I moved here a year ago and have found it to be extremely welcoming. But I&#x27;m in science, not tech qua tech. I have made most of my new friends through outdoors, particularly whitewater kayaking.  The whitewater community here is vibrant and much preferable to other whitewater hotspots because there are few lifestyle&#x2F;dudebro boaters and lots of people have interesting jobs or other hobbies and are smart and conversant.  I&#x27;m also married which is better--I definitely wouldn&#x27;t want to date here, although there seem to be a lot of girls in science and the outdoors.<p>I will have to say, though, that as much as I love it here, I definitely don&#x27;t see it as a particularly soulful city. But I&#x27;m from the Ozarks, which while not really diverse still has a lot of music and art. Especially the music: People literally sit on their porches playing music, and you can come up and join them, chat them up, whatever.  The boundary between music producer and consumer in the Ozarks&#x2F;South is a wide spectrum with most people somewhere on it, instead of it being a hard line with most squarely on the consumer side (as in Seattle, supposedly a musical place).<p>But there are still fun, artsy and &#x27;gritty&#x27; events in Seattle.  The Fremont Soltice festival&#x2F; naked bike ride was super fun to ride in.  The Deadbaby Downhill in Georgetown was crazy.  But no one will mistake it for New Orleans...