So many Negative Comments about Spokane. There is no super Crime problem. There is no SUPER drug problem. The is a Homeless issue. That's about it. Most these People who are haters have never lived in a major city to see what actually plagues a city when it comes to crime or drugs. Move to El Paso, TX or Jacksonville FL then tell me this place has a issue.
This is not what the city of Spokane looks like. This is what a 3 to 4 mile area of Spokane looks like. Spokane is huge. This is the downtown shopping area. This is not what your housing or play areas look like. The locations in this video are for commercial use except for a few shoebox apartment buildings and a park that's fantastic but much smaller than the locals seem to think it is.
Ewww I am thankful I left that dirty city and moved out.This city is so dirty and filled with crazy psychotic people. I feel bad for the people who are stuck in this town. If you were smart get out while you still have a chance too.
This is a tourist video. Wow...look at the growth (the piles of dirt where they're probably clearing land for Kendall Yards, (a place that hardly any of the residents can afford), the beautiful scenery, the river, Riverfront Park, the sunset, etc.. Now show them the real Spokane.....Wow! Look at the needles on the streets AND in Riverfront Park, look at the boarded up houses up and down Maple (and other main arterials in the city), look at the many poor souls that have no homes and are wandering the streets, wow! feel the prevalent bigotry that has always been part of Spokane and refuses to go away. Yes...I hear those of you who say if you don't like leave. Believe me I am. I grew up here. Complacency by the citizens and bigotry is what made it the mess it's turning in to.
I sure don't miss this city. Lived there from 1981 till 2012. Have no desire to go back and do not encourage anyone to move there. Yeah it's pretty, but not all year long. There are many other places to live that offer a better quality of life than Spokane. But that's just my opinion.
Justin Carter where? Aside from Olympia/Seattle abusing my rights, the crime, fire season, winter, plethora of assclowns, it's not to bad. I've definitely lived in much worse. Starting to get a bit to expensive for my taste I'll give you that one!
My wife and I both grew up in Spokane.... We both still love it...and yes, in some ways it is still a House of Ghosts. If we knew then what we know now... we never would have left.
I live in So California now (I've been around the country with the military) and plan to move to Spokane. I've heard mixed reviews in my information gathering. In house buying, what areas should I avoid? I am going up there "blind" in a sense, except for websites and reviews. How is the job market? I have a Bachelor's in business but a resume that makes it look like I job-hopped. Long story short, the job market here is FAR from stellar. The best way to describe it would be: the job you want you can't get and the job you get you don't want. On the surface, Spokane has everything we need. Amusement parks and stuff to do, nature stuff, cold and warm weather activities, and so forth. How much is not an ad and how much is true? Thanks a bunch.
Jobs: It is on the border of one of the lowest wage states in the union. Companies can move less than 20 miles to make more profit and the local talent coming out of our universities is pretty much the only thing stopping them. Couple this with the corporate American love of outsourcing and make your decision on who to work for from there. Homes: Most realtors have very high ratings from buyers in our area. Most property management companies have low ratings from renters.You will run into a lot of bait and switch either way. Persistence will help. BS detection meter will also help. Commute west and traffic is stupid with one-ways and commercial vehicles. Commute east and you have Idaho. Idaho has lower standards or umm... "more freedom" (It's like a tinier, less-vain Texas.) Many people advise to live in Idaho and work in Spokane so that you get the best of both. Those people lack pride. Safety: Police don't respond quickly and don't really care about property crime. 911 operators will argue with you when you report a crime. It seems like there's a police corruption or brutality issue every quarter or so since the recession. Like 7 years now. Most of the criminal element in the area is in northern Spokane. Listen to the conversations in public places/ cheap restaurants there. Probation and parole are hot topics. Most people I talk to have been victims of theft, assault or property damage (vandalism ) or their local family has. I've only been burglarized once and had the gas siphoned from my car a couple times. Once, someone broke into my car just for some wet-wipes. If you lock your keys in your car at a store, you can pay wandering dirtbags to break into it for you. So that's nice. Food: Not the best place to eat out for the budget gourmet, not the worst for shopping. Restaurants are mostly inflating prices with trend and atmosphere but people here rarely feel special and they do a good job of making that happen. If you don't like to feel special it's just annoying. There are a few - around twenty- very nice places to eat quality food but most of your fare will be good food, good sanitation, low ingredient count and low variety. Homogenous. For grocery stores, the higher the quality the worse the parking / location. Fun: If you haven't been spoiled by rainforests south, west and north of Spokane or by the majestic glacial landscapes to the east, then you would love the wildlife in the area. Imagine the drive from PA to NY state when the forest disappears and you make that blech face. Imagine a colder Northern Utah with less ants. Someone from Kentucky would likely be impressed by the nature here.It is both sparse and abundant, you'll see what I mean. Go 1-6 hours in any direction if you wanna get rustic. Spokane has lots of things for kids to do. Like the grocery stores, the more fun you're going to have the worse the parking situation. Kids don't care about parking though and neither will you when you're shooting lazers, running obstacle courses or sliding down a water slide. Overall, living here has been little. It's not a melting pot at all. It's just a little bit of everything it tries to be. The core is mostly blah but you can find little treasures. I was used to big places and planned to leave here the minute it became more advantageous to leave...15 years later and it's grown on me a little bit...
boiledwine Thanks. Mostly, I can't be in So Cal anymore. I can't compete for jobs in a large metroplex like So Cal. Yeah, So Cal is one large city. Don't be fooled. You either live in LA, San Diego, or Orange County, or you commute there, for good jobs. I need a new beginning somewhere I can network and compete for a job, decent schools, decent living costs, and has a few things to do (Silverwood, wineries/ breweries, music, golf, etc). Everything decent to do down here is outrageously expensive or outrageously crowded or both. Therefore the Seattle area was a bust for us. Too expensive and competitive. No deserts of extremely hot/ cold areas (110 or -40) anymore. No Northeast, Southwest, Rust Belt, Bible Belt, Midwest, or South. I hear you about "red" state Idaho. We thought about Eugene (OR), Portland (OR), or Boulder (CO). Boulder and Portland are impacted with Masters degrees and Eugene was a wash.Spokane was the right sized city with stuff going on. Things may be bad now but I've seen some cool stuff out of the City Councils recently, aside from Fagan. Medical Lake seems like a possibility in a nice area there. Any feedback?
Greg Demetrulias Cheap rent in medical lake. It's a bit out of the way and small enough to get weird - which is to say; small enough for a single generation to change the atmosphere whenever there's a cultural shift of any kind there - just like any small town. There is a very clean casino (Northern Quest)and a good restaurant in Airway Heights -near Medical Lake- called the Seoul Kitchen -authentic Korean food like you could find in Seoul or K-Town along with some sugary teriyaki.It even looks like one, hard chairs and all. I don't gamble myself and the old people who live at the slots, smoking and hoping, make me a bit queasy but there are some good oldies music/ comedy acts there now and then. As far as opportunity, you will sometimes see plateaus every 2 - 5 years but then there are occasional explosions of opportunity. When the economy slows it tends to hit here later and leave here later, giving people a bit of a head start on planning. Still a hard stretch for some, by then end. I have seen people with masters working next to 18 year olds for high wage, high stress work as well as in low wage, low stress work. I imagine that's everywhere nowadays though with the surge in college enrollment during the recession. The air and water don't taste as bad/treated as So Cal. When you catch someone's eye when walking around, they will often give you one of those face-scrunchy greeting smiles instead of a more offensive defensive gesture. It's still the more peaceful, car-culture, west coast mindset here -it's just less openly liberal, slightly stark and with more libertarian layers. The same angel who will give you a break when you need one will look you in the face and tell you that people don't deserve a helping hand. They will do both sincerely. When I first moved here there were a lot of skinheads here. They set churches on fire, harassed brown-skinned people who seemed to have power in the community. It was shocking to see that in the pacific northwest and made me regretful of my relocation choice. It turned out to be kind of a trend. I even met both a Mexican and a Korean KKK member back then. The Bush wars seemed to change all that, somehow. I haven't seen a skinhead in Spokane/Spokane Valley in a dog's life and public racism is usually quashed firmly in bars/clubs and other social settings. I tell you this because there's still douchery you will notice coming out of the boonies with full window tints of confederate flags and things like that. For Idaho: there's a human rights museum in the flagship park over in Coeur d'alene. There's also occasionally white supremacists waving racist slogans in their yards in less than 10 minutes from there. Sometimes I wonder if the museum will outlast them - as I've never seen anyone enter it and the ones holding the signs are, after all, grade-school ages.
+Greg Demetrulias I just read your comment. So, did you end moving up there? I'm in the same situation ( I want to desperately leave Southern California) Same, I can't get a decent job because most of the jobs get taken from people relocating from other states. Please keep me posted. You would be a great help. Thank you in advance.
I have done really well. It depends on your standards of job however. If you hustle like you have to in Cali to keep your job you will do fairly well. The food is nowhere near the quality but it's not bad, like a B grade in math. The jobs aren't horrible and the real estate market is in an upswing now. Watch out where you move as areas can be bad. Not Compton bad but there are a decent amount of tweakers breaking into stuff. Again, depends on the area. South Spokane below 8th, above Francis, Hillyard (the area), avoid Sprague for a few blocks in each direction in the Valley, and you should be fine. Follow real estate pricing. Good luck.
Awesome! I know it is focused mainly on the core of the city and the outskirts (though vibrant themselves) aren't included...it really captures what so many of us hold dear in our hearts about Good. Old. Spoke-A-Loo! Love it!!
you missed the South Hill, Hangman valley, Peaceful valley, Mead, Hillyard, views of the mountain from different parts of town, and hell why not add the Spokane Valley. (yes the valley isn't part of Spokane)
+Michael Hubbard Columbus is too big ?? Im originally form Cincinnati but live in Houston now. I am trying to get an idea of where to move outside of this flat shithole and it's getting dirtier here in Houston. I take it that Spokane is fairly small...just what I'm looking for
johndohio What I meant was that compared to Spokane, Columbus is huge, as in over 2 million people, whereas Spokane's population is around 210,721,as of a few years ago. The thing I like about Spokane is that it is a fairly big city but it has a small town feel to it. It's easy to get around and there is a lot to do in and around Spokane. Also, the new zombie tv series "Z-Nation," is filmed there. Woohoo! lol.
The cost of living is considered cheaper in comparison to other cities. However, that's only if you can find a job that pays commensurate with the increasing rental rates and home prices. There aren't many. The vacancy rate for rentals is 1-2%. Be careful with your decision. Do your research and don't go off the "purdy" videos or the tourism ads.
Right on!
I've been here since 2012 from Huntington Beach, California.
It's friggin gnarly yet super cool.
I'm almost 53
Moving to Spokane...excited for the new experience and beautiful scenery.
ahronith What do you think of it now? Are you glad you moved there?
So many Negative Comments about Spokane. There is no super Crime problem. There is no SUPER drug problem. The is a Homeless issue. That's about it. Most these People who are haters have never lived in a major city to see what actually plagues a city when it comes to crime or drugs. Move to El Paso, TX or Jacksonville FL then tell me this place has a issue.
This is not what the city of Spokane looks like.
This is what a 3 to 4 mile area of Spokane looks like. Spokane is huge. This is the downtown shopping area. This is not what your housing or play areas look like. The locations in this video are for commercial use except for a few shoebox apartment buildings and a park that's fantastic but much smaller than the locals seem to think it is.
great tune House of Ghosts! I am writing a novel set in this city I have never seen, so this helps...thanks!
its a great place, but it can get boring here.
Ewww I am thankful I left that dirty city and moved out.This city is so dirty and filled with crazy psychotic people. I feel bad for the people who are stuck in this town. If you were smart get out while you still have a chance too.
This is a tourist video. Wow...look at the growth (the piles of dirt where they're probably clearing land for Kendall Yards, (a place that hardly any of the residents can afford), the beautiful scenery, the river, Riverfront Park, the sunset, etc.. Now show them the real Spokane.....Wow! Look at the needles on the streets AND in Riverfront Park, look at the boarded up houses up and down Maple (and other main arterials in the city), look at the many poor souls that have no homes and are wandering the streets, wow! feel the prevalent bigotry that has always been part of Spokane and refuses to go away. Yes...I hear those of you who say if you don't like leave. Believe me I am. I grew up here. Complacency by the citizens and bigotry is what made it the mess it's turning in to.
Spokane is a beautiful place
I sure don't miss this city. Lived there from 1981 till 2012. Have no desire to go back and do not encourage anyone to move there. Yeah it's pretty, but not all year long. There are many other places to live that offer a better quality of life than Spokane. But that's just my opinion.
Justin Carter where? Aside from Olympia/Seattle abusing my rights, the crime, fire season, winter, plethora of assclowns, it's not to bad. I've definitely lived in much worse. Starting to get a bit to expensive for my taste I'll give you that one!
My wife and I both grew up in Spokane.... We both still love it...and yes, in some ways it is still a House of Ghosts. If we knew then what we know now... we never would have left.
I live in So California now (I've been around the country with the military) and plan to move to Spokane. I've heard mixed reviews in my information gathering. In house buying, what areas should I avoid? I am going up there "blind" in a sense, except for websites and reviews. How is the job market? I have a Bachelor's in business but a resume that makes it look like I job-hopped. Long story short, the job market here is FAR from stellar. The best way to describe it would be: the job you want you can't get and the job you get you don't want. On the surface, Spokane has everything we need. Amusement parks and stuff to do, nature stuff, cold and warm weather activities, and so forth. How much is not an ad and how much is true? Thanks a bunch.
Jobs:
It is on the border of one of the lowest wage states in the union. Companies can move less than 20 miles to make more profit and the local talent coming out of our universities is pretty much the only thing stopping them. Couple this with the corporate American love of outsourcing and make your decision on who to work for from there.
Homes:
Most realtors have very high ratings from buyers in our area. Most property management companies have low ratings from renters.You will run into a lot of bait and switch either way. Persistence will help. BS detection meter will also help. Commute west and traffic is stupid with one-ways and commercial vehicles. Commute east and you have Idaho. Idaho has lower standards or umm... "more freedom" (It's like a tinier, less-vain Texas.)
Many people advise to live in Idaho and work in Spokane so that you get the best of both. Those people lack pride.
Safety:
Police don't respond quickly and don't really care about property crime. 911 operators will argue with you when you report a crime. It seems like there's a police corruption or brutality issue every quarter or so since the recession. Like 7 years now. Most of the criminal element in the area is in northern Spokane. Listen to the conversations in public places/ cheap restaurants there. Probation and parole are hot topics. Most people I talk to have been victims of theft, assault or property damage (vandalism ) or their local family has. I've only been burglarized once and had the gas siphoned from my car a couple times. Once, someone broke into my car just for some wet-wipes. If you lock your keys in your car at a store, you can pay wandering dirtbags to break into it for you. So that's nice.
Food:
Not the best place to eat out for the budget gourmet, not the worst for shopping. Restaurants are mostly inflating prices with trend and atmosphere but people here rarely feel special and they do a good job of making that happen. If you don't like to feel special it's just annoying. There are a few - around twenty- very nice places to eat quality food but most of your fare will be good food, good sanitation, low ingredient count and low variety. Homogenous. For grocery stores, the higher the quality the worse the parking / location.
Fun:
If you haven't been spoiled by rainforests south, west and north of Spokane or by the majestic glacial landscapes to the east, then you would love the wildlife in the area. Imagine the drive from PA to NY state when the forest disappears and you make that blech face. Imagine a colder Northern Utah with less ants. Someone from Kentucky would likely be impressed by the nature here.It is both sparse and abundant, you'll see what I mean. Go 1-6 hours in any direction if you wanna get rustic.
Spokane has lots of things for kids to do. Like the grocery stores, the more fun you're going to have the worse the parking situation. Kids don't care about parking though and neither will you when you're shooting lazers, running obstacle courses or sliding down a water slide.
Overall, living here has been little. It's not a melting pot at all. It's just a little bit of everything it tries to be. The core is mostly blah but you can find little treasures. I was used to big places and planned to leave here the minute it became more advantageous to leave...15 years later and it's grown on me a little bit...
boiledwine Thanks. Mostly, I can't be in So Cal anymore. I can't compete for jobs in a large metroplex like So Cal. Yeah, So Cal is one large city. Don't be fooled. You either live in LA, San Diego, or Orange County, or you commute there, for good jobs. I need a new beginning somewhere I can network and compete for a job, decent schools, decent living costs, and has a few things to do (Silverwood, wineries/ breweries, music, golf, etc). Everything decent to do down here is outrageously expensive or outrageously crowded or both. Therefore the Seattle area was a bust for us. Too expensive and competitive. No deserts of extremely hot/ cold areas (110 or -40) anymore. No Northeast, Southwest, Rust Belt, Bible Belt, Midwest, or South. I hear you about "red" state Idaho. We thought about Eugene (OR), Portland (OR), or Boulder (CO). Boulder and Portland are impacted with Masters degrees and Eugene was a wash.Spokane was the right sized city with stuff going on. Things may be bad now but I've seen some cool stuff out of the City Councils recently, aside from Fagan.
Medical Lake seems like a possibility in a nice area there. Any feedback?
Greg Demetrulias Cheap rent in medical lake. It's a bit out of the way and small enough to get weird - which is to say; small enough for a single generation to change the atmosphere whenever there's a cultural shift of any kind there - just like any small town. There is a very clean casino (Northern Quest)and a good restaurant in Airway Heights -near Medical Lake- called the Seoul Kitchen -authentic Korean food like you could find in Seoul or K-Town along with some sugary teriyaki.It even looks like one, hard chairs and all. I don't gamble myself and the old people who live at the slots, smoking and hoping, make me a bit queasy but there are some good oldies music/ comedy acts there now and then.
As far as opportunity, you will sometimes see plateaus every 2 - 5 years but then there are occasional explosions of opportunity. When the economy slows it tends to hit here later and leave here later, giving people a bit of a head start on planning. Still a hard stretch for some, by then end.
I have seen people with masters working next to 18 year olds for high wage, high stress work as well as in low wage, low stress work. I imagine that's everywhere nowadays though with the surge in college enrollment during the recession.
The air and water don't taste as bad/treated as So Cal. When you catch someone's eye when walking around, they will often give you one of those face-scrunchy greeting smiles instead of a more offensive defensive gesture. It's still the more peaceful, car-culture, west coast mindset here -it's just less openly liberal, slightly stark and with more libertarian layers.
The same angel who will give you a break when you need one will look you in the face and tell you that people don't deserve a helping hand. They will do both sincerely.
When I first moved here there were a lot of skinheads here. They set churches on fire, harassed brown-skinned people who seemed to have power in the community. It was shocking to see that in the pacific northwest and made me regretful of my relocation choice. It turned out to be kind of a trend. I even met both a Mexican and a Korean KKK member back then. The Bush wars seemed to change all that, somehow. I haven't seen a skinhead in Spokane/Spokane Valley in a dog's life and public racism is usually quashed firmly in bars/clubs and other social settings. I tell you this because there's still douchery you will notice coming out of the boonies with full window tints of confederate flags and things like that.
For Idaho: there's a human rights museum in the flagship park over in Coeur d'alene. There's also occasionally white supremacists waving racist slogans in their yards in less than 10 minutes from there. Sometimes I wonder if the museum will outlast them - as I've never seen anyone enter it and the ones holding the signs are, after all, grade-school ages.
+Greg Demetrulias I just read your comment. So, did you end moving up there? I'm in the same situation ( I want to desperately leave Southern California) Same, I can't get a decent job because most of the jobs get taken from people relocating from other states. Please keep me posted. You would be a great help. Thank you in advance.
I have done really well. It depends on your standards of job however. If you hustle like you have to in Cali to keep your job you will do fairly well. The food is nowhere near the quality but it's not bad, like a B grade in math. The jobs aren't horrible and the real estate market is in an upswing now. Watch out where you move as areas can be bad. Not Compton bad but there are a decent amount of tweakers breaking into stuff. Again, depends on the area. South Spokane below 8th, above Francis, Hillyard (the area), avoid Sprague for a few blocks in each direction in the Valley, and you should be fine. Follow real estate pricing. Good luck.
Awesome! I know it is focused mainly on the core of the city and the outskirts (though vibrant themselves) aren't included...it really captures what so many of us hold dear in our hearts about Good. Old. Spoke-A-Loo! Love it!!
don't forget to show the other 90% of the city! some is good. but most of its crack shacks or commercial business.....
kent kirkpatrick Spokane
Spokane
you missed the South Hill, Hangman valley, Peaceful valley, Mead, Hillyard, views of the mountain from different parts of town, and hell why not add the Spokane Valley. (yes the valley isn't part of Spokane)
Watch Ho Lan sings Spokane.
It is a dreary video! I'm not drawn by any of it! An I-90 stop off....
So you didn't even bother showing the beautiful South Hill? Especially Manito Park! Very poor representation of a rather large mid size city Inlander.
I'm from Spokane, but am now in Columbus, Ohio, and I am so wanting to move back! Spokane is a beautiful city and Columbus is just too big! Lol
+Michael Hubbard Columbus is too big ?? Im originally form Cincinnati but live in Houston now. I am trying to get an idea of where to move outside of this flat shithole and it's getting dirtier here in Houston. I take it that Spokane is fairly small...just what I'm looking for
johndohio What I meant was that compared to Spokane, Columbus is huge, as in over 2 million people, whereas Spokane's population is around 210,721,as of a few years ago. The thing I like about Spokane is that it is a fairly big city but it has a small town feel to it. It's easy to get around and there is a lot to do in and around Spokane. Also, the new zombie tv series "Z-Nation," is filmed there. Woohoo! lol.
Columbus is that big now ??? Wow !!
Brutus Buckeye spokane has about 1 million people now. Metro population wise. So I wouldn't exactly call it small. Though it's not too big.
Dude. I'm in Columbus but I'm a West coast person. I want to move to spokane.... but trying to gather some information. Hate fucking ohio.
You forgot to capture the trash everywhere and the rampant crime
Rampant crime LMFAO
if its the cost of living cheaper I will definitely come.
The cost of living is considered cheaper in comparison to other cities. However, that's only if you can find a job that pays commensurate with the increasing rental rates and home prices. There aren't many. The vacancy rate for rentals is 1-2%. Be careful with your decision. Do your research and don't go off the "purdy" videos or the tourism ads.
I live here
Same
someones trying to polish a turd with this video!
No it's not
SHELTERS ARE CLOSING THERE AND THE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THE FEMA CAMPS. THIS IS NOT A JOKE
i live here what Fema Camps
THE WORST PLACE
Hope ya moved