An accurate view over the last 30 years?
-
8/24/2020
I went to college here in the 90's and have been in and out for 30 years but I work in Seattle now and live in Spokane. The good: The area is beautiful, trees, lakes, rivers, etc.. The people, there are tens of thousands of great people here. You will get a clearly defined 4 seasons here. There is a lot to do, the city has a well developed sports, community and recreation system, concerts, arts, etc. (I play a ton of softball and the city facility is excellent, county, not so much). The airport is easy to get to and still kind of small so it's much cheaper to park and go then Seattle. Obviously, Washington has no income tax, that's a plus but our gas tax is high if you aren't from California or Hawaii. Property taxes are reasonable but Washington sales tax is pretty much 10% now. All forms of government at the state level are controlled by Democrats who have been attempting to pass state income taxes and/or capital gains taxes for years. It's probably coming at some point but our constitution so far has prohibited it.
The neutral: Spokane used to be very cheap but the housing market is climbing quickly with no end in site as Seattle has done it's absolute best to push business and working people out of Seattle/King County and Spokane is reaping that benefit/downside, which is good and bad. Rents have moved up a lot, housing prices have moved up a lot. I don't know if the job market has improved or not but I don't see a lot of great paying jobs matching the housing market increase.
Schools are a hit and miss, they are best in the outlying areas and out of the actual City of Spokane. Mount Spokane, Freeman, Central Valley and Cheney are the top schools. Maybe opinions vary but it would be hard to argue that reasonably.
The bad: Crime has always been bad here, mainly property crimes with fairly normal violent crimes for a city of our size. However, the homelessness...uh.....drug problem (because do no be fooled, it's not working people that are homeless here) has just continued to sky rocket and they are becoming more and more shameless and aggressive. This is a thieving city, do not leave a bicycle out on your yard no matter what neighborhood you live in. There are RV's parked in rows all over Spokane. I think crime affects everyone here to some degree, that is property crime but not so much violent crime. Winter here...well, it SUCKS! LOL. It starts snowing in November/December and you will not see the grass until the first week of March, it stays forever. Make sure your snowblower has fresh gas and starts everytime because you will need it even on a down snow year. We frequently have 1 or sometimes even 2 weeks of negative temperatures in a winter, the low temperatures keep the snow from ever melting. If you like to ski, lots of great skiing around Spokane, 3 good ski areas to the north and east about 1 hour away with more in Canada. I am sure snow shoeing and snowmobiling are excellent. There are deer everywhere, you just need a place to hunt them where it's not crowded and good hunting extends all the way to Canada. Traffic here continues to get worse just because the city is growing and there is no North/South freeway so take that into account when choosing where to live and where to work.
All in all, the winter has won, the homeless have won, the drug addicts have won.....I'm out, this is still a nice place compared to Seattle and Los Angeles, I am sure.
jason | Spokane, WA