Spokane, Washington

Pros and cons of living in Spokane?

Pros:

-You can live in any residential environment you want. Downtown, suburban, rural, small town. All are still relatively affordable and available

-Lots of outdoors stuff to do. Hiking, swimming, biking, skiing, offroading, hunting, fishing, etc

-Lots of good breweries

-A handful of good restaurants

-Beautiful scenery imo

-All 4 seasons, plus a bonus smoke season!

Cons:

-Lots of people stuck in the past. Some people don't want Spokane to grow or mature

-Lots of people never leave after highschool. Take this as you will

-Growing pains. Spokane is still trying to figure itself out. Are we gonna be urban or not?

-Rough neighborhoods (in places)

-Not a lot to do past drinking, eating, or outdoors

I love Spokane, but I've always said its a city where you need to entertain yourself. It isn't like Seattle where you can throw a dart and find an event, art show, concert, etc.

edit: to answer a few of your questions:

Biking: We have a lot of really excellent mountain biking and road riding around us. Beacon Hill, Mt Spokane, Iller Creek, Silver Mountain, Schweitzer are all great for MTBing. Road riding, anywhere on the palouse is beautiful.

Winters: fuckin rough

Universities: EWU is a great, small state school. You'll meet a lot of people who went there who have no school pride at all. Gonzaga is our hometown baby, you better learn to love college basketball

Hi! Got offered a job in Spokane. Is it a good place to live? Sell me on your town!

It absolutely depends on where you live in Spokane. Personally, I love it. It's a reasonably big town with a small town feel. It's divided into a few completely different areas, Northside, Hilyard, South hill, Valley, Wandermere, and plenty more smaller ones. Surrounding spokane is like ten smaller towns such as deer park, and smaller farm type communities. We are 30-45 minutes away from about 30-50 different big and small lakes including coeur d'alene. We have bloomsday which is a race with over 50,000 participants every year. Hoopfest which is the worlds largest 3 on 3 basketball tournament with 7,000 teams over three days and hundreds of thousands of spectators. It's a fun, ever changing place to live with 3 close snowboarding mountains, plenty of biking, hiking, and swimming, and also the occasional meth lab and homocide.

What's it like living in Spokane WA?

Spokane is what you make of it.

I have lived in Spokane for 30 years. While I loathed it during my teen years, Spokane really is a very nice city.

There are lots of events to go to from Code in the Dark to EDM music festivals to Pig out in the Park. If you are looking for a place to rent just try to find a private individual to rent from rather than the larger companies although some of the companies are great just do your research online and check for recent reviews.

We have plenty of snow during the winter so make sure you have a worthy vehicle if you are planning to drive. If you don’t want to deal with a car you can definitely find a ride with Uber or Lyft. The city also has a pretty nice bus system. I have lots of friends who are more co-ordinated than I am and they love to ride their bikes to work during the summer.

Spokane is built around Riverfront Park which I think is one of the best things about this city. The Spokane river is often breathtaking as it races through downtown Spokane. A stroll through Riverfront park during a nice summer day is always a winning option.

There are lots of concerts and shows in Spokane. We have some awesome events here like Bloomsday and Hoopfest. Just expect to dig in for winter unless you love to snowboard or ski in which case you’ll be set. I don’t like cold things but I enjoy knitting so I stay inside and knit during the winter and go out to the dance clubs during the summer. ;-)

What's it like living in Spokane WA?

Spokane is very lucky as far as location goes. Only a couple of hours away from Seattle and Portland, we get plenty of ‘weirdness’ and liberal influence. Spokane also borders Idaho, and is right next to Couer D’Alene, a very conservative city, so we have a fair share of midwest red-state feel too. But since Spokane is in Washington, we get some great Washington amenities like good schools and the transit system here is pretty good.

I’ve lived in Spokane for a couple of years. After living in several places in the Pacific Northwest, I’m comfortable settling here. The weather in Spokane is considerably favorable to Western Washington (for me anyway).

Spokane has fairly hot summers and fairly snowy winters. It doesn’t rain much compared to the west side of Washington - it’s pretty sunny and dry.

Lots of Native American culture can be found here. Some of the nearby tribes are reservations include the Kalispel, Colville, Yakima, Kootenai, and the Spokane reservation.

Washington itself is home to a slew of great outdoor recreation, from hiking, skiing, rock climbing, whatever floats your boat. The Spokane river runs directly through the city and the Centennial trail is a great walking path that is accessible anywhere throughout the city.

At the moment of writing, Spokane is going through a ton of construction and development. A lot of young people are moving to Spokane from Seattle, Portland, and California because our housing prices are lower. Whatever economic trends Seattle sees, Spokane can expect at about an 18 month delay.

Our beautiful downtown Riverfront Park is going through a lot of construction that won’t be done for a year or two, but will be a huge tourist attraction when it’s done. I know they plan on constructing an amphitheater, and this year alone they unveiled a new loof carousel and ice skating ribbon for the community.

Pros & Cons Of Living In Spokane Washington