Seattle

From Wikitravel

Seattle, Washington, sometimes called the Emerald City, is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest.

The city is a green gem, with water and trees everywhere famed for its rainy weather, and on clear days, spectacular views of the Olympic Mountains across the Puget Sound to the west, and Mount Rainier and the Cascades to the east. Within the city limits, you will rarely be more than a mile or so from an espresso stand.

Districts

Seattleites nearly always describe a location in terms of its "neighborhood." This is partly because of a potentially confusing system of street addresses (see Get Around). The breakdown into neighborhoods is informal and mutates over time, and while there are often signs on major arterial roads to let you know that you are "entering" a particular neighborhood, the placement of these signs is arbitrary.

Still, knowing what neighborhood you're looking for can be a good sanity check when you're looking for an address. A Seattleite would describe 1401 45th SW as being in West Seattle, and 1401 45th NE as being in the U District (University District), which you'll note are diagonally opposite on the map. See Get Around for an explanation.

The Seattle City clerk maintains an interactive map (http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/nmaps/fullcity.htm) that starts with the high-level districts, but lets you click on those to get the detailed neighborhoods too.

• Downtown and environs:
  • Downtown
  • Pioneer Square
  • International District
  • Belltown
  • Denny Regrade and Seattle Center. The boundaries are vague, but you will regularly hear locals use these names to explain where something is.
  • Queen Anne Hill
  • Magnolia
  • South Lake Union, or Cascade.
  • Eastlake. The boundaries are vague, but you will regularly hear locals use these names to explain where something is.

• East of downtown (or I-5)
  • Capitol Hill including Broadway
  • First Hill
  • Central District

• Along Lake Washington
  • Montlake
  • Madison Park
  • Madrona. Upper Madrona has a nice little shopping district.
  • Leschi. Mainly of interest for its waterfront parks.

• South of downtown (or I-90)
  • Beacon Hill
  • West Seattle
  • Columbia City
  • Georgetown (including Boeing Field/King County Airport)
  • South Park

• North of the Ship Canal
  • Ballard
  • Fremont
  • Wallingford
  • Greenlake
  • University District
  • Phinney Ridge
  • Laurelhurst
  • Wedgewood
  • Ravenna

• North of Greenlake (or NE 85th Street)
  • Northgate.
  • Maple Leaf.
  • Lake City.
  • Greenwood

Some others that may crop up are:

• Sodo - Originally "South of the Dome", referring to the now-demolished Kingdome. To keep some sense in the name, it is sometimes explained now as "South of Downtown".
• Maple Leaf, Lake City, Ravenna, and Wedgewood have similarly fuzzy boundaries as you move from Northgate towards Laurelhurst.
• The "East Side" means the region east of Lake Washington comprising the suburbs of Bellevue, Kirkland, and Redmond.

Understand

Seattle was founded on the rough, physical industries of fishing, logging and coal mining, with San Francisco as her primary customer. Boeing was founded in 1916, and as natural resources were depleted, grew to be Greater Seattle's primary industry. The region's strong economic dependence on Boeing gave the oil recession and cancellation of the SST (Supersonic Transport) in the early '70s a grim effect. Over the last twenty-five years, the area has become less seedy and more developed with the massive influx of Microsoft money (and other software and biotech proceeds), but Pioneer Square is still the original Skid Row. (Myth says that Yesler Way was a "Skid Road" for logs being dragged downhill to Henry Yesler's lumber mill, although the mill was actually sited to take logs from Elliot Bay, not from inland).

Seattle is also substantially influenced by the presence of the University of Washington (the largest single campus on the west coast and one of the top two recipients of grant money), as well as multiple smaller colleges and universities. Seattle is also the center for financial, public health, and justice systems in the northwestern part of the USA.

Climate

The weather (http://www.weather.com/weather/local/USWA0395?) can be rainy (but is usually just drizzly) on any given day, even the Fourth of July. Mid-July through early September is often sunny, although the record high (http://www.wunderground.com/NORMS/DisplayNORMS.asp?AirportCode=KBFI&SafeCityName=KBFI&StateCode=WA&Units=none) is only 100 degrees fahrenheit. The average high for August (http://www.weather.com/weather/climatology/monthly/USWA0395?from=search) (the warmest month) is only 76 degrees. The short, dark and overcast winter days would be less bone-chilling if it snowed instead of drizzling at a few degrees above freezing. As long as you don't kill yourself in the winter, the long, incredibly pleasant summer days can make up for the depressing half of the year.