The Great Wheel on Seattle's waterfront.
Education Images/Universal Images Group via GettySeattle isn’t for everyone.
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It was already zombifyingly dark and damp, and that joyless 38-degree kind of cold. Now it is expensive and packed with rich people, too.
Used to be, being wealthy meant a big house in Bellevue or Mercer Island. Now it’s an apartment between Seattle Center and downtown, and a space for your Tesla.
Prosperous pioneers are pouring into the Emerald City. Seattle remains one of the nation’s fastest growing tech markets at a time when the bright and rich are rushing out of the country into coastal cities.
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Whether their arrival is good for Seattle’s scene is the debate of the moment. What’s clear is not all of them are going to stick it out.
Keep scrolling for a look at 23 ways new arrivals (or natives sick) know it’s time to cheese it.
You make less than $70,000 a year.
Steven Senne/AP
You’re still on the fence about buying a decent raincoat.
GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM
You think that a sunset should happen after working hours.
Stephen Ehlers/Moment Editorial/Getty Images
You fantasize about voting for a local Republican sometime before you die.
John Froschauer/Associated Press
You just did the math on what you’ll need to earn to buy a home.
JOSHUA TRUJILLO
You stay inside when it rains.
George Rose/Getty Images
You just did the math on what you could buy in Minneapolis if you sold that craftsman you bought in 2002.
Education Images/Getty Images
You realize a Seattle without a viaduct isn’t a Seattle you want to live in.
Genna Martin/seattlepi.com
You think of summer as a season that starts in June.
JOSHUA TRUJILLO/SEATTLEPI.COM
You want to make a friend.
Lindsey Wasson/SeattlePI.com
You and your college sweetheart-turned-spouse have been out here since 2015 and still “go home” to the Midwest twice a year to visit the increasingly expectant non-grandparents.
Nam Y. Huh/AP
You enjoy driving near the speed limit.
Joshua Trujillo/Seattlepi.com
You really, really want everyone to leave so this can be an empty city with depressed housing costs.
Scott Heins/Getty Images
Your path to starting a family involves WIC vouchers and a one-bedroom apartment, even though you have a master's degree.
AP
You’ll take the 45-minute commute from Renton so you can have a dishwasher.
George Cole / EyeEm/Getty Images/EyeEm
You've run out of tech bros to meet on OK Cupid.
GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM
You’ve dreamed of having a savings account.
Danny Zaragoza
You can only take so much of rich socialists stepping over sidewalk sleepers.
GRANT HINDSLEY/SEATTLEPI.COM
You believe grunge music sucks and want to live that truth.
Paul Bergen/Redferns
You heard Major League Baseball has playoffs, and want to see such a thing.
GRANT HINDSLEY/SEATTLEPI.COM
You don’t understand $7 beers.
Courtesy of Reuben's Brews
You want joints for less than $15.
GRANT HINDSLEY/SEATTLEPI.COM
You’re watching that East Coast weather and missing seasons.
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