't much to do here. You have Greenbluff during growing season, Manito and other parks, Libraries, Laser Tag, Wall Climbing, Mobius for little kids, and some hiking and walking trails, some nearby lakes and skiing. The only thing sort of like a Zoo is a joke...it's called Cat Tails. Its really small, and they have a couple big wild cats that lay around and do nothing (don't waste your money).
Spokane is trying to be like a bigger city. They just built a really big hotel that connects to the convention center/opera house area. We do get some good shows, I think they are hoping for more since they put in the hotel.
There are 3 malls (Spokane, Spokane Valley and Downtown Spokane). Each pretty much have the same stores...Downtown has the least, but there is Nordstrom, so you have that. There are some little shops Downtown, but it's mostly Restaurants. There are a lot of places to eat...if you like fast food or Chinese food ;). There are a couple sit down restaurants that are good, but nothing to write home about.
I guess it's an ok place to raise a family, even though there's not a whole lot to do. Most people who live here have lived here their whole lives...they just never leave, so their whole family is here and so they just stay or leave and then come back.
Tiff | Spokane, WA