Observations of Reno by a Seattlite (continued)
-
6/30/2020
Drivers in Reno are disproportionately bad and aggressive. Expect people to drift into your lane, not signal, not headcheck. Speeds far in excess and far below posted speed limits are common. Often men will become enraged if you honk at them. Using a car's horn is a way to communicate and avoid accidents in Seattle. In Reno, honking is offensive. I've been chased into a grocery store parking lot, where a man got out of his car as if he was going to fight me. (I drove away.) I've had a big guy in huge truck shout “f-----g f----t!” out the window of his truck at me going 65 mph down the interstate. I’ve read in the local paper about multiple instances of gunfire pursuant to road rage incidents. Don’t honk at men. Also men in trucks tend to fly full size American flags from the beds of their pickups, especially around Sparks and the North Valleys. This is only slightly more common than full size Confederate flags.
Native Renoans have a libertarian streak that bends conservative but not strictly. People are generally live and let live here. But I have seen random conservatives harass people at Pride in Reno. So, there are exceptions. Despite the libertarian streak, natives tend to be pretty resigned to the power structures of the city. If someone high on the social hierarchy says that we should do it, then most people don’t put up much of a fight. I read this as more from a sense of powerlessness and irrelevance than an endorsement of the positions of the powerful. Protests here are quaint.
The city is segregated in a lot of dimensions, primarily socioeconomic. I’ve never seen so much discomfort when asking what neighborhood someone lives in. I think this is because Renoans of differing socioeconomic classes are neatly classified by neighborhood, so you can basically nail how wealthy someone is by where they live. Seattle neighborhoods are much more heterogeneous. Race is highly correlated with wealth and income, so there’s a defacto racial segregation of Hispanics from Whites, as well, but the drivers seem more closely tied to wealth than race.
Increasingly, the city comprises transplants who come to work at University of Nevada, Reno and firms with IT or distribution facilities here. Often these transplants are more liberal, technology trained, and wealthier than natives. It creates some tension … or maybe distance … between natives and transplants. The only natives I know are from work. And we don’t socialize outside work.
Reno breweries make excellent IPAs. The weather is great: 300 days of sunshine per year. But it’s high desert, so expect little rain and parched air.
Overall, I like it here and expect to stay if my job remains viable. This is not a great place to come to find work if you don't already have something lined up.
Eric | Spokane, WA