<p>State your preference below and why. North Seattle constitutes Greenwood, Phinney Ridge, Pinehurst, Wallingford, Ballard, U District, Ravenna, Fremont (where i grew up and moved away from), etc. South Seattle is Seward Park, Beacon Hill, Industrial District, SoDo, etc.</p>
<p>you can use suburbs but you have to state which ones and why. but if you can use the neighborhoods IN Seattle.</p>
<p>North Seattle. Safer/nicer area in general. Better shops and better food. Lots of great parks and good lakes. I am partial to Greenwood/Phinney Ridge.</p>
<p>Definitely North Seattle… The reasons have been stated above. Not the U district though. Ballard is very, very nice.</p>
<p>North Seattle! Agree with the two above posters. Reasons : Safety and noise level</p>
<p>I find U District to be a bit more expensive, but you’re closer to school. </p>
<p>Not on your list, but … Northgate is nice, but depending on the time and day, buses don’t come that often. My friend has an apartment there and he loves the solitude when he actually has to study.</p>
<p>I have a few friends who live in Ravenna and it’s pretty quiet there as well. They all use bikes to get around.</p>
<p>North Seattle:</p>
<p>Ravenna: really nice, but you don’t make enough to live there.</p>
<p>Bryant: see Ravenna.</p>
<p>Roosevelt: pretty cool, you can find some good places to live there for cheap, especially around the library.</p>
<p>Lake City: Don’t go there at night.</p>
<p>North City: Don’t go there at night.</p>
<p>Ballard (downtown): nice place to spend a summer day. (don’t park your car under the trees on Market)</p>
<p>Ballard (Crown Hill): Don’t go there at night.</p>
<p>Fremont: pretty cool, if you’re 21, but watch out for Subaru’s there’s a lot of them there and they are famously willing to drive over you.</p>
<p>Wallingford: probably the second best place to live after the U-District, convenient, good shops.</p>
<p>Greenwood: stay away from there at night, for the love of all that is holy.</p>
<p>Phinney Ridge: a really nice neighborhood that suddenly turns into the scary area known as Greenwood. This area is also called “Upper Wallingford” by some people.</p>
<p>Green Lake: really nice, but you can’t afford to live there.</p>
<p>Wedgwood: pretty nice and the UW busses go by there. You can likely find a room right off of the bus routes.</p>
<p>I’m probably forgetting something, but on to Central Seattle.</p>
<p>Central Seattle:</p>
<p>Squire Park: lots of really cool little African Restaurants (you will learn that Ethiopians, Somalians and Eritreans are VERY different), Seattle U is in this area (partially) and there’s fun to be walked to.</p>
<p>First Hill: convenient busses to both campus as well as to internships or jobs downtown, but it’s likely to be relatively expensive, but not prohibitively so. (the rest of Seattle U’s campus is here)</p>
<p>Millionaire’s Row: you can live near there (15th Avenue) and there’s a bus direct to UW, so I would recommend it. Look around Volunteer Park.</p>
<p>Harvard-Belmont District: super nice, if you can find a room for rent there, rent it.</p>
<p>North Capitol Hill: same as Harvard-Belmont, but there’s less fun stuff to do, but if you are into exercise/the outdoors, then you would love it.</p>
<p>Capitol Hill: lots of clubs and concerts, while there is LGBTQ stuff up there, it’s an all-inclusive urban kick it area.</p>
<p>Central District: not the most convenient place to get to campus, but it can be really nice especially around TT Minor, check out Central Cinema (cool indie movies).</p>
<p>Madrona: you can’t afford to live there, but if you find a room, do it!!</p>
<p>Madison Park: same as Madrona, but right on the lake!! Gorgeous.</p>
<p>Washington Park: this would be a fantastic place to live, if there’s a room for rent, move there. Otherwise you can’t afford it. It’s a giant park with 2 islands in the lake on the south shore of Union Bay (the body of water that Husky Stadium sits on).</p>
<p>Belltown: scary at night, but nowhere near as scary as Greenwood, Lake City, Crown Hill, et cetera.</p>
<p>Eastlake: fantastic area. That’s where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed. Places like Valencia are affordable and one bus away from Red Square.</p>
<p>South Lake Union: still convenient, but with the gentrification underway it will be hard to find an affordable place. But, I do know someone who lives in Rollins Place at Denny and eastlake and it’s amazing.</p>
<p>Cascade: “The Heart of Seattle” is a great neighborhood during the day, at night it’s kinda boring, but everything is convenient.</p>
<p>This has taken way too long, I’m not even done talking about Central Seattle (there is no “East Seattle” and even “West Seattle” is a construct based upon when it was an independent city, as Seattle is an isthmus. Also, when “West Seattle” was called that for the first time, the whole Sodo area was tide pools and swamp. Technically the westernmost point in Seattle is in Magnolia, another wonderful place that you cannot afford to live.</p>
<p>Maybe I’ll get around to finishing Central and South Seattle eventually.</p>
<p>But, for the record, most of the most notorious bad areas in South Seattle aren’t actually in South Seattle, they’re in unincorporated areas such as “Rainier View” and the “Bryn Mawr Skyway” as well as “White Center.”</p>
<p>Whoa, nice long post, Xavi.</p>
<p>OP: Are you planning on living alone or with a group of people? I know people who rent houses in Ravenna (nice place, yes expensive-ish) and split the cost of rent and utilities by 6 people. They all held part time jobs and interned at medical institutions over the summer, so rent for them was very doable. They weren’t given financial help from their parents for housing.</p>
<p>^^I <3 Ravenna!! ^^</p>
<p>(Ravenna is where U-Village is and North of University Park)</p>
<p>i’m only a hs junior right now, so i’d live in campus freshman and sophomore year, and then i’ll probably room with some other people off campus over those summers and junior-senior year.</p>
<p>The places off-campus are 12-month leases, so if you have roomies who don’t wanna live together over the summer, then you have to find someone else to sublet the room.</p>