Our diet back in Texas was made up of a lot of Latin flavors, especially Tex-Mex. Here, Mexican food is a little harder to come by, but we've gotten around to a few places. Lesley's parents are visiting us soon and are interested in trying Mexican food, so we're trying to figure out where to take them. Here are the places Lesley and I have tried that serve food from Spanish-speaking countries, ordered basically from our favorite to least favorite:

• Paseo - Caribbean sandwich shop that was worth the 45 minute wait. The last time I went, I had possibly the second best sandwich in my life, having had the best one on my previous visit.


• La Carta de Oaxaca - Mexican food that was at one time my favorite restaurant in Seattle. No longer impresses me, but serves good food with the flavors of southern Mexico.


• La Isla - Puerto Rican food. Like most places to eat in Seattle, it's not a bargain. Still it has good food.


• Cactus - Northwest-inspired Tex-Mex style food, with dishes like butternut squash enchiladas. I wasn't particularly impressed, but the food was pretty good and I would try it again.


• Mexico - Lesley has been here and says it's "decent, but kind of overpriced, and the service is kind of slow." That describes pretty much every other place on the list, but Mexico's claim to fame is that they give you free chips and salsa. In Texas, that's normal. In Seattle, that's remarkable.


• El Mestizo - We walked here a few weeks ago. We weren't thrilled with Lesley's mole enchiladas, but that's probably because neither of us is a big fan of mole. The service was slow, but I thought the food had pretty good flavor and would probably give it another try.


• Taqueria El Rinconsito - Outside the city limits where more people of Mexican and Central American origin live. An inexpensive fast-food style place that serves dishes covered with cheese and, unlike everything else on this list, accompanied them with fried rice and refried pinto beans on the side, something that is the standard of Tex-Mex. I liked it and would go back.


• Dos Amigos - Lesley went there once and doesn't remember being impressed. It's similar to Rosa's Cafe in DFW, so fairly inexpensive and nothing too special.


• Agua Verde - One of the first Mexican places I tried in Seattle on the lake near UW. Perhaps I went in with unfair expectations, but their margaritas were too lime-flavored and the food was mediocre. Next time I'll skip the food and just rent a kayak, which is what they're better known for.

Anyway, we hope to try a few more places over the next few weeks, but aren't expecting any of them to blow us away. Still, it's nice that we've found at least a few places we like.

We moved to Seattle largely for the walkable urban environment that is missing from our hometown of Fort Worth. So, I have been following with interest the study in Fort Worth to determine the feasibility of adding a streetcar line there.

We have a streetcar running in our neighborhood, which was controversial when it was installed. However, in the few years since it's been installed, ridership has grown significantly as has the neighborhood. Developers have responded to the streetcar investment Seattle made in this long-neglected area and the neighborhood surrounding the streetcar is the fastest growing part of the city. Like Portland's streetcar did, Seattle's streetcar has been a catalyst for the development of a good urban neighborhood.

Fort Worth has also neglected areas near its downtown and a streetcar there would have sparked private development toward creating a significant urban center city area - the studies so far had predicted millions of dollars in growth. However, Fort Worth's city council decided to stop the studies and abandon the streetcar project. Stopping the streetcar study points to a lack of vision on behalf of Fort Worth's leaders and established interests.

There has been some resistance in Seattle to the investments in Seattle's urban areas and public transportation, but Seattle has been successful at creating urban areas that people want to live in. Fort Worth hasn't and apparently doesn't care to. Consequently, the town of Fort Worth will see more people like myself who prefer walkable urban areas over drivable suburban areas leaving for cities like Seattle.

It's time for another election and that means more initiatives to vote on. Unlike Texas, any initiative can make the ballot if it receives enough signatures before the election.

So, in addition to the hotly-contested, high-profile race for state Senator and the low-profile and mostly uncontested races for various judge positions, there are several interesting initiatives that we can vote on.

One initiative would establish a state income tax for high-income individuals. Another two initiatives would both privatize liquor sales and remove some regulations (liquor is currently only sold in state-run stores). We can also vote to repeal taxes that were recently placed on sales of candy and soda.

Many of these initiatives are heavily supported by various industries, so we're seeing commercials in favor and opposed to many of these initiatives. It's nice to have the opportunity to vote on fairly significant potential changes to state laws, though it can be challenging to make the right decision.

I was shocked when I heard this fact the other day, but I've lived here long enough that I shouldn't have been surprised at all. I definitely see dogs more often than children. In fact, I hardly ever see children, unless they're tourists. Of course there are more children in the lower density neighborhoods than there are where we live near downtown, but the fact that there are so many more dogs is still interesting.

Seattle is a very dog-friendly city, as this article elaborates on. The article also includes these facts:

There are about 125,000 dogs in Seattle, going by both the Seattle Animal Shelter's estimate and an independent analysis by The Seattle Times. In the 2000 census, there were fewer than 90,000 children in Seattle.

People here are definitely more into dogs than in other areas. It seems like almost everyone at Lesley's office has at least one dog. This article makes the point that people in progressive/liberal areas have children at lower rates than in more conservative areas, so that is a factor as well.

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting enough to be passed along.

"Carbon footprint" is a phrase commonly heard around here as people here often consider impacts to the Earth and the environment when making decisions. So, that's why it was not surprising that the church we go to recently had a sermon series on environmental stewardship.

In my time attending church in Texas, I don't remember the environment being mentioned. The difference is probably not in theology but in how culture affects what aspects of theology are emphasized. The environment is an important issue here, so God's call for Christians to be good stewards of the Earth may seem more relevant to people here than in Texas, where, for example, it can still be controversial to allude to global warming.

Our church encouraged congregants to take alternate forms of transportation to church (carpooling, walking, taking the bus, etc.) and many people participated. Anyway, it's just kind of interesting.

Note: This post follows Will we ever move back to TX?

As I mentioned previously, I don’t know if we’ll ever move back to Texas. We do have family in TX, so that's an important consideration, but it just doesn't seem that anywhere in TX could offer a comparable lifestyle of driving very little, walking a lot in the city, and hiking in nature.

But, who knows what the coming years will bring. If we were to move back, it would likely be to Dallas or Austin. While there are some nice things about living in Texas, there are several factors that currently make us wonder if we could be as happy in TX as we are here:

• The weather would keep us indoors - Weather in TX is much more extreme than in Seattle, especially in summer. While the wet weather here discourages us from hiking sometimes, it usually doesn't keep us inside. In TX, we'd have to forget about the Saturday afternoon summer hikes that we love. And actually, just forget about doing anything outdoors comfortably on a summer afternoon.


• 
  We'd have to drive more - We drive our one car 6,000 miles annually and don't have to drive to work or to many places we often go to. We might be able to overcome this if we lived in downtown of a Texas city and could walk or take a bus to work, but no urban area I'm aware of competes with the shopping and dining available in downtown Seattle and the nearby neighborhoods that we can walk or bus to.


• 
  We wouldn't be able to enjoy walking as much - While downtown areas in TX are walkable, they're more often surrounded by freeways and large arterials with limited places to cross. Sidewalks are often narrow and the buildings ignore the streetscape leaving nothing to look at but strips of grass and limestone walls. And, most areas outside of downtown areas just aren't really designed for walking unless you want to walk along a busy arterial road and walk across acres of parking lots to go into any retail store.
  
  While Seattle does not compare to world-class pedestrian cities like Melbourne or San Francisco, it's still a good place to walk. The signalling and siewalks are adequate and we can get around in most areas comfortably on foot.
  
  I'd be concerned about being limited in a Texas city to only having parts of downtown and small areas in a couple other parts of town that would be enjoyable to walk through. I don't want to have to go to a strip mall just to be able to walk somewhere other than a residential neighborhood or busy arterial street.


• There's less to do outdoors - There are fewer parks in Texas cities than here and much fewer places we could hike outside the city. While I'm sure there are some state parks and other areas in TX that we're not aware of, there are just so many excellent outdoor options within 60 miles of us right now.


• The natural beauty does not compare - It's not Texas' fault that the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful. Texas has its own, more subtle type of beauty, but it can't compete with the forest, mountains, and water near Seattle.


• 
  We don't want to see the air we breathe - Seattle's air isn't always pristine, especially on hot summer days, but the smog in Texas is considerably worse. I just don't like being able to see what I breathe.


• There's less to do nearby - While Seattle looks like one of the more isolated cities in the county on a map, there are actually lots of things to do nearby. Outdoor destinations like the three National Parks nearby, the Oregon coastline, and islands in Puget Sound are in a different league from attractions like Enchanted Rock and Inner Space Caverns in TX. And San Antonio and Houston just can't compete with the Northwest cities of Vancouver and Portland.


• 
  We'd have to readjust to the culture - An area's culture affects everything from what is eaten to what is said to whether car dealerships have 8 state flags and only 1 national flag. A culture is hard to explain, but is better understood through experiencing the myriad ways in which a culture is expressed in its environment. So, since it's hard to get into specifics without thoroughly explaining and potentially misrepresenting the respective cultures, I'll just say that the culture here fits us better.

As time goes on, our perceptions, preferences, and priorities will evolve, but right now these issues are all relevant to how we want to live our lives and they discourage us from wanting to move back to Texas.

I used to check the weather forecast often and used it to set my expectations for what the weather would be like. However, the forecast has been wrong so many times in Seattle that I've learned not to pay much attention to it anymore.

While the forecast in TX was often not accurate more than a few days ahead, sometimes the forecast for Seattle isn't accurate for the next day. Too many times I've been expecting nice weather and then have been disappointed with a day of rain.

The weather patterns here are complicated and are affected by the water and the mountains. Often there is a big difference in the weather between where we live and 20 miles in any direction.

So, because of all that, I think I'll be better off not paying too much attention to the weather forecast.

I read this morning that a 104-year-old church building in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff will likely be demolished so that a school can be built on the site. I suppose I've been living in Seattle for too long because I found this pretty shocking.

But now that I look back through the news at the recent history of preservation in Dallas, I remember how poorly the city and community treat historic buildings. A couple years ago, an 85-year-old East Dallas YWCA building was demolished. And last year, preservationists were shocked as a 1950s office building was demolished without warning.

Yeah, now I remember, this is how Dallas does things - it's in the name of progress.

One of the problems in Dallas is that the inner-city has been so neglected that anything seems better than abandoned buildings. But when you demolish a historic building, you destroy history, which is something that you can't get back, and one of the attractions that can help to revive and enliven the inner-city. That's not progress.

By contrast, Seattle recognizes that history and progress aren't polar opposites. New buildings stand side-by-side with re-purposed old buildings and the contrast adds further to creating an interesting and livable city, moving towards the future but respectful towards the past.

Heck, in Seattle, preservationists got landmark status for a former Denny's restaurant. The building was eventually demolished, but it came very close to preservation and was a top news story, showing the importance of preservation here.

Unfortunately, Dallas doesn't yet seem to know how to make progress while preserving history and in the process fails at both.

As probably most people know, Starbucks was founded in Seattle in 1971. According to Wikipedia:

Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 16,120 stores in 49 countries, including around 11,000 in the United States, followed by nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan. From 1971–1976, the first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue; it then was relocated to 1912 Pike Place (in the Market), where it remains to this day.

I see at least 20 different Starbucks locations in any given week. So I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how many are close to where we live.

I searched the Starbucks website and found that there are 103 Starbucks within 5 miles of where we live and only 4 within 5 miles of where my parents live in Fort Worth, which I thought was crazy.

We have 61 stores within 2 miles of where we live, but my parents have none that close, which is almost even more impressive.

We actually don't go to Starbucks that often. Lately the only reason we've been going is because I got a gift card for Christmas, which I've been using to get "Awake" tea.

We used to eat Mrs. Baird's bread when we lived in Texas, but they don't have that in Seattle. So we've tried several kinds of bread here, including the generic Safeway and QFC brands, neither of which stay fresh for very long and don't taste that great. Then we decided to try a local brand, Franz. We won't be going back to any other kind of bread, because the Franz bread we've had has been so delicious! We've tried the potato bread and the milk and honey bread and both are really soft and moist and stay fresh longer. They're smaller loaves than the generic brands, but it's definitely worth the extra few cents. And lately we've found it on sale for $2 a loaf! I'd have to say that Franz bread is better than Mrs. Baird's.

I don't know if we've ever posted about how unusual the names of places are here. Cities and towns in this area are named with Native American words and it's often not clear how to pronounce them. This is common in a lot of places, but the pronunciation of these names just seems more difficult to interpret. For a sampling, here's a list of nearby place names:

• Yakima


• Poulsbo


• Puyallup


• Tukwila


• Mukilteo


• Snohomish


• Enumclaw


• Snoqualmie


• Cle Elum


• Sequim


• Wenatchee


• Alki


• Skykomish


• Fife


• Stillaguamish (River)

As the housing industry continues its economic slump, house builders are finding that smaller homes are selling well in some markets. In fact, after significant increases in the average size of a new home, the average home size fell last year for the first time since 1994. These smaller homes are especially popular in Seattle as well as in Portland.

I've noticed that houses in general here seem to be smaller on average than those in Texas. Also, upscale neighborhoods here have lots of nice homes, but fewer and smaller McMansions. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I'd speculate that since Seattle is a more dense urban area than many others nationwide, people here are used to things being more compact and build homes more appropriate for a city than for a ranch. It seems to be a cultural thing, and I get the sense that many people think of larger homes and McMansions as being tacky, whereas I rarely got that sense when I lived in Texas. And, while I'm speculating, I'll speculate that a higher cost of here makes smaller homes more attractive, too.

Anyway, I always find it interesting when Seattle is mentioned for being different from other parts of the country, and thought I'd offer my comments on smaller houses being popular here.

With suburban sprawl reaching into the foothills of the Cascade mountains, the previously natural habitat for black bears has been taken over by roads, houses, and people.

In 2008, state wildlife officials fielded 881 calls about bear sightings in King County alone, and sent officers out on 260 calls. That's up from the year before, when officers received 679 sightings and responded to 202 bear calls.

This article in the Times talks about how a service dog is being used to chase these black bears away in their quest for food so that they learn to stay away from populated areas.

One of the most common internet searches that brings people to our blog is "how expensive is it to live in Seattle?" We've talked about this before, but figured we could do some deeper analysis than what we've offered before.

The short answer to the question is: go to Sperling's BestPlaces Cost Of Living Comparison, enter your current salary, and compare your current city to Seattle to see how much your salary would need to increase to maintain the same lifestyle. Overall, the cost of living in Seattle is 32% more than the national average. We've found the difference to be less, but we've also made adjustments in our lifestyle to minimize the higher cost of living here. Keep reading for a more detailed analysis of how expensive it is to live here.

Job Market

The first thing many people interested in moving here would want to know is how the economy is doing. Seattle has a strong, diverse economy, compared to the national average, with major area employers including Boeing, Port of Seattle, Alaska Airlines, and Microsoft. The unemployment rate in Seattle was 6.3% in December 2008, compared to the national unemployment rate of 7.2%. Seattle is one of the most-educated cities in the US, with industries including aerospace, computer science, and biotechnology.

Housing

The median home price in Seattle is $591,000, which is 172% higher than the national average of $217,200. Trulia has a real estate overview of the city. As a compliment to the city, some people would say you get what you pay for. Seattle hasn't been hit as hard by the housing bubble as other cities, though home prices have still fallen some. Speaking from experience, the high cost for renting here impacted us more than any other increased expense. Also, based on my observations, while houses here are more expensive than in other places, they're also more modestly sized on smaller lots.

Also, from what I've observed, most condos start at around $300,000, though some start in the mid $200,000s. Also, apartments in the inner city without income restrictions start at around $1,000/month + parking costs. I'm sure rates start lower farther from the center of the city. To get a better idea of what you'd have to pay for housing, you'd have to do a more specific search.

Food

Food here costs 11% more than the national average. There is also more tasty, local produce here than in many other parts of the country. Still, since we've moved here, we've been paying a lot more for groceries than we did in Texas, partially because they're more expensive here and partially because we've been buying more groceries instead of eating out because eating out costs more here too. As we mention here, there just aren't as many places to eat for cheap, and it seems like the places here that are labeled as "$" cost as much as the places labeled as "$$" in Dallas/Fort Worth.

Utilities

The WhiteFence Index has details on utility costs in 21 major cities and the costs for utilities in Seattle are below the median of these cities. It estimates an average utilities bill of $274 and even breaks down costs by categories - phone, electricity, natural gas, etc.

From an anecdotal perspective, electricity costs here are lower than what we paid in Texas. We're paying a quarter of what we were paying in Texas per kilowatt and we're actually paying much less than that - like $10/month - because we don't have to run air conditioning (in fact, we don't have it). However, water costs are higher at about 35 hundredths of a cent per gallon. The two of us pay around $65 per month for water. Cable TV seems to cost more here, too, with basic cable costing $55/month through Comcast. We pay about $40/month for DSL internet, which also seems like a lot. Of course different companies offer different levels of service so utility costs will vary.

Transportation/gasoline

The price for gasoline in Seattle tends to be about 10% above the national average with gas prices in the area being among the higher gas prices in the nation. However, due to higher density than many cities and a well-used public transportation system, I would estimate that people in Seattle drive less than people in many other cities, so the monthly cost of gas here is possibly lower on average than in other parts of the country.

Taxes

Different places assess different taxes in different ways, but overall I'd say the tax burden here doesn't seem too bad, since Washington is one of the seven states that doesn't have personal income tax. Sales tax in Seattle is a bit high, ranging from 9% - 9.5%. Property Tax $10.17 per $1,000 of home value, which is 23% below the US average of $13.28 per $1,000 of home value. Overall, taxes here don't seem bad to me.

Summary

There is no single answer to the question "How expensive is it to live in Seattle?" because expenses are different for everyone. Many things do cost more in Seattle than in other parts of the country, but how much more depends on you and the choices you make. The higher cost for housing will be the most immediately noticeable for many people, but other things like food and gas cost more as well. To get a better idea of what it would cost for you to live here, you might want to start by looking for a home you might want and see how much it costs. For us, the cost increases were minimized because moving to Seattle allowed us to make lifestyle changes (selling a car and driving less) to save money. If anyone has any more questions, we'd be happy to answer in the comments or by email.

After living here for a full year, I know what I like and what I don't like about living in Seattle. Fortunately, I like what I like a lot more than I dislike what I dislike. Here are the three things I like most about living here, in order:

1. 
   Livable Urbanity - There are shops and restaurants in our neighborhood and we live close to other lively inner-city neighborhoods. There are plenty of shops, restaurants, and residences within walking distance, which means that there's plenty to see and do and other people out seeing and doing. A lot of other stuff is just a bus-ride away. There are many historic or otherwise interesting buildings nearby and a lot of public art, especially downtown. All of this contributes to making Seattle a walkable city. It has been great being able to walk to the park or to shop or see a movie and living here has convinced me that I would never choose to live in a car-dependent area again.


2. Outdoors - The natural beauty here is incredible. On clear days you can see mountains to the east and west, including the most prominent peak in North America. We have three national parks within a few hours' drive. The city is surrounded by plenty of hiking and other outdoor opportunities around mountains, streams, and old-growth forest and within the city are several big parks with plenty of walking/hiking trails.


3. Weather - Aside from winter, the weather here has been a great fit for me: I don't like hot weather and don't mind cool weather and rain. There are a lot of refreshingly cool days, which are great for going outside with a jacket. A few summer days were too hot, but the weather was mostly ideal with temperatures in the 70s and clear skies. There are very few days that are too inhospitable for me to want to spend time outside, with the exception of winter, which I discuss in greater detail below.

Here are the things I don't like, in order:

1. Not being able to watch Cowboys games - This was probably the single most annoying thing about living here over the past year. Some of the games were broadcast at 10:00, which is early and during church. Only about 1/3 of the games were broadcast locally, so for all the rest of the games we had to go to a sports bar. It got better as we got more used to it, but it still sucked not being able to watch the games in the comfort of home.


2. Winter - Working indoors all day without windows, with the sun rising around 8 and setting around 4:30, was tough. The sun came out, but I didn't get to see it much. On top of that, snowfall and ice shut down the city for several days (which is somewhat rare, I'm told) and almost canceled our flight to Texas for Christmas. I'd say the nice summer makes up for the uncomfortable winter, which is why I'm really looking forward to the end of winter.


3. Roads and how people drive on them - The thing that first greeted us when we arrived in Washington was the rough sound of the highways followed shortly by clumps of slow drivers, predominantly in the left lane. The roads in the city are worse, with potholes practically everywhere, fortunately the drivers aren't as obnoxious as on the freeway. Traffic is supposedly bad here, too, but I'm affected by traffic much less than I was when I lived in Dallas. Good thing we don't drive much.

Overall, I'm happy to be living here. The livable urbanity and outdoors are two strong assets of the Pacific Northwest that are hard to find together elsewhere in the country and make up for the relatively insignificant complaints I have about living in Seattle.

Yeah, people really like espresso here.

There seems to be a lot more graffiti here than there was in Dallas/Fort Worth despite how much less run-down the inner city is here. I think the Metroplex has strict graffiti enforcement laws, however the laws here don't seem that lenient either. The city has a graffiti report form online that people can use to notify the city so that property owners can be notified. Graffiti doesn't bother me much, but it can make an area seem unsafe or neglected and encourage even more vandalism, so it's good to get things cleaned up.

We were walking through the mall this weekend for the first time in a while. I saw a stand with bus route information in the middle of the mall, which I thought seemed a little strange for a suburban mall. I wouldn't expect to see that kind of thing in Texas.

One of the small differences I've noticed here is that all the milk jugs come with a cap that screws on instead of a cap that pops on. The pop-on style cap was the common kind of lid in Texas and the kind I prefer. It seems that there are more problems with this screw-on lid, including spills when pouring, and it also seems that more milk dries around the edge and sometimes falls off. I remember as a kid having some problems with the pop-top lid, but I think it's a better design overall and I miss it.

Washington is one of the states with its own minimum wage that's higher than the federal minimum wage - $2 higher, in fact, with the latest increase to $8.55/hour. It took me a while to find out that we have a state minimum wage here, but it probably contributes somewhat to the higher cost of living here. There are plenty of arguments for and against a minimum wage this high and I don't really want to get into all that, I just wanted to mention it, since there's not a state minimum wage in Texas.