Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 42 of 176)

DK wasn’t happy. He moved to Seattle, took a new job, settled in and looked around for a social life. He didn’t find what he thought he’d find. He tried the neighborhood hangout, he tried his work buddies. He even tried church, but he couldn’t seem to settle in anywhere socially. And, the women were shallow too. Even though he said he had a good job, DK said the women he dated were more interested in whether a fellow brought home a good paycheck.

His problem, he concluded, was the city. “Seattle is a cold city,” he wrote.

In other parts of the country, it was different.

(In other non-Seattle cities) (t)he people’s spirits… seem to go out to one another in friendship. They are interested in others interested in doing things together. They feel that a stranger has something to offer in their social life and they give him the opportunity to do so. 

Conversly in Seattle, most people live in a house and their spirite of friendship fails to go beyond the boudnary of their own home or intimate circles of friendship. The viewppoint of the average person in Seattle is “My home and friends are the world — beyond them there is no worth — beyond Seattle, there is no world.”

This Seattle is Unfriendly theme (or Seattle Freeze) isn’t very rare. You hear it from time to time as people get acclimated to the area. But it is amazing how far back this complaint goes. DK was a World War II veteran writing to the Seattle Times after settling in Seattle after his service in the Navy Reserve.

While more recent complaints have blamed technology for the phenomena, DK probably didn’t have to fight a smartphone to make friends. The overall cause is probably something a bit more ancient, so blame the Nords or the climate.

Either way, you can track the Seattle Freeze consistently through the decades. Rick Anderson wrote in the Times in 1979: “Seattle is no — NOT — a friendly city.”

Fred Moody, writing in “Seattle and the Demons of Ambition,” specifically cites the Seattle Freeze as one of the reasons people moved to Seattle in the 1980s (or, more traditionally, had a hard time fitting in).

The two terms you heard over and over again when newcomers rhapsodized about their new Seattle home was “laid back” and “nice,”the clear implication being that, outside the Northwest, people where “agressive” and “mean.”

Again and again I heard transplants describe the same rite of Northwest passage. In talking about how hard it was to make friends when they moved to Seattle, then invariably described an episode in which, after a few akward months here, they were taken aside by a kindhearted, more Seattle-savy acquaintance at work or in their neighborhood, and told that hey had to “tone it down,” “dial back,” or “turn down the agression” in order to survive socially.

But, this flip side of the Freeze, the non-Seattle Crazy, is just as important as the Freeze. Because, if you’re insane, maybe it really isn’t us. Maybe it’s you.

Going all the way back to 1946, a letter in response to DK makes this very case:

I most certainly do not agree with DK when he speaks of Seattle’s unfriendly attitude toward outsiders. Since the first day I arrived in Seattle a year ago, I have been treated with the greatest courtesy and kindness.

I would like to know what DK wants. Maybe he needs a few lessons in “correct approach” when he comes to a new city.

In fact, published complaints about the Freeze seem to correlate with new people coming in. Take a look at our migration rates for Central Puget Sound (Population Change and Migration, Puget Sound Regional Council), there are three peaks since the Boeing bust: the late 70s, early to mid-90s and post 2005. It might be cherry picking, but Anderson wrote about Seattle being unfriendly in 1979, here’s one piece from 1994 and the original Seattle Freeze article from 2005.

The Seattle Freeze might be our social disease, but it’s a condition that only seems to appear when we mix with new folks. So, why is that?

Maybe, in fact, we’re sane and you’re all crazy. In fact, maybe you come here, act all neurotic (a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability), and expect us to be able to deal with that.

Here’s a study that backs up what my point is (via here).

The darker the color on the map, the more easily the residents of your state experience unpleasant emotions easily. The lighter the states, the more relaxed the people are.

The same study pointed out that the typical Northwesterner was very open, but also very introverted. So, take that with the “very sane” label, I could see why crazy extroverts from other parts of the country would have trouble here.

So, long story short: we have a regional personality here in Cascadia. It is open, quiet, and sane. It isn’t for everyone, but it was what defines us. There’s Southern Charm, Northeast brashness and up here we have Cascadian Calm.

If you spend a dollar in Olympia, it will only go so far. In a study of how far money travels, Cascadia is one of the most well defined regions of the country. So, if we network with only people within our region and our money only goes so far, what makes us different?

If you’re half politically (or otherwise) engaged and you’re half paying attention in these parts, you’re probably heard about Cascadia.

On its fringe, the idea is of a regional breakaway from the United States and Canada. The idea is the create a country of Cascadia by calving off the northwest section of the United States and a connecting portion of western Canada. Like I said, this is an extreme idea.

But, in a series of posts (with maybe no end), I’m going to point out that Cascadia already exists. And, that its different from the squishy regionalism around the idea of the “Pacific Northwest.”

This is the same sort of difference that my mind makes when I compare my own concepts of “the South” and Dixie. For me, while the South certainly has its own regional connotations politically and culturally, the differences become much sharper when you refer to Dixie. It is likely the racist, seceded from the Union and burning crosses stuff, but it’s there.

So, in these posts, the Northwest will become Cascadia. I’ll discuss what makes Cascadia special. What makes it different from Ohio and Virginia and why those differences should matter to you.

It seems to me when we talk about the Northwest (Cascaida) we talk about mountains, rain, salmon and coffee. But, we imply these are small, seemingly insignificant differences from the rest of North America. What I want to talk about is that we’re a fundamentally different, the same way Ludlow, Massachusetts is different than Greenwood, South Carolina.