Dreary, Friendly, Wet
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9/23/2018
We have lived here one year and are moving out.
LOCATION, SIZE: The City of Snoqualmie about 30 minutes with traffic from Bellevue and an hour from Seattle during rush hour. It can take 15 minutes just to get on the freeway.
Although the Snoqualmie Valley has a population of 52,678 the city itself is only 13,650 and that is really two different communities - 80% of the population now lives in Snoqualmie Ridge, a master planned community that was started in 1998 and was just finished this year and the rest in the older part of the town.
As a result, the HOA as a result has more sway than the mayor or local city council, and they put on a few events every year but they are slow to respond (it takes a month to get "approval" for a standard fence) and their communication/web site is from the 90's.
DEMOGRAPHICS: (Data from entire Snoqualmie Valley School District) Slightly less than half of the households have kids and are highly educated 38% have bachelors and 18% have advanced degrees and the median income is $91,524
SCHOOLS: The school system is one of the best in the state and they are building a new high school but only 24% of the kids take AP classes(other local suburbs it is 40% to 80%). The Junior HS is 20 minutes away by bus and the younger grades the kids are forced to use portables. Like many semi-rural district it is not very diverse but increasing numbers of the students come from 1st generation immigrant families who work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. 50% of the developers in Seattle are from overseas (85% from India)here on temporary visas from India) and the wives stay at home but there is less parental involvement than usual.
HEALTH/Climate: Snoqualmie is set in the foothills of the Cascades and gorgeous but this is the deal breaker - it gets 94 inches of rain a year (triple that of Seattle) and the Snoqualmie Valley has higher rates of depression and suicide. There are local programs for the homeless and at risk teens but a need for more local activities.
James | Snoqualmie, WA