The City of Spokane

I think more people should give this town a chance. I must admit when I first ended up here in 2005, I was ready to get out of here and go back to Seattle. In that time since, Spokane has been changing. While it is still rather gritty, conservative, and easy to be perceived as «backwards» and «hickish» not to mention having an almost non-​existent job market, you can still find some life here. There is a growing art and music scene. You have a cool community radio station. There are also many good restaurants and bars as well. It is also pretty cheap to live here which is good if you are a musician or artist. Seattle has become too expensive. Portland is catching up with Seattle and don’t get me started about San Francisco! There are some decent venues to watch music and there are various art-​centered events like First Fridays, Artfest in late May/​early June, and Terrain in October. Also, there is a music festival called Volume held at the end of May. It should also be worth mentioning that Spokane also has a great park system and what can be more cooler than to have waterfalls going right through the downtown area?
While the changes are taking place here, keep in mind that there are still rather conservative and insular groups of people, mainly «townies», who do not want Spokane to change for any reason and many of them have money and political clout. Fortunately, they are slowly becoming fewer and fewer. It is the newcomers with new money that are going to power the changes taking place. There is still a lot of work to be done. I decided to stay because I want to help placate those changes here. I want to invite any artists, musicians, or any eclectic and progressive-​minded people with talents to come visit Spokane and see the changes taking place and take in what we have to offer here. I hope you will come away with a positive view and perhaps consider moving here. We need you!

Surprisingly nice city. Previously, the furthest east of Seattle that I had been was Yakima, so I expected all of eastern Washington to look and feel like brown desert. So I had no idea that Spokane was as pretty as it was. My favorite places to go were Manito Park and downtown by the river. Definitely a worthwhile 2 ½ days here.