15 Best Neighborhoods in Seattle
The best places to live in Seattle for playing, eating, shopping, drinking and finding your bliss.
By Seattle Magazine February 22, 2013
This article originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of Seattle magazine.
In a city celebrated for its distinct enclaves steeped in neighborhood pride, it’s a tricky proposition selecting The Best. After all, choosing a place to live is an exercise in juggling priorities—affordability, schools, safety, housing, yards, amenities, walkability, views, accessibility—that change over an individual’s lifetime. A 20-something looking for a starter condo and a family of four in need of more space demand different things from their neighborhoods.
And so, we’ve focused on finding the happiest ’hoods (in some cases a town or slice of an outlying city). Each has a lively and individual urban village, good walkability, interesting homes, plenty of green space and a strong community identity. But they’ve gone beyond keeping residents close to home. They are magnets for walkers, shoppers, diners and urban explorers from around the city and beyond.
What makes them worthy? We’ve asked those in the know to provide firsthand insights into what makes their home ’hoods so good, including the locals-only skinny on prized places and events.
The Happy 15
Plus
A Song for the Unsung: Seattle’s Underappreciated Neighborhoods
Community-building Neighborhood Websites
The Happiness Index: A Helpful Chart Ranking All the Top Neighborhoods’ Amenities (click to download PDF)
Follow Us
Better Together: This Take on Co-Housing Emphasizes Quality and Community
The Seattle project presents an out-of-the-box model, where investors are also residents, and the design focuses on longevity and tenant retention—not profit.
Growing up in rural Detroit, Chad Dale spent many after-school and weekend hours playing with neighborhood kids in an open lot near his house. It’s an experience he always hoped his children would have someday, but by the time he became a father in Seattle, land was at a premium: either already developed or prohibitively…
A Different Kind of Mattress Store
Photos courtesy of Bedrooms and More. If you’re looking for the best mattress shopping experience in Seattle, the right choice often comes down to materials, transparency, and expert guidance – not just price or brand names. Bedrooms & More specializes in natural and organic two-sided mattresses and offers a no-pressure showroom environment where customers can…
Craft Value: The Founder of Henrybuilt Reflects on What He’s Learned in 25 Years of Business
In 2001, after 15 years of working in publishing—where I was a founding team member of two venture-funded technology companies—I decided to start a different kind of company: one that made physical products. This company, Henrybuilt, would combine product innovation and craft under one roof and sell directly to the end user—the homeowner—so that we…
Joint Effort
Rooted in the Northwest craft tradition, Mory Homes offers thoughtful furniture and storage solutions with an architectural point of view.
After more than a decade as the executive director of local lighting company Graypants, one of the cofounders, Jonathan Junker, decided to return to his architectural roots. In 2019, he was raising a family on Bainbridge Island when he opened his namesake studio. At first, Junker enjoyed the holistic approach to residential design; a few…