QotD: Everywhere Has Its Problems

It's possible that Eastern Washington has developed a somewhat similar attitude, but Seattle casts a very long shadow. More literally, the Cascades casts a very long shadow... a rain shadow. The same Seattle residents who believe their area has gotten too populated and the excess should leave, often consider most of Eastern Washington a literal and cultural wasteland. The legacy of the Hanford Reservation (about an hour north of me) looms very large in the national mindset, of course, as Hanford played a huge role providing fuel for the Fat Man dropped over Nagasaki, and its many years of producing weapons-grade plutonium during the Cold War. Until the rise of Microsoft in Redmond, this area had the highest concentration of residents with PhDs in the state, many of them engineers and scientists, of course.

Incidentally, most of the transplants moving here are coming from Seattle or California. Since Hanford's shift from plutonium for nukes to waste cleanup, most right now are retirees coming in from California looking for cheaper housing to settle into. The economic focus has shifted away from jobs at Hanford somewhat, and more towards hospitality and food processing. I took economic classes from the Washington State Regional Economist for our region, so I stand by my sources.

Workers coming in from California, again, to continue construction business, have told me they consider this area "on the verge of taking off". I suspect that we will not gain much higher profile than Spokane, which is considered by some to be very sleepy, although if the three major cities here were to combine, it would be the 3rd or 4th largest city in Washington.

Therefore, it is nothing like Midwest small town disdain, but a resentment of a state and of a nation far more obsessed with Seattle, that thinks Seattle when thinking of Washington (thank you, Gov. Gregoire, and all you on the west side of the state, for making sure the state quarter design reinforces that), that assumes the state of Washington is all like the Seattle area-- or figures we are desert nobodies, as evidenced by W.B. Mook referring to my city "The Ass End of Nowhere" in a music review of a musician that seems to be trying to forget us after moving out of here as fast as he can, although his performance was within walking distance of my home.

I recant then, as now that you mention it, it reminds me of other regional... feuds, but still, the particulars are our own.

I don't dislike Seattle nor the surrounding areas; I simply dislike some of the attitudes that some of the residents hold for where I live. It's not a bad place and I really tire of urbanite attitudes suggesting it is a waste. It is not. It is prized by those that place importance on raising a family, and more particularly, those liking a mix of rural and light urban settings, but yes, youth cultural mecca it is not.