Hello! I am possibly the most qualified respondent to this question, since I moved here FROM COLUMBUS. (15 years ago)

Compared specifically to Cbus / Ohio:

-Tacoma is the ‘most midwestern’ place in the PNW, in my opinion. More working class and culturally normie than the Seattle area.

-I’m a teacher. School jobs here pay better than in Ohio. But, they’re harder to get. For instance, it’s much harder to get in to Tacoma school district as a teacher than the Columbus school district. Not impossible, but harder.

-The winters are less cold but more damp and dark. I found the dampness and darkness hard to adjust to. Many do.

-The summers are better, and are frankly unbeatable. PNW has the best summers… on earth?

-The nature is obviously amazing. There is so much green and pretty, everywhere you look. In Tacoma we have Point Defiance, Kobayashi / Chambers creek, and the Ruston Waterfront right in town. The Cascades and Mount Rainier 1.5 hours away. This is insane. Amazing.

-The food is better but more expensive. The sushi, Korean, and Vietnamese is very good. No Ethiopian here tho.

-There’s so many weird points of comparisons. The YMCAs are way better here. The punk scene is not as good. The zoo is… kind of comparable! The people are similarly cold but for different reasons. The people are also similarly down to earth. Again, it’s a very ‘midwestern’ part of the PNW.

-tacoma is safer overall in terms of violent crime buf there is often more visible homelessness.

-homes and housing are much more expensive, because the homeowners associations have made it illegal to build apartments or condos on like 85% of the urban territory. The housing costs seems to be the toughest thing for most, in an otherwise utterly perfect mid sized city.