I just returned from a 9-day vacation in the Pacific Northwest, which has triggered a few thoughts about what seems to me to be America’s best state.
My wife and I spent most of our time hiking in the Cascade Mountains, which have absolutely spectacular scenery. I’m not sure why Mt. Baker is not a national park. And next to San Francisco, Seattle may have the best setting of any major American city. The only reason I don’t live up there is that I prefer hot sunny weather.
Washington is a very “blue” state, but in some respects is quite unlike most other blue states. For instance, its population grew by 14.6% during the 2010s (same as Florida), which is double the national rate. Colorado was other only other blue state with that sort of fast growth, and Colorado is considerably less blue than Washington. (I count Nevada and Arizona as “purple”, despite Biden’s wins.) The only northern states with faster population growth were Idaho and North Dakota, which both started from a very low base.
This fast growth partly reflects the fact that NIMBYism is much less entrenched in Washington than in other parts of the West Coast. Housing prices are even higher here in Orange County CA, but unlike Seattle we have very little new construction, and hence very little population growth. In Seattle, one sees high-rise apartments and condos being built at a rapid rate, and its suburbs are also expanding.
More generally, Washington also has an interesting mix of left and right libertarian policies. It has legalized pot and physician-assisted suicide, and is unlikely to follow Texas in banning abortion. On the other hand, unlike other blue states it has no state income tax and (AFAIK) its gun restrictions are less strict that many other large blue states.
Its corporate sector is also exceptional, having produced Microsoft and Amazon. At various times in recent years, the world’s two richest men lived in Washington.
Washington is also exceptional in the way it handled Covid. There are some less populous states with a lower death rate, but among larger states Washington really stands out. It’s the 13th largest state in population, and yet its death rate is by far the lowest among the top 25. What makes this even more surprising is that early in the pandemic Washington had more Covid fatalities than any other state.
Visiting Washington from California, I was immediately struck by how much more Covid cautious the population is. AFAIK, this is not due to major differences in government regulation between the two states, rather ordinary people enforce these norms by reminding you to wear a mask even if just going from a restaurant table to the restroom. (Perhaps Northern California is more like Washington.)
In contrast, when I visited Arizona I found the public to be somewhat more lax than in California. Not surprisingly, Washington has a far lower fatality rate than California, while Arizona has a much higher fatality rate. Look at the difference in deaths between Washington and Arizona (which is 14th in population).
Some of this may be demographics, but not all. Masks and social distancing work.
[Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean the Washington approach is “better”, as there are both costs and benefits to Covid caution. FWIW, I’m in the camp that believes that 1/3 of Americans take Covid too seriously and 1/3 don’t take in seriously enough. And again, I believe that differences between states mostly reflect culture, not government regulation.]
If I could go back to age 21 and start my adult life over again, then Seattle is the place I’d wish to live.
Update: Perhaps the most exceptional fact of all is that Seattle’s new mass transit line came in under budget.
PS. Thanks to Gordon and Sheena for their kind hospitality.
PPS. Here’s a picture I took hiking near Mt. Baker:
READER COMMENTS
Ken P
Oct 3 2021 at 6:44pm
Nice picture! I relate a lot to this post. I really like Seattle too and sometimes wish I would have moved there when I was younger.
Your list changes significantly if you age adjust the data.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:17am
Yes, age adjustments matter somewhat, but don’t really change the points I made.
Ken P
Oct 5 2021 at 9:40pm
True. Age adjustment strengthens your comparison. Arizona actually has highest per capita mortality in US if adjusted for age, while Washington isn’t even in top 25. Healthy activities (like hiking) might make a difference, too.
Max More
Oct 11 2021 at 9:13am
What am I missing? The linked Twitter table shows Arizona as 13th in age-adjusted rates.
Max More
Oct 11 2021 at 9:23am
I found a table of age-adjusted rates for the last three months (I don’t see a longer time period), and it also does not put AZ at #1. It puts it at #6:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality/Provisional_COVD19.htm
Rajat
Oct 3 2021 at 9:15pm
I’ve only visited Seattle a couple of times (last in 1996) and I agree there’s a lot to like about Washington. My last trip included a pilgrimage to Roslyn, where the outdoor scenes from Northern Exposure were filmed. I also managed to catch Bill Clinton give a stump speech to a crowd at Pike Place on how he wanted to “build a bridge to the 21st century.” Seattle seemed fairly small back in 1996, but I guess it has grown quickly.
On Covid, when you say ‘some of this may be demographics’, were you excluding ethnic background? I wonder if the relatively high ethnically Asian background of Seattle residents could partly explain the stronger mask-wearing norms? BC in Canada would be subject to a similar effect and BC seems to have had a lower case and death rate than other large provinces: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html?stat=rate&measure=total&map=pt#a2
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:19am
I was thinking of age differences. But yes, the Asian community may be more likely to wear masks. However, Orange County’s Asian community is as large as Seattle’s.
StevSEA
Oct 3 2021 at 9:28pm
Scott, you’re right. We are proud of our governor and our people. We do have a different cultural type in eastern Washington though; think Texas. Our covid rates would be much lower had they believed the science. And our problems now center on the disparity of wealth.
Still, I’ve been here since 1989 and have no intention of leaving.
Jeff
Oct 5 2021 at 3:24pm
there’s no correlation between strictness of a state’s virus policies and fatalities in the United States. Sorry that rains on your genuflection to the governor.
Adam Michalik
Oct 3 2021 at 10:01pm
This is only an achievement because the budget had been insanely high in the first place. This mostly above ground rail line costs more per mile than subway construction does in London or Paris.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:20am
Thanks for that info Adam. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Speed
Oct 4 2021 at 9:43am
More detail … The Antiplanner wrote this morning …
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19186
Matthias
Oct 5 2021 at 5:35am
You’d think that forecasting costs should be easy: just take whatever estimates your bureaucrats spit out and multiply by whatever cost overrun similar projects had. Or something similar.
Yet, big projects around the world, and especially government projects, still can’t seem to even budget right.
Spending an insane amount per mile is bad, but it is a slightly different problem.
J Mann
Oct 6 2021 at 4:17pm
I’d say that accurately budgeting for mass transit is itself an accomplishment – I’m more used to finding out that costs are double what the proponents projected and ridership is half.
Andrew_FL
Oct 4 2021 at 9:18am
This is the second time that I’ve seen you bring this up and I still don’t understand how it is in any way libertarian
Max More
Oct 4 2021 at 12:07pm
Physician-assisted suicide is clearly libertarian. You own yourself and have a right to decide when you die. If you are suffering horribly and have no chance of getting better, you should be able to terminate your life (whether to end it permanently or to get cryopreserved with a possible chance of eventual revival). If you are paralyzed or otherwise unable to administer an injection yourself, you rely on others to do it.
Todd Ramsey
Oct 4 2021 at 9:34am
1. A good argument can be made that Washington’s economy is so good because it has no state income tax.
Gates and Allen were making good money when they decided to move Microsoft here from New Mexico. At least as early as employee number 70, Microsoft was touting the absence of state income tax in recruiting.
As for Bezos, he has publicly claimed that he located Amazon in Seattle because of proximity to book distributors. It’s hard to believe the corner of the country is the most proximal place he could find.
2. Masks are currently required by the Governor in public indoor settings. Probably that’s why you were encouraged to wear a mask to the restroom.
3. +1 on Adam. In addition, the first segment of light rail was massively over budget.
4. And a major quibble: As a lifelong Seattle resident, I must disagree with one of your statements. With Mount Rainier, the Olympic mountains, and the inland waterways, Seattle is more beautiful than the Bay area. In the Summer; we won’t talk about the long gray Winters.
Thanks for visiting! Best area in the country — in July and August. September is nice too.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:23pm
Good points about taxes.
You said:
“Masks are currently required by the Governor in public indoor settings. Probably that’s why you were encouraged to wear a mask to the restroom.”
I very much doubt that’s the reason. Why don’t waiters say that in California? I suspect it’s a cultural difference.
MarkW
Oct 4 2021 at 10:57am
I’m not sure who’s stalking who, but we just came back from almost the same trip. Our hike in the mountains at near Baker was not sunny and dry, but it was still spectacular with mist and cloud layers (it’s now now our all-time favorite rainy hike I think) — and we did get plenty of sun over on the Olympic peninsula. I’m pretty sure Mt Baker is not a national park because the adjacent North Cascades National Park is so close (and, weirdly, it’s one of the least visited parks in the system). Where possible I’d just as soon see things left under National Forest or BLM control without the heavy-hand of the NPS.
As for Washington (and Colorado), my sense is that like California before them, they have some laws, regulations and habits remaining from when the politics were different but that these legacies are being steadily eroded over time. Certainly today’s Washington State voters would never have chosen to be a no-income tax state if it weren’t already that way. Seattle itself is about as far left as it comes (next to Portland anyway) with a genuine socialist on city council exercising considerable power. Just this last week, for example, Seattle adopted a stealth form of rent control. Enjoy it while you can, I guess.
As for Covid, Seattle felt fairly heavy handed to me (coming from Michigan). A lot of restaurants remained carry-out only and we were even required to show vaccine cards to sit out on the patio at one place (even though we never entered the building). My sense is the pandemic is a one-off event and the places that have shown a willingness to impose strict measures are not where I’d want to be post-pandemic. Though we will be back, since one of our kids has moved there and another is thinking about it. And that’s fine–the hiking really is amazing.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:25pm
That’s weird. Almost everywhere we went we were able to eat indoors.
MarkW
Oct 4 2021 at 1:55pm
That’s weird. Almost everywhere we went we were able to eat indoors.
One day we were going to grab a quick burger and one of these was nearby. Still carryout only. We ran into the same with Thai place. It’s not that we couldn’t find any places to eat indoors, but around home, all restaurants have long ago reopened for indoor dining. And, again, having to present vaccine cards (even, in one case, for outdoor seating) was a novel experience.
My sense was that, politically-speaking, there’s really little in the way of (the city of) Seattle city going full San Francisco. I guess that the main difference is that, in the case of Seattle, there are still surrounding areas to escape to that are more sensible.
TGGP
Oct 4 2021 at 11:32am
You write here that Washington is the best state, even compared to California… but the state you moved to is California rather than Washington.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:18pm
Yes, and I also explained why.
Max More
Oct 4 2021 at 12:12pm
I live in Scottsdale, AZ. Some of the time, it’s true, there was less mask-wearing. At other times, it has been high, at least where I live. I don’t see strong evidence that masks make much difference, unless they are surgical masks at a minimum and worn properly, and used in crowded places.
Arizona has a high percentage of Hispanics, who have much higher risks of contracting Covid, for whatever reason. That accounts for some of the difference with Washington. AZ is rated “very high risk” compared to Washington’s “medium” by Covidactnow.org. Arizona also has an older population.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2021 at 12:21pm
California has an equally high Hispanic population as Arizona. Arizona has a few more old people, but nowhere near enough to explain the huge difference in death rates.
Arizona has less mask wearing; that’s the main difference.
zeke5123
Oct 4 2021 at 9:53pm
Ipsie Dixit. You are basing this on your limited experience in both Washington and Arizona. But besides that compare masked Washington with unmasked Sweden. Sweden had about 15k COVID deaths to date; Washington 8k. Sweden has a significantly older population (about 900K more above the age of 65). Depending on the exact make up of the relative populations, the IFRs, and the real spread of the disease, it isn’t hard to think Sweden and Washington have basically been the same on mortality yet one does masks and the other doesn’t.
If I made this argument, you would rightfully point out there are a lot of other differences between Washington and Sweden. Just like there are a lot of differences between Arizona and Washington that go far beyond simply age (e.g., different climate, different ethnic make up, different obesity, different wealth levels, different density). Boiling your multivariate analysis down to “masks” isn’t just sloppy analysis; it isn’t even analysis.
Eric Hanneken
Oct 5 2021 at 6:31am
The vaccination rate in Washington is also higher than it is in Arizona.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2021 at 12:43pm
Washington was doing better even before vaccination.
Todd Moodey
Oct 5 2021 at 8:36am
Nicely put, and bonus points for the use of “ipse dixit”!
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2021 at 12:46pm
No matter how much evidence piles up in favor of masks, people keep saying it’s not definitive. Sorry, I’m not buying the skepticism.
And try comparing Sweden with Norway or Finland.
zeke5123
Oct 5 2021 at 1:16pm
I knew you would say “look at Finland and Norway.” The logic behind it is to try to compare like and a like to see if there is a difference. This demonstrates pretty clearly why you comparing Washington and Arizona was bonkers. One is largely a temperate rain forest (at least where the population is located). The other is a desert. Also, not clear that Finland and Norway are good comps for Sweden.
As for evidence piling up, the evidence that keeps on being produced (e.g., the Bangladesh study) have massive methodological problems. My priors started with the vast majority of high quality RCTs that said cloth masks didn’t stop LRVs from spreading. So strong prior should be cloth masks don’t do anything. To date, there is very little studies outside of attempted observational studies (which as some have shown come down to the particular dates chosen as starting and ending points) that support cloth masks doing a damn thing. So, I still believe cloth masks don’t help.
Does that mean all masks don’t help? I think — based again on historic research — that some masks such as N95s make some difference. But such masks are also more uncomfortable. The question is one of cost-benefit. I, as a vaccinated father of two young kids, think the historic practice of not masking is clearly the winner on cost-benefit. I can understand how you as an older person might have a different cost-benefit approach.
Scott Sumner
Oct 6 2021 at 2:12pm
When people tell me that masks are “uncomfortable”, I envy them. If only I could go through life in a situation where mask discomfort was something worth thinking about. For me, masks aren’t even in the top 100 of annoyances I face every day.
Max More
Oct 4 2021 at 12:28pm
I would add that you can see these demographic differences reflected in the fact that Arizona is 17th in cases per capita but 6th in deaths per capita.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2021 at 12:44pm
Cases are not a useful metric, as testing varies widely.
Gordon
Oct 4 2021 at 3:38pm
One thing to keep in mind with regards to the covid numbers for California is that we were hit hard with the California variant (now labeled epsilon as a VOC) during the fall and winter of 2020 when people were socializing for the holidays. And epsilon has one of the same mutations as delta that allows it to partially evade neutralization by antibodies.
As for the taxes, one of my friends who lives in WA complains that the reason there is no personal income tax there is because they heavily tax the lumber industry. Of course he makes this complaint because his family owns lumber.
Jose Pablo
Oct 5 2021 at 9:10am
I would avoid reading too much on Covid 19 deaths. After all, this is a random phenomenon that follows a power law. On these cases, very little information can be obtained from the moment of different orders.
From Taleb:
“We are therefore dealing with a phenomenon for which observed quantities such as the sample average and standard deviation are meaningless for inference.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0921-x
I undertand “action bias” is very difficult to avoid. But one of the few good thinks of this pandemic is that should make all of us humbler.
https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/transmission-t-024-cristopher-moore-on-the-heavy-tail-of-outbreaks
After all you don’t get any better playing lottery no matter how much you train. And the “average lottery winning” in your neighborhood contains very little useful information.
Jason S.
Oct 5 2021 at 2:25pm
I think Washington and Oregon see some significant economic benefits from the fact that their policies are far more reasonable than California’s – but they still leave a lot to be desired compared to many other states. Economic regulation looks really extensive: https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/washington.
Henri Hein
Oct 13 2021 at 1:49pm
We moved to Washington in 2018 after 20 years in California. I agree with everything you said, except the weather. I actually prefer the weather in Washington. California is way to dry and hot for me.
There is a qualitative difference in political atmosphere that may not show up in the numbers. At least outside of Seattle, the political climate is quite diverse. On my first day in Washington, I heard several conservative sentiments (things like concerns about drug users and the business environment). I saw Biden and Trump signs about evenly. I think I generally disagree more with conservatives than liberals, but I was really tired of the liberal echo-chamber that is the Bay Area.
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