For those of you who don’t know me IRL, I moved to the Seattle metro area last August from Chicago, after living in the Second City for 11 years. I moved to the Chi from the Northeastern Illinois suburbs for college in 2012, and there I stayed for my entire twenties.1 My little family has settled in Renton, a city south of Seattle (still adjusting to having the major city be north of where I live). While the energy is certainly not a carbon copy of Seattle, the culture of the city carries over.
I won’t get into the reasons for our move — indeed, having to do so repeatedly since initiating it has been both annoying and stressful — but I feel it’s more interesting to compare Seattle to Chicago. Not in the obvious ways, like in city size or population density — I’ve been more fascinated by the quirkier differences Seattle has to offer. The people, places, personal expression, and vibe is all novel to me.
Let me show you the ropes.
Posters are everywhere
Way more than Chicago, all areas of the city are draped with posters for various upcoming events. Entire walls adjacent to sidewalks, telephone poles, and newspaper vending boxes display an array of advertisements for shows on any given day. Telephone poles specifically seem to most often have a collage of different posters, while the other areas have repeating signage for a single event. Seattle is very invested in its arts scene, and local venues seem to take more of a grassroots approach to advertising themselves. You more often hear about things happening here from signage somewhere, or even on the radio.
Outside of the city, even the surrounding towns embrace the idea of personal advertisement. At one of my local grocery stores, there’s a community bulletin board where people can hang ads for their services, business cards, or local social groups and events.
People dress strictly for the vibes
Whereas in Chicago you’ll see a white guy dressed in shorts and a t-shirt the second it hits 40 degrees, in Seattle you will see someone dressed in a beanie, long sleeves, and sweatpants when it’s 80 degrees out. This was how the maintenance man for our apartment community was dressed when we met him last summer, a week or two shy of a literal heat wave.
I was raised by parents who told me repeatedly to always “dress for the weather.” You check the temperature outside, and then you dress accordingly. Not here! No matter the season or daily temperature, people out here wear whatever the hell they want. I suspect this has to do with the historically consistent temperatures throughout the year; it is 50-65 degrees and cloudy/rainy for a majority of the year. But, with climate change, the city is experiencing extreme heat and cold not previously seen. Last winter, when temps hit uncharacteristically low numbers (teens and single digits), people bundled up to comic levels because they weren’t used to such cold. My husband and I laughed at their thin skin.
Sooo much car customization
Perhaps the most striking thing I’ve noticed since moving here is how seriously people take the customization of their vehicles. Everyone here has a license plate frame. My theory is that they deter license plate theft— I had one of my plates stolen the same week I got them and had to get new ones. Or, it could just be that people here love to express themselves through car adornments.
I’ve seen Seattle Seahawks stickers placed to mimic the eyes on the mascot in the rear window, as well as entire cars decked out in Seahawks colors and logos. There are so many stickers on everyone’s passenger and rear windows, showing pride for everything from animes to roller derby leagues. I even saw what I can only describe as an earring-like chain hanging from the bumper of someone’s car, a pink heart that dangled so close to the ground I wondered how it hadn’t fallen off yet.
For people who are stereotypically introverted, they seem to want to express their personalities in subtler ways. I already have my future bumper stickers picked out.
Car theft is real
I know, you reading this are thinking “People steal from cars in every city. You’re not special.” And to that I say, you have not lived on the West Coast.
You may have heard how in certain places in California (the Bay Area, in particular) that you should never leave ANY valuables in your car, lest you’d like them to be gone when you return. Well, the same attitude is encouraged here. I was one of many residents in my apartment community to have their plate stolen as mentioned above, and our property manager has alerted us to car theft in the area more than once since we’ve been here.
If you go to a park or zoo, there are signs in the parking lot telling you to take valuables out of your car and to remove liability from the premises if your shit is stolen. The signs say “High Car Prowl Area.” People be stealing!
So. Many. Teslas.
Last car observation I swear. There are soooo many Teslas out here. It’s sickening. The PNW and Silicon Valley are the tech-bro capital of the U.S., so the fact isn’t surprising, but it still gives me the ick! I saw my first Cybertruck in the wild living out here, and the experience was as upsetting as you would think!!
Other popular car makes are Jeep, Subaru, Honda, and Toyota. There’s also this one make called Rivian which I’d never seen in Illinois — people out here like big and/or boxy cars like that. Obnoxiously big pick-up trucks roam free. Hummers are alive and well!!
The power goes out way more
I haven’t quite figured this one out yet, but once or twice a season the power goes out here. In Chicago/Evanston, power outages happened maybe once or twice a year. Is it weather-related? Shitty power grids? My specific area? I’ll continue to investigate.
Air conditioning is not a thing
I mentioned before that Seattle weather has historically been pretty consistent, and that has contributed to how apartment buildings are made. Air conditioning is not a standard amenity for rental units. In fact, you’re less likely to find any rental property that has it rather than doesn’t. We’re similar to London in that way — mostly gray, cool, and wet. When we are in those gloomier months of the year, you obviously don’t need A/C; but with temperatures getting more brutal every summer, being inside is pretty intolerable. This is something I hope changes in the coming years, but for now, fans will have to do.
It is nice, however, that temperatures usually drop to the 60s at night, so the indoor heat is only bad during the late afternoon and evening hours.
New grocery stores
We had to decode the different chain grocery stores out here, and find the generic brands we were used to back in Illinois. Here are some of the major grocery chains in Washington and their Illinois/other state equivalents.
Fred Meyer = Kroger (we shopped at Food 4 Less in Evanston, which is also Kroger brand). But! They also sell a considerable amount of clothes, housewares, and jewelry, so it’s kind of like a Walmart, too.
Safeway = Jewel Osco
QFC2 = closest you’ll get to Whole Foods, which are surprisingly scarce out here
Total Wine and Spirits = Binny’s
We’ve not yet shopped at an Albertsons, but that’s another big chain out West.
Dogs are BIG out here
Yes, more than in the city you live in.
People love dogs everywhere. Very much in Chicago. Out here though? WOOF.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had to swipe left on Bumble BFF because they had their dog in their profile picture and included their dog as part of their social aspirations. People here expect everywhere to be dog-friendly. Some are even sinister with their expectation and falsely present their companions as service dogs.
My husband once received a negative review for his restaurant because a customer believed she was discriminated (her words!!) against for being told her dog could no longer come into the restaurant with her. This is because previously, management had been lax about allowing all dogs into the restaurant regardless of if they were service animals or not. Upper management finally decided to enforce stricter rules about service animals having paperwork to be allowed inside, and when this was explained to the customer, she put up a stink and left a whiny negative review online about the interaction.
Needless to say, that’s just a taste of how seriously people take canine culture in the PNW.
Transplants are everywhere
Despite the stereotype of the “Seattle Freeze” and icy locals, most people in the Seattle area are not from here. It has become a transient city, with most people coming here for career aspirations and then settling elsewhere, be it far out of the city or another state entirely. I can attest that one reason we moved here was to advance my writing aspirations, as well as eventual studies in birthwork.
What’s weirder, though, is just how many people are here from the Chicagoland area specifically. In my office, I’ve overheard people chatting about their hometowns in Illinois and the joys of Cubs and Brewers games. My husband hired someone at his restaurant that had moved from Chicago not too long after we had. The cat sitter we hired for our trip back home is from a Chicago suburb — and was sure to mention to us how delighted she was to interact with fellow straight-talking Illinoisans. Apparently, people here are more passive aggressive and timid about their emotions, though we have yet to experience this firsthand.
It is somewhat comforting to know that I’m not alone in my instincts to move here, and that there are others who grew up where I did that also found themselves in the PNW. Which brings me to my last point…
Black folks are out here!
We, as well as you reading this I’m sure, have heard forever that the PNW is notoriously white. And it is, but we are continuously shocked to see a not-insignificant number of Black people in places we frequent. We chose Renton to live particularly for its larger Black population, and we feel affirmed in our choice. We see Black folks at the grocery store, the farmers market, at parks, and at zoos. Obviously as the big city, there is a sizeable population of Black people in Seattle.
I’ve also discovered Black burlesque artists, athletes, majorette, and drill teams throughout my year here. I’ve also learned that there’s a considerable African population here. So far I’ve only heard of Ethiopian and Somali peoples as the largest communities, but I’m sure there is more diversity. We hope to get out and meet some of our folks as time goes on. I’m very interested to see what the 2030 Census reveals about the population of certain cities, because in my eyes, the Seattle area is not nearly as white as people project it to be from the outside.
I hope you enjoyed this lil’ piece of investigative journalism ;) I’ve been on vacation this week, but I still wanted to give you all a newsletter. Feel free to drop a comment on anything you’d love me to discuss in the next one!
Here is where I will be more specific and say that I moved to Evanston, a hybrid city/suburb right outside of Chicago, in 2018. But it was basically Chicago. For those familiar with Chicago geography, I could walk to the Red Line Howard stop from my place. The Evanston-Chicago border was about a 2-minute walk from our apartment. Which made it exceedingly annoying when we could not vote in Chicago elections, but I digress.
It took us a while to actually figure out what QFC stood for, and were disappointed upon learning it wasn’t Queen’s Fried Chicken :/