Olympia, Washington was incorporated way back in 1859, and you can still see a few vestiges of its carless past in the victorian decor of some downtown buildings (Wikipedia, 2025). However, like many West Coast suburbs, Olympia has grown like a weed since World War II.
Truth be told, this place is now mostly indistinguishable from any other American suburb — a sprawling assemblage of big-box stores, fast-food joints and endless boulevards . . . often clogged with traffic.
While one can point to a few interesting parts of town, such as a lovely waterfront along Puget Sound, Olympia mostly has a rather soulless quality. It’s the kind of place that is primarily designed to pass through as quickly as possible. Anthropologist Marc Auge (2009) calls this a “non-place.” That becomes particularly apparent at night.
Even a ‘non-place’ can be expensive to live in
As with much of the West Coast, Olympia housing prices have soared in recent decades. As a case in point, the median home sale price is $530,000 (Zillow, 2025a). This is much higher than the $348,000 for the U.S. as a whole (Zillow, 2025b).
Also see ‘Moon over automotive non-place’
One result is a growing number of people who are homeless. Some live in cars and trailers parked by the side of the road. Every once in a while a local government official will tell these folks that they have to move somewhere else.
“Somewhere else” could end up being under a bridge or on a park bench along the boardwalk on a cold winter night.
Some locals might complain that I am presenting Olympia in an overly negative light — that this is a relatively pleasant place to live as American suburbs go. I wouldn’t actually disagree with that assessment.
For example, the bigger parks are nice and the city lights can be pretty, particularly around the state capitol.
Even so, most parts of town still have an anonymous, ticky-tacky quality. Yet it is fairly expensive to live here.
Ironically, one generally needs to be affluent to buy a house in the most walkable neighborhoods. That can pose a challenge even for those who have lived here for decades but in their retirement want to downsize — and reduce their car use.
The most affordable option may be to leave — if indeed it is possible to go from one “non-place” to another. As in: “No matter where you go, there you aren’t.”
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RE:SOURCES
- Auge, Marc; 2009. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Second edition. John Howe, translator. Verso.
- Wikipedia; 2025. “Olympia, Washington.” Page last modified May 8.
- Zillow; 2025a. “Olympia, WA Housing Market.” Accessed May 11.
- ——; 2025b. “United States Housing.” Accessed May 11.
Travel a lot and rent somewhere that seems promising before you move. It might just be that “familiarity breeds contempt.” We took a cross country trip through the southern states around the time of the election, and frankly, there’s a lot of what you’re describing, just with worse weather and no proximity to the ocean. City after city has homelessness and blight from closed businesses. Then a lot of undeveloped land in between. Maybe it’s undevelopable? There’s a lot of neglect. Our friends who moved from the West Coast spend much of their vacation time coming back to visit. They lose the appreciation on theie homes, lose their prop 13 (I am in California) and they are priced out of coming back. The grass is not always greener.
We also like a place with a walkable area – not a fan of some South Orange County areas for that reason. Too spread out with too many hills.
As I get older, I am not a fan of living in the altitude or in a place with bad weather or a lot of humidity.
I have always held the theory that the best land in an area was developed first! I am leery of new communities. Think about it: settlers came in and chose land near water sources with good soil and good weather relative to the region, land near the main trail or road for transporting goods. More of the new communities follow the same pattern with the same mini mansions and the same big box stores. It reminds me of a line from e. e. cummings: “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” There’s no sense of history and no hole in the wall restaurants.
I think with Olympia being a capital city, along the water, a certain amount of it will stay in good condition.
Many decades ago, we passed through Olympia and took the brewery tour. You”ve never been so thirsty for a beer until you’ve walked through an hour of a brewery tour. That beer was at the optimal temperature in the right shape of chilled glass. Too bad it’s no longer in operation.
You mention southern California; I grew up there. Two of the houses I lived in were built in undeveloped areas that within a few years would become wall-to-wall housing tracks and strip development as far as the eye could see. Not all that different from most parts of the Olympia area, where even the historic downtown of Tumwater was bulldozed to make way for Interstate 5.
This is a fairly different development pattern from older cities back east. For example, I lived for a bit in Cleveland and particularly liked an “inner-ring” suburb called Cleveland Heights. It was largely built during an era when trolleys were still popular, so the city was fairly compact in design. I could get access to almost any service I needed — from a grocery store and library to a movie house — within a five-block radius. And if I wanted to go to the airport I needed to walk only a few blocks to get on light rail that would take me directly there. Much easier than here in the Seattle area, where I have to battle I-5 traffic for almost an hour — assuming there are no accidents — and then try to find a place to park at the airport. It’s a major adventure during rush hour.
Since you mention the Olympia Brewery, an aside that it was bought out by some multinational corporation that subsequently decided that it lacked sufficient economies of scale, so the brewery was shut down. Along the way, key pieces of equipment were reportedly destroyed — thereby ruining the facility for another brewery to take over. The site has remained largely vacant and decaying since then . . . although there’s now a nice river-front park. It’s interesting to remember how some local elected officials were so big on supporting the multinational’s purchase of the brewery, arguing that it would preserve jobs. Welp, that didn’t work out so well. . . .
Olympia Beer ???
Olympia Beer was brewed for years at a facility outside of, um, Olympia. Their slogan was “It’s the water” — local spring water used to brew the beer. I’m a West Coast kid so heard Olympia Beer commercials growing up but I have no idea whether it was merely a regional brand.
We live in a suburb of Los Angeles. Evidently no one likes to cook in my city, as many new restaurants have opened. A former aerospace plant became not one but two “any town” shopping areas that are both really busy. My husband and I have become urban walkers. We try to get in an hour long walk most days. We walk to and from a couple of supermarkets and the weekly farmer’s market (or the very busy famous Cuban bakery.) We bought one of those wire carts for our groceries. We can walk to the post office. We can walk to parks. I guess we could walk to dinner but we tend to eat out other places. We can drive 20 minutes and walk along the beach. Over the weekend we went into LA for sushi in Little Tokyo and we took in a concert at a jazz club in Hollywood. We could go to the mountains or the desert for a day drive or quick weekend. Same with San Diego or Santa Barbara.
I guess the point is we’re making more opportunities to walk where we live and make the best of it.
Too bad about the brewery!
It sounds like you are living in a cool part of town. A basic challenge for people like me who left decades ago is that relatively few other parts of the country have seen housing prices escalate so sharply, so it can be difficult to afford to get back. I’ve made my peace with that, although in the fall when the rains start here in Olympia I do miss L.A.’s warmer, sunnier weather.
If I moved to back to the Portland area, I wouldn’t need a car, but I would need a bicycle and a place close to Fred Meyer. I think they optimized their public transport very well considering the size of the area. There’s even a trip planner on their app.
Smaller towns like Olympia would do well to implement something similar for their size to help with congestion and attract talent that’s shied away from always having to need a car. I visited Olympia a few times for their annual airshow and it seemed to be, as you said, indistinguishable from any other suburb. Only the names on the businesses were different.
I lived in Portland for a while; I needed a car for work but did a fair amount of walking from the northwest part of town to downtown. I liked the place well enough but never managed to land a professional-level gig there. Now that I’m retired the main roadblock is that housing appears to be more expensive than in Olympia.
On the latter city, it has a fairly decent public transit system . . . but sprawl has still outpaced it. For example, I live only seven miles out of town but no buses come out here and it’s risky to ride a bike on narrow, two-lane roads with speedsters in big trucks. I wouldn’t mind living close to downtown in a walkable neighborhood but that’s what a lot of other people want, so the prices have soared.
I was in Olympia last September. First visit in 25 years. The outskirts were as described in the article. Parks along Puget sound were still very nice, as was the park up near the ex-Olympia brewery. The bookstore downtown was good too (nice cat!). But the homeless situation is unbelievable (as it was in Vancouver BC, where I went next). I guess there are advantages to living in Minnesota, with our endless and often brutal winters.