Thinking About Relocating from Central Ohio to Seattle Area

First of all........Those who live in the Seattle and surrounding area's may beg to differ with you.......Although the City is big and bustling the area's around it are home town and awesome.

Redmond/Bellevue area is very up up scale. Mainly because Microsoft and a few other BIG BIG Corporations feed that area as it's income.

When considering our School systems up here. Do your research. The Issaquah School District has the best numbers when you are looking at Graduation rate and what the schools offer.

Also understand that in 2014 our State will go to a Statewide Standard Based Grading system called CORE. We are not excited about this move for our state, mainly because those districts testing or using something similar to what this grading system will be, have failed big time.

Area's that are nice and close to Red/Bell area.......Renton Highlands. New Castle. Issaquah. Fairwood. Then North of Seattle....Wallingford is the coolest downtown ''suburb'' without being in suburbia.

I love living in the NW. Yes, it can rain alot....But it is more of a talking point then actually reality. I think we have more dry grey days then we do wet/or snowy.

AND WE HAVE FESTIVALS GALORE FROM THE END OF MAY UNTIL LABOR DAY WEEKEND!! Most are Free.....Bumbershoot is fun....$$$$$$ to get in and enjoy...FolkLife and the bite of Seattle are the best though!!

I swear we are amazing people.......The only place I would live other then here is Northern Cali.

The Seattle area is a great place to live, and the people are friendly, in most areas you wouldnt find any problems. Obviously there are places in most towns that you WOULD NOT want to live.
For someone coming from a small down and being unfamiliar with our area I would stick to areas like Issaquah and North Bend they have an out of the "city" feel but still staying fairly close to Redmond. Most areas around Redmond and Bellevue are going to be pretty nice, but expensive.
If your on a budget, than I would suggest finding a few cities you like and doing your homework on what areas in those cities you would want to live.
GreatSchools.org is a good place to start looking at the schools. Its important to remember that each city has MANY schools both good and bad. You have to live with-in that schools limit to have your child go there, so you'll need to narrow it down much more than just a city but to a neighborhood.
And on a final note, being from Renton, I will say stay away from Renton / Fairwood / Skyway. Not saying that its a horrible area, but its got a lot of pockets of areas that you would not want to live, and for someone not from here it would be easy to accidently move into one of them.

I don't know about these two cities but I moved a lot as a child and I just wanted to say that children will adapt if you let them and just expect them to. It wasn't 'easy' but in the end it did help me learn about other areas of the country and about people and it didn't hurt me as much as I thought at the time. Don't base it all on the kids is my advice.

I think people are great here! I've lived in or around Seattle my whole life. Redmond is definitely upscale/yuppie. Their schools are great, so is north shore school district (bothell), issaquah, lake Washington (Kirkland). Bellevue is good too. If he worked in Redmond, these are the places I'd consider living.

My family moved to southern Snohomish county 8 years ago. My kids are in the Everett school district. We have always been happy with our schools and our neighborhood. The city as a whole is not a welcoming place (it is hard to find your way around), but the individual people I meet are friendly. It is a beautiful place for kids to grow up.