I don't often allow myself to read the news because it either scares or depresses me. However, lately, and by lately I mean since moving to Seattle, I check it more regularly. I think it's partially because I'm not 100% familiar with the area and eventually, I would like to leave the city and I sort of rely on the news to tell me what areas seem safe, entertaining and affordable. Of course, living in downtown, I'd say a large portion of the state is plenty affordable seeing as we pay nearly $2500 a month to live here in the middle of everything.
Anyway, the point of this post is that out of all of the downtown areas we looked at, I'm SOOOOO glad we chose (and continue to choose) places other than Belltown. For awhile, we were seriously considering it because it was close to Mike's office, had a lot of apartments, lots of restaurants and tons of entertainment but after reading the news, it's one of the areas of downtown that has constant crime issues. Perhaps it's because it's filled with bars and clubs so the amount of drunk people wandering about is higher. I honestly don't know but I'm happy we aren't staying there. When we first moved, our temporary apartment was right in the center of Belltown. It felt relatively safe in the beginning because we seldom ventured out. When our things arrived to our actual apartment, we walked from the temporary place to our current place to unpack but because we had so much to do, we opted to stay at the temporary place until we were able to set up our apartment to at least be livable. So that meant walking to the current apartment in the morning which was completely fine but then walking back at night which was when I started to feel uncomfortable. We never had any problems but it was just a gut feeling I had.
You see, in downtown Seattle, there are a lot of homeless people. Most of them are harmless and leave you entirely alone but you have those few that are just relentless. Granted, we've seen our fair share in this part of downtown too that can be annoying but on average, we are just fine walking just about anywhere in the business district without being bothered too much. But in Belltown, you have the homeless, and then the drunks. Just this morning, I read about this. For no apparent reason, some guy was just shot. Yes, there wasn't a full story to report so in time, we may find that there was a motive behind the shooting but as of right now, it appears that it was for no reason. One could argue that there is crime just about everywhere. Yes, that is true. But I sure as hell don't want to be living in that area just steps away from it all. And while crimes do happen here too, the amount is so small that I feel safe if I walk to Target which is a couple blocks away at 9pm. Seattle as a whole is still one of the safer big cities but I think the crimes are beginning to add up and the reputation of being so safe is starting to get compromised.
Don't get me wrong though! I would still say that the downtown area is a fine place to live. I just recommend picking places other than Belltown!
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