Seattle, it's so much more than just home to Starbucks, Microsoft and Frasier. It's regularly been voted one of the best places to live in the world even though it has a reputation for lots of rain!
Seattle is also known as the "Emerald City", highlighted by great natural beauty, surrounded by water and mountains with outdoor activities like sailing on Lake Washington, skiing the Cascade Mountains, enjoying 200 miles of waterfront, hiking, climbing, bike riding, the list goes on.
Seattle is the birthplace of grunge music and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafes. Researchers at Central Connecticut State University ranked Seattle the most literate city of America's sixty-nine largest cities in 2005 and 2006 and second most literate in 2007. Moreover, analysis conducted in 2004 by the United States Census Bureau of 2002 survey data indicated that Seattle was the most educated large city in the U.S. with 48.8 percent of residents 25 and older having at least bachelor degrees. Based on per capita income, in 2006 the Seattle metropolitan area ranked 17th out of 363 metropolitan areas in a study by the Census Bureau.
Seattle's mild climate is usually classified as Marine west coast (Cfb). However, its wet-winter/dry-summer pattern shows some characteristics of a Mediterranean climate (Csb), and it is sometimes classified this way. Temperature extremes are moderated by adjacent Puget Sound, the greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. The region is partially protected from Pacific storms by the Olympic Mountains and from Arctic air by the Cascade Range.
In 2005, Forbes ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels.
A 2006 study by UCLA suggests that Seattle has one of the highest LGBT populations per capita. With 12.9% of citizens polled identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, the city ranks 2nd of all major US cities behind San Francisco and slightly ahead of Atlanta. The Seattle metropolitan area also ranks 2nd of all major metropolitan areas with 6.5% being LGBT.
According to the 2000 US census, revised in 2004, Seattle has the 5th highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8 per cent.
In 2005, Men's Fitness magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the United States.
Over a dozen Seattle neighborhoods have Neighborhood Service Centers, originally known in 1972 as "Little City Halls" and many having street fairs and parades during the summer months. The largest of the city's street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend. In addition, at least half a dozen neighborhoods have weekly farmers' markets, some with as many as fifty vendors.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Seattle".