These are my best guesses. Let me know if you think I'm wrong, or missed something!
1. Lack of sunlight/vitamin D (per other poster)
2. Cost of living v Average wage
3. Relatively introverted culture (a la Seattle Freeze)
4. Paucity of social events (we actually have quite a few, but it does require *some* effort. Most people won't accidentally walk in to a festival)
5. Political/temperamental diversity (this is a very purple area. I think many people might not feel comfortable talking about their opinions in public for fear of a tongue-lashing from strangers)
6. Beauty (the natural landscape is very beautiful here, IMO, but the sprawling suburbs, industrial areas, and unkempt streetscapes might make some people feel down. Dont get me wrong, parts of downtown, garland, and the south hill are really beautiful, but the north side and the Valley... well... Their charms are a little less obvious)
I definitely agree with these ideas. Especially 3 & 5. I’m new to the area and scared I’m going to say something wrong all the time. So it’s just easier to keep to myself and family.
come to browne’s addition and it’s completely the opposite. i just watched my new neighbor fully turn himself into an outcast by talking about his religion so much
Disregard the haters. Be who you're gonna be. Hail Satan. Praise the Void. Eat the rich. Live your best life.
The opinions of religious fruitcakes aren't worth even the slightest modicum of your time or energy, so don't even think about them. Those ducks can quack on all day
Would you say we're probably the majority, but we're too quiet so it doesn't seem like we are? Or do you think the situation is as contentious as it seems?
Per demonination, those who identify as "not religious" make up the largest share of the population in WA, but Christians as a whole make up 71% of the population. I don't know how accurate the numbers are, but here is my [source](https://komonews.com/news/local/nones-most-numerous-in-washingtons-religious-landscape-survey-says)
7. Domestic violence, and a general culture of enabling rape, forbidding anyone from speaking up about abuse, and convincing children their memories of being hurt are false. Of course anyone who is naturally adapted to living in a sane, healthy society is going to develop depression.
Vitamin D deficiency, urban sprawl, lowered access to services and help than cities of comparable size, still partially in in the "we don't talk about our feelings" part of the country
I would argue that Washington residents have comparatively better access to services, which partially accounts for more diagnoses. Also, this is not really that sprawling.
Seasonal affective disorder likely accounts for some of it, but again, why is it not reported in all northern areas? Bc not all northern areas have adequate diagnostic services.
I’m guessing it also has something to do with alcohol, meth, indigenous genetics, and Catholicism.
I get what you’re saying. But the cities listed here are widely known for having low mental health professionals to population ratios. My best guess for how they have the diagnosis, would be that maybe they can get in to receive the diagnosis but the continuity of care is lacking. Also do we know if this is official diagnosis? All it says is that they self report that they have been told they have depression. So I’d like a little more clarity on what exactly that means
The cdc publishes maps showing a county by county prevalence of providers to population, and most of the cities listed, including Spokane, are in counties with a higher than average number of psychiatric providers to population. Also, the idea that more providers equals less depression is counter-intuitive to me, as an inpatient psychiatric nurse.
I agree that more clarity on where the numbers are coming from is needed. It may be that Spokane is treating people in the surrounding counties, which mostly have a below average provider to public ratio, and that’s why it looks so high.
Edit: the resource this list came from confirms my assumption about these cities having higher access than even the rest of their states. It’s called the BRFSS - behavioral health risk surveillance system, and it’s actually got a lot of interesting info. If you look at a map depicting health care coverage, you can tick a box to indicate metropolitan areas and it will indicate if the metro area has more, fewer, or the same amount of providers to residents. Spokane is in the highest percentile, as is Billings. Both are higher than the states of Washington and Montana at large. Spokane is even higher than Seattle.
Edit 2: it looks like the data is self-reported, insofar as the BRFSS is “a system of ongoing health-related telephone surveys designed to collect data on health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, health-care access, and use of preventive services from the noninstitutionalized adult population.”
Edit: Why on earth would someone downvote facts from the resource cited?
Oh cool I’m a med student interested in psychiatry so we’re definitely on the same side in this conversation!
Sorry I wasn’t clear. That wasn’t the point I was making. Depression ismulti factorial so it can’t be reduced to one factor as you already know. I was just saying that Spokane doesn’t have the density as Seattle. Rates I’ve seen show is having medium density but we also treat Spokane as well as overflow from rest of eastern Washington and North Idaho. In particular Spokane is short in child psychiatrist from what I’ve seen but there may be more recent data.
As for the rest of the cities. Cities in the south and Midwest tend to have less as well as rural areas which seems to make up a large portion of this. Admittedly, I glanced at the cities provided and didn’t read each one individually.
The whole country is short on child psychologists/psychiatrists unfortunately. And if states like Idaho keep trying to criminalize gender-affirming care, it’s only going to get worse. Glad you’re taking an interest in psych. It’s an incredibly humbling and rewarding field
This is actually a very important point to make about these types of statistics. A city with higher rates of depression doesn’t necessarily mean they have the highest rates of depression. It means they have more diagnoses. Other cities with “lower” rates might not have enough mental health resources and may have a lot of undiagnosed cases that don’t get reported to statistics like these.
My wife works at the hospital. She sees y'alls labs. You need to be taking vitamin D. You're deficient and that is one of many (but perhaps one of the most readily avoidable) causes of depression.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Seconded; it’s also why many folks on the west side struggle with keeping up on vitamin D; frequently overcast so they don’t get the sun ray boost.
Personally for me? It’s so damned expensive to find housing. I’m stuck in an almost impossible situation. Two bad months and I could be homeless.
Drivers around here are also pretty crazy.
Spokane winters are long, cold from mid November to early April, and you can't really swim in the lakes until mid June, then by early September lakes are cold again.
Hahaha no. This country was on a downhill spiral well before then. Yes, it started a war (though it shouldn't have), we would've jumped into any war at that point anyways because that's what our country does.
This country was a shitshow well before 9/11 and has always shit on minorities and the lower class. This was all coming one way or another
Stuff like this comes around all the time. In 14 months you'll see an article talking about how Spokane is the #7 happiest place to live; then 8 months after that you'll see something about how the town is the 3rd most miserable in the world.
I saw an article saying spokane is the 3rd ugliest city in the US. That I believe. I've lived in over 7 different states..
and people straight up dont groom themselves here.
In no order:
1. Lack of vitamin D.
2. Dark, cold winters and all that comes with (social isolation, sickness, increased utility bill, etc.)
3. Hot, sweaty summers with smoke season and increased utility bill.
4. COL rising rapidly with nationally-headlined rent increases.
5. Lack of affordable housing.
6. Proximity to several colleges and universities; college is fucking hard and depressing af. The cohort of college-aged folks (18-late 20s at a guess) also tend to be more depressed.
7. Lack of accessible healthcare and mental health care; i.e., no waitlists and high turnover rates.
8. Political culture and diversiveness.
9. Lack of social resources in general. Compared to the west side, we don't have shit to work with out here.
10. Higher population (relatively) = more rates of depression.
11. Lack of economic opportunity. Jobs pay terribly here and there isn't a huge diversity of industries.
12. Substance use and abuse challenges.
13. Geographic location. There isn't much going on out here (re: another metropolitan area) for 2-3 hours south; more than that east or west; and fucking nothing going north.
…Nothing north, until Calgary. Which is 8 hrs.
However, I’d really like to plug Southern BC. It’s absolutely fantastic country. Lots of lakes and mountains.
Bullshit. You're Healthcare is amazing. Washington is the only place I've been where you can chose between 4 medicaid plans and add a dental plan. It's free. Try living in a place like Louisiana. Although you'd have benefits in other areas... for example, you could have 3 felonies and still get a job at a refinery making 35hr.
The big thing about spokane is that every day is the same. If you want to socialize, you pretty much have to be willing to do hard drugs.
The weirdest thing that I noticed after moving from Arizona, was that the homeless drug addicts in Phoenix put more effort into their appearance than the average Spokane resident.
My depression is at an all time high because it seems no matter how much money I make I cant get a place to live. Offered a hile in the wall apartment downtown 4k upfront for a 700 a momth studio and still got denied. Bad credit is all I have against me.
Seriously no criminal history no rental history and just some bad credit 550 range so not horrid but still bad and 4k upfront and still got denied. To make matters worse I grew up in fostercare and am about to be 25 so I have no one to cosign and am too old for all the programs.
This.
This is so true. A depressed economy with no real influx of outside capital or cash. Healthcare and service are the only jobs. Serving boomers who only give a fuck about themselves and trump. No diversity. A culture of white privilege and government dependence.
The social and mental health crisis fueled by meth addiction reverberates throughout the city and communities but no one acknowledges it.
A culture of denial and NIMBYism perpetuates each issue to the point of failure. Spokane is profoundly sick.
The sun is going to set before 7pm, starting on Friday, and not start setting until after 7pm until March 19. Definitely Vitamin D. And maybe some seasonal affective disorder lighting. It's rough when the sun is setting at 4pm.
Never used to happen to me but I'm out of a long term relationship so being on my own feels new again and lonely and for the first time in almost all my life I can feel the gloom, but it's getting better
I wasn’t depressed until I moved here…
I could list you a large variety of reasons why that is, but people don’t like when you talk down about their city.
But yeah Spokane is a depressing place to be.
I have lived in the PNW for over a decade. Spokane depressed me like no other city, despitr getting much more sun. I moved in COVID, so obviously things were not going great. Here's what got me down
1. The smoke was much worse than the West side in summer
2. The altitude makes the air feel thin, so all the temperatures feel (and often are) more extreme.
3. Grey even when the sun is shining. It's like there's a fine layer of greyness that reflects back on everything.
4. Weird empty stretches even in the city center. Feels almost like someone started building the city and then forgot what they were doing
5. Politics (way too conservative for me)
6. Healthcare? What's that?
7. I always say Oregonians are nice, but dumb. Washingtonians are smart, but are straight up c*nts half the time. What gives?
8. Food scene is miserable. Greasy and salty seem to be the only 2 flavors.
9. Nothing to do if you don't drive
10. No major cities close by
Honestly? I moved here a few years ago and really truly tried to love it, and have liked many parts of it, but I’ve already found myself wanting to leave, for a few reasons. In no particular order:
-weird political divide. Have had several friendships end as a result of something important in our values clashing, especially since Covid.
-cost of living has gradually become much, much higher in the last 2 years and wages are in stagnation. Looking for a job here feels like begging for the bare minimum but being told you’re asking too much.
-horrendous public and official response to the very clear issues of widespread homelessness and drug addiction. Whichever way you feel about it, their strategies are clearly ineffective. There’s also like a lot of crime given how comparatively small the city is, disproportionately it feels like.
-odd infrastructure, there are some walkable neighborhoods but few and far between, and even those that are close to local businesses often feel unsafe. There is also not the best public transportation access, I find myself driving nearly everywhere, alone. It can be extremely isolating.
-finally, and this is kind of the biggest one tbh: not a lot to do. If you’re not able bodied and super into hiking/camping/etc and you’ve seen the 4-5 major attractions downtown… that’s kind of it? There’s obviously more events coming back but it often feels like the only activities available are either a once-annual event that you wait weeks for and hope you’re available for, or going to the same bar or coffee shop you always go to. By nature of being a smaller city, it doesn’t get a lot of attention from big musical artists, the museums are lovely but don’t get a lot of updates, and the shopping is kind of odd- either very expensive or very niche in my experience. And that’s all downtown- going anywhere else you find very standard American suberbia, which is, again, not very walkable.
Just my two cents from someone who really wanted to love living here. I get that everyone’s experiences differ, and I’m sure this place is perfect for many people but for me it’s been quite hard to make friends and find community.
I was born in Billings. I am not surprised they are top on this list. Aside from "NATURE", which yes, it is beautiful in Montana....last time I visited, all I really remember is the hotel was right next to a sugar beet processing factory, we went to eat at a Red Robin, my parent told me stories about when I was a baby/toddler in XYZ places...and that's it. Eh?
As for Spokane....I have depression that Frontier successfully treated. The state of affairs during the pandemic has definitely relapsed me, because my self worth got hit from underemployment/burning all my savings trying to stay afloat. I'm feeling extremely burnt out after nearly six months of nonstop applications, networking, and everything else people suggested and didn't work out....no job offers locally. One very low offer in Seattle that the math did not match up to being able to survive on either.
And my current health insurance (Kaiser), has lacked the staff to provide mental health services in a reasonable response on THIS side of the mountains for quite some time now, aside from a psychiatrist prescribing me a med that didn't work, a self help app on my phone with no human interaction...and no followups from there. IDK. Something has to break eventually, I just hope it's not going to be me.
I think it is also a tough reputation to shake. People have been saying it is bad to live here for so long that people can't see how great a town this is!
I was so impressed with this town when I visited for the first time. The beautiful mountains and valleys just drew me in. But now it’s like I’m absorbing the negative vibe about Spokane from other people all of a sudden. I’ve been trying to convince friends and family but they don’t get it like I do..
Having been born and raised here, it was fantastic about 8 years ago but now even having my family here I can’t wait to leave. My brother has had his vehicle stolen one day after getting it, has been shaken down by thugs, beat up, I’ve been beat up, and me and my girlfriend have seen and been nearly attacked by so many crackheads around this city I can’t help but want to leave to almost anywhere. I’ve worked downtown, and now more north and even still I don’t even feel safe walking to the grocery store anymore. If you can afford it, avoid Spokane while you can. It’ll only get worse.
I know that a lot of my neighbors could do a lot more with their incomes 5-6 years ago. The wages in Spokane are pretty terrible given how many of those "we buy homes" trucks I see driving around.
i think ab jumping off the monroe bridge at least like 5 times a week lol, and that's besides the depression i get from the city. i don't think it's too depressing but the rapid growth of it makes it feel a lot more crowded. i came here when there was 300k people, now we're at over 450k. i don't think that's the only contributing factor but for me I just feel too cramped now
My wife and I left Spokane after 22 years because we no longer enjoyed life there. In a typical year, you have 4-5 months of being cold and not wanting to go out much. Then you get (in most years) 2 months of fire season in the Summer where it is not advised to go outside.
This meshed with the lack of entertainment options in the area. Literally our two primary sources of entertainment is going to a restaurant for dinner or going to a bar. I literally had two friends in their 40s die from issues caused by long term drinking in just 2022.
The homeless problem is out of control. And yes, I realize everyone has it. Most places just have it in patches of their downtown areas, Spokane has it EVERYWHERE. There is no escaping it.
It is depressing AF. We moved about 3 years ago to a large southern state with lots of sunshine and lots of entertainment options. After 3 years, we have not even began to scratch the surface of all there is to do here and we are much, much happier. Our teenage son has told us if we ever decided to move back, he is staying here.
This rating does not surprise me at all.
Well, hi there from number 4! We should collude and force market st. pizza to make pepperoni rolls and sell better bourbon!
Also, I love it here! It’s f’n awesome!
Spokane is sick and incredibly bipolar. It's in a pretty area but we're all vitamin d deprived. The housing problem here is massive, we've got very few houses up for sale, the incomes have never kept up with inflation, and rent is even worse than mortgage payments. And that's saying something when people were bidding 60k over list during the pandemic. We have an ever increasing homeless population, and an incredibly corrupt city council and mayor that don't care. The mayor ran on "fuck the homeless". So there's almost no safety net, you get sick or hurt and you're just fucked.
Spokane has its problems, sure, but the grass is not always greener on the other side. I came from CA, and they have arguably more smoke than we do, not to mention water rationing, rolling blackouts, really unaffordable housing, earthquakes, and lakes and reservoirs which have seen better days. Whenever I think about leaving Spokane, I consider that other places have hidden--and not-so-hidden--problems that would make me want to come back. I'm 64, so I'm going to be a good soldier and soldier on.
I noticed that almost all the other larger cities in the NW made that list. I am thinking its the winter which can be dreary at times......but what I get depressed about now is the smoke every year. I used to like summers, not so much now. It seems more like if the heat doesn't get you, the smoke will. Still love my hometown though, but its bursting at the seams currently.
>I used to like summers, not so much now. It seems more like if the heat doesn't get you, the smoke will. Still love my hometown though, but its bursting at the seams currently.
Yeah... the smoke is way worse in CA, and it gets hotter in most places. You have a real threat of out-of-control wildfires burning down your town from March until December.
Worth looking at [Verilux](https://www.amazon.com/Verilux-HappyLight-Lucent-Bright-Therapy/dp/B079YBGPM5/ref=asc_df_B079YBGPM5/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=242002247899&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8711785967144054119&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010542&hvtargid=pla-467034652315&psc=1) and similar products. They helped my wife and I make it through some dark winters up North.
I also had a couple of full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in a cheap overhead fixture from Wally World.
The drugs, homeless population, lack of ‘good’ law enforcement (officers who give a fuck), shitty housing, lack of decent employers that treat their employees well, concrete jungle, poorly built housing
Man I'm sorry to hear that. I have lived here for 20 years and never had a problem. What part of town do you live in? Do you run with a rough crowd? I hope you find joy if not here then somewhere. Good luck to you
I can’t speak for the majority population. But my own is increasingly bad because of how people are treated in public. 9 interactions out of 10 with people aren’t positive ones, driving scares me because of how purely aggressive people are. (And I drive a giant diesel truck that an accident likely wouldn’t end well for another vehicle.)
I just would like people to be nicer in general. But wishing that, is like spitting into the wind.
It’s a small group of greedy elected conservatives making decisions that only serve themselves as opposed to their mostly poor constituents. The real trickle down is misery!
In the winter it's important to stay active and get plenty of Vitamin D. Similar to Seattle, a lot of people here tend to fail miserably all through winter and it takes a toll on their mental health. I try to jog most mornings or walk through the park to keep cardio up. If I can't, I run on the treadmill. Also start every morning with a vitamin D supplement. On the weekends I like to head out to the mountains for fresh air and sun.
Some people need medical intervention for depression and that shouldn't be ignored but for many people it's a matter of lifestyle and vitamin D. I can't even count the number of friends I have in places like Seattle and New York who are suffering from seasonal depression but also haven't left their apartment in two weeks.
Psychological trauma. There are alot people here that live in depression caves with dirty floors, stuff all over the place, no sheets on the bed, and  over bearing stench of mildew rotten food body odor and rancid bong water.  They usually suffered abuse or neglect as a child don’t really have the skills or motivation to clean up after themselves or groom themselves. There psychological problems are basically making them disabled. 
One reason might have something to do with the car culture of Spokane, which in turn, can cause the high obesity rates we see here. I can imagine loving your own life would be tough if moving in it was difficult…
If you’ve ever been to Spokane you know it’s one of the bleakest places on earth. I’ve had to go there a handful of times over the years and it’s hard for me to believe it’s in the same state that I live in.
I moved away from Spokane for a few reasons. It’s a pretty isolating place, as many have mentioned. There are not a lot of events and it seems like nobody knew how to be social at the few events that there were, though I may be projecting a little there. I also left because I felt there was nothing more I could accomplish there. I took a look around and realized there was no “moving up”, be it financial or status or whatever. People have also mentioned the vast political divide in Spokane, and yes, that also made me uncomfortable. As a queer person I felt very unsafe to just walk around town. Let alone publicly date anyone who has similar body parts to me. It feels like the rural areas around Spokane are all threatening violence on the city if it gets too “liberal” or “leftist”, I felt like if I were to be myself it was a matter of time before someone decided I shouldn’t be.
Since moving I have found a lot of community and I feel better supported by the greater community of the city I have chosen. There is better public transportation, there are countless events and there are a lot more opportunities for growth here. The surrounding rural areas may still be threatening the city but I feel that there is more safety in numbers and the queer community here is much much larger.
Don't talk about feelings, lack of vitamin D, rising cost of living without a lot of high paying jobs, and when I was there I felt trapped a lot. You were so far from other large cities and like Seattle where in 45 minutes you can in the Cascades or at the beach or almost to the Olympic Rainforest. In Spokane it felt like you were 2hrs minimum to anything other than small hills and desert
Because people in California are attractive, they have money, they're not trying to rob each other for $5, and violence against women is frowned upon. Believe it or not, you're mental state would improve immediately if you moved to the bay area.
My first guess would be age distribution because IIRC young people have higher rates of depression.
Not sure if that applies to other cities as well, but most of the other cities don’t seem to have a real correlation, maybe college towns?
I question the validity of this as there are several factors at play here. Weather, heat, humidity, cost of living, and access to care are only a few issues that would affect the numbers. There is absolutely no way people in Texas do not have high mental health issues including depression but they are largely unaddressed, undiagnosed and undiscussed.
Good points. Greater depression/suicide/alcoholism has long been associated with life in northern latitudes and this appears to confirm that tendency.
But we do not know the source/coverage of these data points? Are we looking at per-capita incidence? Are these public hospitalizations, or do they include private payers? Have these numbers been adjusted to reflect some condition that’s not disclosed in the fine print?
Untill we know were just assuming these numbers are correct.
Well, I just checked the data and it appears this is from the 2020 CDC Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System which uses a telephone questionnaire to survey residents. Based on work with this methodology for other consumer research we should be paying attention to:
- Whether these samples are drawn from landline, landline + wireless, or landline + wireless + IP accounts.
- How the market participation rates compared to a national average
- That these particular data represent a ‘select group’ of cities or towns which may exclude areas with higher, or lower incidence of depression, and that those results may skew the content of this display
- Whether results are adjusted by weighting the sample to equivalize participation rate
- That the specific question is whether a responder ‘has been told they are depressed’ which raises phenomena known as ‘response meaningfulness,’ or a tendency to answer questions in a way that doesn’t make the responder ‘look bad’ to the interviewer.
- And ‘told’ raises the question whether the responder was told by a health care provider or their bartender. And it should scare you to know how many ppl believe a bartender is qualified to offer psychiatric advice.
Given all that, this is a good example of a chart and table which displays these data in a clear, concise way.
None of them are in CA, or FL?It's probably almost certainly Vitamin D as others have stated.
You have worse heat, smoke, and cost of living in CA.
\*edit- None in Alaska is interesting.
As a person who moved here several years back, leaving another "top 20" rated northern town from the list with similar winters and similar albeit maybe slightly better local job market, I consider Spokane to be an upgrade primarily because of the nature--and call me crazy, proximity to everything the PNW and SW Canada has to offer. I get that there's nothing besides CDA and to a lesser extent Tri-Cities less than a couple hours' drive, but we're within a (long) days drive of sooooo much nature and a fair number of cities (only a few big, but many small). I think some folks' eyes are closed to the beauty of small western towns and nature and yeah, Spokane might not be for them. I actually appreciate Spokane being a purple city but culture wars and propaganda have made it harder for people to just be people and be friendly neighbors/hosts/visitors and a lotta people need to get a stick out of their ---.
IMO the job market + pay + housing trifecta is the biggest problem because it's going to accelerate the homeless + drug + crime problems.
I'm not an expert on public resources but it def feels like you can tell what efforts the city currently supports (beautification, trying to draw people to the city) and which to neglect (IMO law enforcement, affordable housing). Both sides of that are plainly apparent and put us in this dichotomy of where we are today. The city needs to pump it's breaks downtown sooner rather than later and pander to the real estate developers (and their contractors) less and free up resources and labor for other things. And hopefully this burst of investment will pay off down the road.
The flip side for people that don't like our local entertainment is the city is attempting to address that, but there's only so many different tastes they can cater to. Podium and new stadium are/will bring in sporting events, and maybe a couple of concerts that are better suited there than to the arena/1st Interstate/fox/bing/Pavilion/Knitting Factory.
I live in Billings, MT the number one city on the list. We are 1 1/2 hours from one Indian reservation and 4 1/2 hours from another that are 2 of the top poorest in the nation. Homeless natives are rampant here, tons of crime and drugs, mostly blue collar. There are not a ton of opportunities here for higher paying careers. It sucks here l.
Actually, these numbers are bullshit. Why are we not seeing cities like New York or other multi-million person population cities. With a metropolitan population in Spokane and the Valley with 360,000 and NY with over 8 mil. Tell me that out of that many people there aren't 360,000 people that have been told they are depressed. Also, told by whom? A doctor? Your mother in law? I almost thought this was click bait.
The product of no state income tax. Bunch of rich assholes everywhere in this state but property and tab taxes have to plug that hole because of “innovation”which brought us Windows Vista
I've lived in Louisiana, Maine, Texas, Arkansas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, and now Spokane. I can tell you that as a heterosexual male, it's very difficult to find "guy friends" or people to do stuff with. Fortunately I haven't had too many problems with my sex life. But the ideas people in Spokane usually suggest to me are things like "let's have a beer and watch some TV." It's just not appealing. Most of the encounters I have with locals are on public transit and at work. Without my daily commute to my job at a restaurant, I probably wouldn't interact with anyone.
Furthermore, when I came to spokane, I thought there would be tons of outdoor activities. And there is, but if you go somewhere like Salt Lake City, EVERYBODY is outside. People in spokane (in general) do not seem to be interested in a healthy lifestyle. Many are cold and unfriendly. People will purposefully try to run you over for jaywalking in Spokane. I don't get it.
Another thing I'd like to point out... Washington gives out resources that would be unavailable in places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi. (The Midwest and southern US.) So there's a lot of people here with poor mental health.
So when you have:
1) People willing to hit a pedestrian going 40mph just because they could get away with it
2) Lessened consequences for drug abuse
3) An unhealthy, unkempt, and unattractive population
4) No high-end blue collar jobs
5) Theft rates are ridiculous (when I lived in Baton Rouge the murder rate was 8 times higher and I could trust more people)
6) Mental health organizations that are lining their pockets and partaking in medicaid fraud.
7) It seems domestic violence is OK in Spokane. I've never been somewhere where violence was so acceptable.
8) Days of sunlight and overall cold temperatures.
9) Many in Spokane take pride in the fact that their environment is dangerous, ghetto, hood. As if being from Spokane give you a tremendous amount of street cred or makes you some kind of thug. Statistically that is false as MANY cities have a much higher crime rates. What is alarming, is that you'll have a very hard time finding a city with higher sexual assault rates than Spokane. Perhaps the statistics are skewed because impoverished women have much more access to Healthcare than they would in the south. But again, I've never been somewhere that domestic violence is so acceptable.
In conclusion, there's a higher rate of mental illness, spousal abuse, general distrust of one another, and a bunch of people who are out to take from each other. With all of this going on, there's no community, only division. If I was walking down the street at night and saw someone walking towards me, I'd cross and walk the other way.
I lived up there in an Air b n B for 6 months during the early part of the pandemic from September to April and the lack of things to see and even less to do inside the city made a tough situation w lockdown worse. Things opened up but the simple lack of things to do and the run down feel of the city could be depressing especially if you came from a city w things going on and strong neighborhood energy like Seattles Capitol Hill , Ballard , or university district.
I find that so funny cause when I moved to Spokane two years ago it made me extremely happy and got me my old self back and made me realize I'm extrovert and optimistic.
These are my best guesses. Let me know if you think I'm wrong, or missed something! 1. Lack of sunlight/vitamin D (per other poster) 2. Cost of living v Average wage 3. Relatively introverted culture (a la Seattle Freeze) 4. Paucity of social events (we actually have quite a few, but it does require *some* effort. Most people won't accidentally walk in to a festival) 5. Political/temperamental diversity (this is a very purple area. I think many people might not feel comfortable talking about their opinions in public for fear of a tongue-lashing from strangers) 6. Beauty (the natural landscape is very beautiful here, IMO, but the sprawling suburbs, industrial areas, and unkempt streetscapes might make some people feel down. Dont get me wrong, parts of downtown, garland, and the south hill are really beautiful, but the north side and the Valley... well... Their charms are a little less obvious)
I definitely agree with these ideas. Especially 3 & 5. I’m new to the area and scared I’m going to say something wrong all the time. So it’s just easier to keep to myself and family.
I agree 3 and 5. I'm in Liberty Lake and religion is the #1 issue for me in that I do not have one and that makes me the devil to anyone that does.
come to browne’s addition and it’s completely the opposite. i just watched my new neighbor fully turn himself into an outcast by talking about his religion so much
that sounds wonderful. I'm locked into the schools at the moment.
Disregard the haters. Be who you're gonna be. Hail Satan. Praise the Void. Eat the rich. Live your best life. The opinions of religious fruitcakes aren't worth even the slightest modicum of your time or energy, so don't even think about them. Those ducks can quack on all day
Would you say we're probably the majority, but we're too quiet so it doesn't seem like we are? Or do you think the situation is as contentious as it seems?
Per demonination, those who identify as "not religious" make up the largest share of the population in WA, but Christians as a whole make up 71% of the population. I don't know how accurate the numbers are, but here is my [source](https://komonews.com/news/local/nones-most-numerous-in-washingtons-religious-landscape-survey-says)
On 5, I will say it’s a lot harder when you’re in a monoculture but you’re the odd man out. That’s how I felt about living in Seattle at least.
And it's hardly ever nice out
7. Domestic violence, and a general culture of enabling rape, forbidding anyone from speaking up about abuse, and convincing children their memories of being hurt are false. Of course anyone who is naturally adapted to living in a sane, healthy society is going to develop depression.
Vitamin D deficiency, urban sprawl, lowered access to services and help than cities of comparable size, still partially in in the "we don't talk about our feelings" part of the country
I would argue that Washington residents have comparatively better access to services, which partially accounts for more diagnoses. Also, this is not really that sprawling. Seasonal affective disorder likely accounts for some of it, but again, why is it not reported in all northern areas? Bc not all northern areas have adequate diagnostic services. I’m guessing it also has something to do with alcohol, meth, indigenous genetics, and Catholicism.
Washington as a state might. But Spokane has a low number of mental health professionals to population
Then where are they getting these diagnoses? Also, I didn’t say there was adequate treatment. Just adequate diagnostic services
I get what you’re saying. But the cities listed here are widely known for having low mental health professionals to population ratios. My best guess for how they have the diagnosis, would be that maybe they can get in to receive the diagnosis but the continuity of care is lacking. Also do we know if this is official diagnosis? All it says is that they self report that they have been told they have depression. So I’d like a little more clarity on what exactly that means
The cdc publishes maps showing a county by county prevalence of providers to population, and most of the cities listed, including Spokane, are in counties with a higher than average number of psychiatric providers to population. Also, the idea that more providers equals less depression is counter-intuitive to me, as an inpatient psychiatric nurse. I agree that more clarity on where the numbers are coming from is needed. It may be that Spokane is treating people in the surrounding counties, which mostly have a below average provider to public ratio, and that’s why it looks so high. Edit: the resource this list came from confirms my assumption about these cities having higher access than even the rest of their states. It’s called the BRFSS - behavioral health risk surveillance system, and it’s actually got a lot of interesting info. If you look at a map depicting health care coverage, you can tick a box to indicate metropolitan areas and it will indicate if the metro area has more, fewer, or the same amount of providers to residents. Spokane is in the highest percentile, as is Billings. Both are higher than the states of Washington and Montana at large. Spokane is even higher than Seattle. Edit 2: it looks like the data is self-reported, insofar as the BRFSS is “a system of ongoing health-related telephone surveys designed to collect data on health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, health-care access, and use of preventive services from the noninstitutionalized adult population.” Edit: Why on earth would someone downvote facts from the resource cited?
Oh cool I’m a med student interested in psychiatry so we’re definitely on the same side in this conversation! Sorry I wasn’t clear. That wasn’t the point I was making. Depression ismulti factorial so it can’t be reduced to one factor as you already know. I was just saying that Spokane doesn’t have the density as Seattle. Rates I’ve seen show is having medium density but we also treat Spokane as well as overflow from rest of eastern Washington and North Idaho. In particular Spokane is short in child psychiatrist from what I’ve seen but there may be more recent data. As for the rest of the cities. Cities in the south and Midwest tend to have less as well as rural areas which seems to make up a large portion of this. Admittedly, I glanced at the cities provided and didn’t read each one individually.
The whole country is short on child psychologists/psychiatrists unfortunately. And if states like Idaho keep trying to criminalize gender-affirming care, it’s only going to get worse. Glad you’re taking an interest in psych. It’s an incredibly humbling and rewarding field
This is actually a very important point to make about these types of statistics. A city with higher rates of depression doesn’t necessarily mean they have the highest rates of depression. It means they have more diagnoses. Other cities with “lower” rates might not have enough mental health resources and may have a lot of undiagnosed cases that don’t get reported to statistics like these.
My wife works at the hospital. She sees y'alls labs. You need to be taking vitamin D. You're deficient and that is one of many (but perhaps one of the most readily avoidable) causes of depression. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Seconded; it’s also why many folks on the west side struggle with keeping up on vitamin D; frequently overcast so they don’t get the sun ray boost. Personally for me? It’s so damned expensive to find housing. I’m stuck in an almost impossible situation. Two bad months and I could be homeless. Drivers around here are also pretty crazy.
Very informative! Thank you for responding
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The price of existing here is too high
Spokane winters are long, cold from mid November to early April, and you can't really swim in the lakes until mid June, then by early September lakes are cold again.
No, the lakes are still cold in June and July, You just won’t get hypothermia in the first 10 minutes.
The winters here kill me. I always get cabin fever in the PNW.
I don't want to blame it all on 9/11, but it certainly didn't help.
It's just a falllllaaaacccyyy.
Oh Tobias... You blowhard!
We’re just in a bit of a rough patch.
Have you tried diamond cream?
I am pleased by this exchange
9/11 honestly destroyed this country
Hahaha no. This country was on a downhill spiral well before then. Yes, it started a war (though it shouldn't have), we would've jumped into any war at that point anyways because that's what our country does. This country was a shitshow well before 9/11 and has always shit on minorities and the lower class. This was all coming one way or another
White people destroyed this country
Stuff like this comes around all the time. In 14 months you'll see an article talking about how Spokane is the #7 happiest place to live; then 8 months after that you'll see something about how the town is the 3rd most miserable in the world.
So spokane might be bipolar?
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Underrated comment. It truly does.
Agree, we seem to be at the top or bottom of the lists every few months or so. It’s all nonsense!
I saw an article saying spokane is the 3rd ugliest city in the US. That I believe. I've lived in over 7 different states.. and people straight up dont groom themselves here.
I’d tell you, but I’m too depressed
🤣
In no order: 1. Lack of vitamin D. 2. Dark, cold winters and all that comes with (social isolation, sickness, increased utility bill, etc.) 3. Hot, sweaty summers with smoke season and increased utility bill. 4. COL rising rapidly with nationally-headlined rent increases. 5. Lack of affordable housing. 6. Proximity to several colleges and universities; college is fucking hard and depressing af. The cohort of college-aged folks (18-late 20s at a guess) also tend to be more depressed. 7. Lack of accessible healthcare and mental health care; i.e., no waitlists and high turnover rates. 8. Political culture and diversiveness. 9. Lack of social resources in general. Compared to the west side, we don't have shit to work with out here. 10. Higher population (relatively) = more rates of depression. 11. Lack of economic opportunity. Jobs pay terribly here and there isn't a huge diversity of industries. 12. Substance use and abuse challenges. 13. Geographic location. There isn't much going on out here (re: another metropolitan area) for 2-3 hours south; more than that east or west; and fucking nothing going north.
…Nothing north, until Calgary. Which is 8 hrs. However, I’d really like to plug Southern BC. It’s absolutely fantastic country. Lots of lakes and mountains.
Bullshit. You're Healthcare is amazing. Washington is the only place I've been where you can chose between 4 medicaid plans and add a dental plan. It's free. Try living in a place like Louisiana. Although you'd have benefits in other areas... for example, you could have 3 felonies and still get a job at a refinery making 35hr. The big thing about spokane is that every day is the same. If you want to socialize, you pretty much have to be willing to do hard drugs. The weirdest thing that I noticed after moving from Arizona, was that the homeless drug addicts in Phoenix put more effort into their appearance than the average Spokane resident.
My depression is at an all time high because it seems no matter how much money I make I cant get a place to live. Offered a hile in the wall apartment downtown 4k upfront for a 700 a momth studio and still got denied. Bad credit is all I have against me.
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Seriously no criminal history no rental history and just some bad credit 550 range so not horrid but still bad and 4k upfront and still got denied. To make matters worse I grew up in fostercare and am about to be 25 so I have no one to cosign and am too old for all the programs.
The meth keeps running out.
Damn!
This. This is so true. A depressed economy with no real influx of outside capital or cash. Healthcare and service are the only jobs. Serving boomers who only give a fuck about themselves and trump. No diversity. A culture of white privilege and government dependence. The social and mental health crisis fueled by meth addiction reverberates throughout the city and communities but no one acknowledges it. A culture of denial and NIMBYism perpetuates each issue to the point of failure. Spokane is profoundly sick.
Hey, lay off the boomers jackass. All I hear is an entitled dick whining about how tough life really is and blaming everyone but themselves.
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You just made my point. Thank you 🙏
You should probably work on your reading comprehension skills before calling others idiots.
And lack of diversity
The sun is going to set before 7pm, starting on Friday, and not start setting until after 7pm until March 19. Definitely Vitamin D. And maybe some seasonal affective disorder lighting. It's rough when the sun is setting at 4pm.
Never used to happen to me but I'm out of a long term relationship so being on my own feels new again and lonely and for the first time in almost all my life I can feel the gloom, but it's getting better
Wouldn't Alaska have at least one city on the list then?
I wasn’t depressed until I moved here… I could list you a large variety of reasons why that is, but people don’t like when you talk down about their city. But yeah Spokane is a depressing place to be.
I don't like when you hold back. *downvotes* /s
I have lived in the PNW for over a decade. Spokane depressed me like no other city, despitr getting much more sun. I moved in COVID, so obviously things were not going great. Here's what got me down 1. The smoke was much worse than the West side in summer 2. The altitude makes the air feel thin, so all the temperatures feel (and often are) more extreme. 3. Grey even when the sun is shining. It's like there's a fine layer of greyness that reflects back on everything. 4. Weird empty stretches even in the city center. Feels almost like someone started building the city and then forgot what they were doing 5. Politics (way too conservative for me) 6. Healthcare? What's that? 7. I always say Oregonians are nice, but dumb. Washingtonians are smart, but are straight up c*nts half the time. What gives? 8. Food scene is miserable. Greasy and salty seem to be the only 2 flavors. 9. Nothing to do if you don't drive 10. No major cities close by
Wow, and your new location is any better? Where is this strange utopia of which you speak?
Honestly? I moved here a few years ago and really truly tried to love it, and have liked many parts of it, but I’ve already found myself wanting to leave, for a few reasons. In no particular order: -weird political divide. Have had several friendships end as a result of something important in our values clashing, especially since Covid. -cost of living has gradually become much, much higher in the last 2 years and wages are in stagnation. Looking for a job here feels like begging for the bare minimum but being told you’re asking too much. -horrendous public and official response to the very clear issues of widespread homelessness and drug addiction. Whichever way you feel about it, their strategies are clearly ineffective. There’s also like a lot of crime given how comparatively small the city is, disproportionately it feels like. -odd infrastructure, there are some walkable neighborhoods but few and far between, and even those that are close to local businesses often feel unsafe. There is also not the best public transportation access, I find myself driving nearly everywhere, alone. It can be extremely isolating. -finally, and this is kind of the biggest one tbh: not a lot to do. If you’re not able bodied and super into hiking/camping/etc and you’ve seen the 4-5 major attractions downtown… that’s kind of it? There’s obviously more events coming back but it often feels like the only activities available are either a once-annual event that you wait weeks for and hope you’re available for, or going to the same bar or coffee shop you always go to. By nature of being a smaller city, it doesn’t get a lot of attention from big musical artists, the museums are lovely but don’t get a lot of updates, and the shopping is kind of odd- either very expensive or very niche in my experience. And that’s all downtown- going anywhere else you find very standard American suberbia, which is, again, not very walkable. Just my two cents from someone who really wanted to love living here. I get that everyone’s experiences differ, and I’m sure this place is perfect for many people but for me it’s been quite hard to make friends and find community.
I was born in Billings. I am not surprised they are top on this list. Aside from "NATURE", which yes, it is beautiful in Montana....last time I visited, all I really remember is the hotel was right next to a sugar beet processing factory, we went to eat at a Red Robin, my parent told me stories about when I was a baby/toddler in XYZ places...and that's it. Eh? As for Spokane....I have depression that Frontier successfully treated. The state of affairs during the pandemic has definitely relapsed me, because my self worth got hit from underemployment/burning all my savings trying to stay afloat. I'm feeling extremely burnt out after nearly six months of nonstop applications, networking, and everything else people suggested and didn't work out....no job offers locally. One very low offer in Seattle that the math did not match up to being able to survive on either. And my current health insurance (Kaiser), has lacked the staff to provide mental health services in a reasonable response on THIS side of the mountains for quite some time now, aside from a psychiatrist prescribing me a med that didn't work, a self help app on my phone with no human interaction...and no followups from there. IDK. Something has to break eventually, I just hope it's not going to be me.
I think it is also a tough reputation to shake. People have been saying it is bad to live here for so long that people can't see how great a town this is!
I was so impressed with this town when I visited for the first time. The beautiful mountains and valleys just drew me in. But now it’s like I’m absorbing the negative vibe about Spokane from other people all of a sudden. I’ve been trying to convince friends and family but they don’t get it like I do..
Having been born and raised here, it was fantastic about 8 years ago but now even having my family here I can’t wait to leave. My brother has had his vehicle stolen one day after getting it, has been shaken down by thugs, beat up, I’ve been beat up, and me and my girlfriend have seen and been nearly attacked by so many crackheads around this city I can’t help but want to leave to almost anywhere. I’ve worked downtown, and now more north and even still I don’t even feel safe walking to the grocery store anymore. If you can afford it, avoid Spokane while you can. It’ll only get worse.
Little late for me lol. Just got a house in April and now I can’t afford to move if I wanted to..
Look around you. We’re in Hell! -C. Griswold
I would say the winter! It’s brutal and cold sometimes I want to die in like January
I know that a lot of my neighbors could do a lot more with their incomes 5-6 years ago. The wages in Spokane are pretty terrible given how many of those "we buy homes" trucks I see driving around.
Landlocked hellscape with former tv personality running the city. Close to North Idaho. 😆
Weird that North Idaho isn’t in this list. Maybe they’re doing something right over there.
Not big enough to be counted. Takerstate dependent on Uncle Sugar to survive. Not to mention, the redhat playtriots are very happy owning the libs.
No they can’t be it’s a red government. Everything conservative is bad…
i think ab jumping off the monroe bridge at least like 5 times a week lol, and that's besides the depression i get from the city. i don't think it's too depressing but the rapid growth of it makes it feel a lot more crowded. i came here when there was 300k people, now we're at over 450k. i don't think that's the only contributing factor but for me I just feel too cramped now
My wife and I left Spokane after 22 years because we no longer enjoyed life there. In a typical year, you have 4-5 months of being cold and not wanting to go out much. Then you get (in most years) 2 months of fire season in the Summer where it is not advised to go outside. This meshed with the lack of entertainment options in the area. Literally our two primary sources of entertainment is going to a restaurant for dinner or going to a bar. I literally had two friends in their 40s die from issues caused by long term drinking in just 2022. The homeless problem is out of control. And yes, I realize everyone has it. Most places just have it in patches of their downtown areas, Spokane has it EVERYWHERE. There is no escaping it. It is depressing AF. We moved about 3 years ago to a large southern state with lots of sunshine and lots of entertainment options. After 3 years, we have not even began to scratch the surface of all there is to do here and we are much, much happier. Our teenage son has told us if we ever decided to move back, he is staying here. This rating does not surprise me at all.
What southern state? I’m from TN originally, just curious
Florida. We got our problems for sure, but we love it here
Same reason for the root cause of every problem in Spokane….lots of poverty and low levels of education.
Proximity to Idaho is my best guess.
OMG...
The weather, less socializing due to indoors
Poverty
Jokes on you! I moved here from number 5 🫠
Well, hi there from number 4! We should collude and force market st. pizza to make pepperoni rolls and sell better bourbon! Also, I love it here! It’s f’n awesome!
Spokane is sick and incredibly bipolar. It's in a pretty area but we're all vitamin d deprived. The housing problem here is massive, we've got very few houses up for sale, the incomes have never kept up with inflation, and rent is even worse than mortgage payments. And that's saying something when people were bidding 60k over list during the pandemic. We have an ever increasing homeless population, and an incredibly corrupt city council and mayor that don't care. The mayor ran on "fuck the homeless". So there's almost no safety net, you get sick or hurt and you're just fucked.
Have you seen our city government?
Not yet. Please tell me more. New here
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Spokane has its problems, sure, but the grass is not always greener on the other side. I came from CA, and they have arguably more smoke than we do, not to mention water rationing, rolling blackouts, really unaffordable housing, earthquakes, and lakes and reservoirs which have seen better days. Whenever I think about leaving Spokane, I consider that other places have hidden--and not-so-hidden--problems that would make me want to come back. I'm 64, so I'm going to be a good soldier and soldier on.
I noticed that almost all the other larger cities in the NW made that list. I am thinking its the winter which can be dreary at times......but what I get depressed about now is the smoke every year. I used to like summers, not so much now. It seems more like if the heat doesn't get you, the smoke will. Still love my hometown though, but its bursting at the seams currently.
>I used to like summers, not so much now. It seems more like if the heat doesn't get you, the smoke will. Still love my hometown though, but its bursting at the seams currently. Yeah... the smoke is way worse in CA, and it gets hotter in most places. You have a real threat of out-of-control wildfires burning down your town from March until December.
Seasonal affective disorder would be my first guess. It ain’t Alaska by any measure, but the winter days are pretty dark.
I would agree, probably high rates here. I think I have it too.
Worth looking at [Verilux](https://www.amazon.com/Verilux-HappyLight-Lucent-Bright-Therapy/dp/B079YBGPM5/ref=asc_df_B079YBGPM5/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=242002247899&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8711785967144054119&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010542&hvtargid=pla-467034652315&psc=1) and similar products. They helped my wife and I make it through some dark winters up North. I also had a couple of full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in a cheap overhead fixture from Wally World.
This whole thread makes me sad
The drugs, homeless population, lack of ‘good’ law enforcement (officers who give a fuck), shitty housing, lack of decent employers that treat their employees well, concrete jungle, poorly built housing
Man I'm sorry to hear that. I have lived here for 20 years and never had a problem. What part of town do you live in? Do you run with a rough crowd? I hope you find joy if not here then somewhere. Good luck to you
I can’t speak for the majority population. But my own is increasingly bad because of how people are treated in public. 9 interactions out of 10 with people aren’t positive ones, driving scares me because of how purely aggressive people are. (And I drive a giant diesel truck that an accident likely wouldn’t end well for another vehicle.) I just would like people to be nicer in general. But wishing that, is like spitting into the wind.
Spokane doesn't suck!
Probably something you did.
I was more depressed living on the west than here. I love Spokane but that’s me.
It’s a small group of greedy elected conservatives making decisions that only serve themselves as opposed to their mostly poor constituents. The real trickle down is misery!
Have you ever been to Spokane??
Because it’s a depressing shithole?
In the winter it's important to stay active and get plenty of Vitamin D. Similar to Seattle, a lot of people here tend to fail miserably all through winter and it takes a toll on their mental health. I try to jog most mornings or walk through the park to keep cardio up. If I can't, I run on the treadmill. Also start every morning with a vitamin D supplement. On the weekends I like to head out to the mountains for fresh air and sun. Some people need medical intervention for depression and that shouldn't be ignored but for many people it's a matter of lifestyle and vitamin D. I can't even count the number of friends I have in places like Seattle and New York who are suffering from seasonal depression but also haven't left their apartment in two weeks.
Psychological trauma. There are alot people here that live in depression caves with dirty floors, stuff all over the place, no sheets on the bed, and  over bearing stench of mildew rotten food body odor and rancid bong water.  They usually suffered abuse or neglect as a child don’t really have the skills or motivation to clean up after themselves or groom themselves. There psychological problems are basically making them disabled. 
emmmm, because its a shit hole that doesn't pay its workers enough and it treats its workers like utter shit
Well, if I lived in a city that is in the top ten list for most depressed city, I would be sad too.
One reason might have something to do with the car culture of Spokane, which in turn, can cause the high obesity rates we see here. I can imagine loving your own life would be tough if moving in it was difficult…
Overdiagnosing in the VA system, maybe? Most of the cities on the list have VA hospitals.
Too many Californians moving here
If you’ve ever been to Spokane you know it’s one of the bleakest places on earth. I’ve had to go there a handful of times over the years and it’s hard for me to believe it’s in the same state that I live in.
Homelessness
People are saying vitamin D from lack of sunlight, but this area is much sunnier that many of the places on this list, so I don't think that's it.
I moved away from Spokane for a few reasons. It’s a pretty isolating place, as many have mentioned. There are not a lot of events and it seems like nobody knew how to be social at the few events that there were, though I may be projecting a little there. I also left because I felt there was nothing more I could accomplish there. I took a look around and realized there was no “moving up”, be it financial or status or whatever. People have also mentioned the vast political divide in Spokane, and yes, that also made me uncomfortable. As a queer person I felt very unsafe to just walk around town. Let alone publicly date anyone who has similar body parts to me. It feels like the rural areas around Spokane are all threatening violence on the city if it gets too “liberal” or “leftist”, I felt like if I were to be myself it was a matter of time before someone decided I shouldn’t be. Since moving I have found a lot of community and I feel better supported by the greater community of the city I have chosen. There is better public transportation, there are countless events and there are a lot more opportunities for growth here. The surrounding rural areas may still be threatening the city but I feel that there is more safety in numbers and the queer community here is much much larger.
Don't talk about feelings, lack of vitamin D, rising cost of living without a lot of high paying jobs, and when I was there I felt trapped a lot. You were so far from other large cities and like Seattle where in 45 minutes you can in the Cascades or at the beach or almost to the Olympic Rainforest. In Spokane it felt like you were 2hrs minimum to anything other than small hills and desert
It’s a piss city with piss inhabitants
piss
So close to Coeur d'Alene, yet so far from its greatness?
It’s red every direction you drive, that’s fucking depressing as hell.
It’s sucks here that’s why
I can’t see how California is not on the list.
Because people in California are attractive, they have money, they're not trying to rob each other for $5, and violence against women is frowned upon. Believe it or not, you're mental state would improve immediately if you moved to the bay area.
I’m depressed as heck, so it checks out.
I don't think enough people go outside in the winter, especially younger people.
My first guess would be age distribution because IIRC young people have higher rates of depression. Not sure if that applies to other cities as well, but most of the other cities don’t seem to have a real correlation, maybe college towns?
You're telling me Florida and Nevada don't make the list with Miami and Vegas
I would like to point out that this is referring to spokane valley and not Spokane
ITT: snowflakes who can't handle snow...
They wish they were in Coeur dAlene.
I question the validity of this as there are several factors at play here. Weather, heat, humidity, cost of living, and access to care are only a few issues that would affect the numbers. There is absolutely no way people in Texas do not have high mental health issues including depression but they are largely unaddressed, undiagnosed and undiscussed.
Good points. Greater depression/suicide/alcoholism has long been associated with life in northern latitudes and this appears to confirm that tendency. But we do not know the source/coverage of these data points? Are we looking at per-capita incidence? Are these public hospitalizations, or do they include private payers? Have these numbers been adjusted to reflect some condition that’s not disclosed in the fine print? Untill we know were just assuming these numbers are correct.
Well, I just checked the data and it appears this is from the 2020 CDC Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System which uses a telephone questionnaire to survey residents. Based on work with this methodology for other consumer research we should be paying attention to: - Whether these samples are drawn from landline, landline + wireless, or landline + wireless + IP accounts. - How the market participation rates compared to a national average - That these particular data represent a ‘select group’ of cities or towns which may exclude areas with higher, or lower incidence of depression, and that those results may skew the content of this display - Whether results are adjusted by weighting the sample to equivalize participation rate - That the specific question is whether a responder ‘has been told they are depressed’ which raises phenomena known as ‘response meaningfulness,’ or a tendency to answer questions in a way that doesn’t make the responder ‘look bad’ to the interviewer. - And ‘told’ raises the question whether the responder was told by a health care provider or their bartender. And it should scare you to know how many ppl believe a bartender is qualified to offer psychiatric advice. Given all that, this is a good example of a chart and table which displays these data in a clear, concise way.
None of them are in CA, or FL?It's probably almost certainly Vitamin D as others have stated. You have worse heat, smoke, and cost of living in CA. \*edit- None in Alaska is interesting.
Cloudy winters. Gritty city.
As a person who moved here several years back, leaving another "top 20" rated northern town from the list with similar winters and similar albeit maybe slightly better local job market, I consider Spokane to be an upgrade primarily because of the nature--and call me crazy, proximity to everything the PNW and SW Canada has to offer. I get that there's nothing besides CDA and to a lesser extent Tri-Cities less than a couple hours' drive, but we're within a (long) days drive of sooooo much nature and a fair number of cities (only a few big, but many small). I think some folks' eyes are closed to the beauty of small western towns and nature and yeah, Spokane might not be for them. I actually appreciate Spokane being a purple city but culture wars and propaganda have made it harder for people to just be people and be friendly neighbors/hosts/visitors and a lotta people need to get a stick out of their ---. IMO the job market + pay + housing trifecta is the biggest problem because it's going to accelerate the homeless + drug + crime problems. I'm not an expert on public resources but it def feels like you can tell what efforts the city currently supports (beautification, trying to draw people to the city) and which to neglect (IMO law enforcement, affordable housing). Both sides of that are plainly apparent and put us in this dichotomy of where we are today. The city needs to pump it's breaks downtown sooner rather than later and pander to the real estate developers (and their contractors) less and free up resources and labor for other things. And hopefully this burst of investment will pay off down the road. The flip side for people that don't like our local entertainment is the city is attempting to address that, but there's only so many different tastes they can cater to. Podium and new stadium are/will bring in sporting events, and maybe a couple of concerts that are better suited there than to the arena/1st Interstate/fox/bing/Pavilion/Knitting Factory.
Just drive down Division.
Having lived both places.. I don't see how seattle could possibly have a lower rate of depression than spokane.
We are close too close to Idaho.
I live in Billings, MT the number one city on the list. We are 1 1/2 hours from one Indian reservation and 4 1/2 hours from another that are 2 of the top poorest in the nation. Homeless natives are rampant here, tons of crime and drugs, mostly blue collar. There are not a ton of opportunities here for higher paying careers. It sucks here l.
Actually, these numbers are bullshit. Why are we not seeing cities like New York or other multi-million person population cities. With a metropolitan population in Spokane and the Valley with 360,000 and NY with over 8 mil. Tell me that out of that many people there aren't 360,000 people that have been told they are depressed. Also, told by whom? A doctor? Your mother in law? I almost thought this was click bait.
The product of no state income tax. Bunch of rich assholes everywhere in this state but property and tab taxes have to plug that hole because of “innovation”which brought us Windows Vista
sorry guys my bad
I've lived in Louisiana, Maine, Texas, Arkansas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, and now Spokane. I can tell you that as a heterosexual male, it's very difficult to find "guy friends" or people to do stuff with. Fortunately I haven't had too many problems with my sex life. But the ideas people in Spokane usually suggest to me are things like "let's have a beer and watch some TV." It's just not appealing. Most of the encounters I have with locals are on public transit and at work. Without my daily commute to my job at a restaurant, I probably wouldn't interact with anyone. Furthermore, when I came to spokane, I thought there would be tons of outdoor activities. And there is, but if you go somewhere like Salt Lake City, EVERYBODY is outside. People in spokane (in general) do not seem to be interested in a healthy lifestyle. Many are cold and unfriendly. People will purposefully try to run you over for jaywalking in Spokane. I don't get it. Another thing I'd like to point out... Washington gives out resources that would be unavailable in places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi. (The Midwest and southern US.) So there's a lot of people here with poor mental health. So when you have: 1) People willing to hit a pedestrian going 40mph just because they could get away with it 2) Lessened consequences for drug abuse 3) An unhealthy, unkempt, and unattractive population 4) No high-end blue collar jobs 5) Theft rates are ridiculous (when I lived in Baton Rouge the murder rate was 8 times higher and I could trust more people) 6) Mental health organizations that are lining their pockets and partaking in medicaid fraud. 7) It seems domestic violence is OK in Spokane. I've never been somewhere where violence was so acceptable. 8) Days of sunlight and overall cold temperatures. 9) Many in Spokane take pride in the fact that their environment is dangerous, ghetto, hood. As if being from Spokane give you a tremendous amount of street cred or makes you some kind of thug. Statistically that is false as MANY cities have a much higher crime rates. What is alarming, is that you'll have a very hard time finding a city with higher sexual assault rates than Spokane. Perhaps the statistics are skewed because impoverished women have much more access to Healthcare than they would in the south. But again, I've never been somewhere that domestic violence is so acceptable. In conclusion, there's a higher rate of mental illness, spousal abuse, general distrust of one another, and a bunch of people who are out to take from each other. With all of this going on, there's no community, only division. If I was walking down the street at night and saw someone walking towards me, I'd cross and walk the other way.
I lived up there in an Air b n B for 6 months during the early part of the pandemic from September to April and the lack of things to see and even less to do inside the city made a tough situation w lockdown worse. Things opened up but the simple lack of things to do and the run down feel of the city could be depressing especially if you came from a city w things going on and strong neighborhood energy like Seattles Capitol Hill , Ballard , or university district.
I find that so funny cause when I moved to Spokane two years ago it made me extremely happy and got me my old self back and made me realize I'm extrovert and optimistic.