Something about being lower class? I note an article mentioned her needing interpretation services, is her being non-English speaking part of it?

Tacoma is just north of a big military base, which probably accounts for some of it. As much as I loved my time in the military, it was pretty noticeable that the neighborhoods surrounding military bases tend to be rough.

Tacoma has/is going through quite a renaissance and has become IMHO a pretty nice place to live.

Renaissance is the right word. Parts of it are becoming true gems, but a lot is in flux and not everything is coming up. It's a very exciting and fluid time in the area.

What does that even mean?

I stayed in Tacoma once when every single hotel/motel room in Seattle was taken. Just thought I'd mention it as this sub-thread makes no sense anyways.

I've not been to Tacoma, so just taking a guess - Gary, Indiana is a dying/dead industrial town in the Midwest. I believe it was known mainly for steel mills when it was at its peak. These days it's mainly the butt of jokes about the smell of the town. The smell is a very real thing. If you drive through it, there is a very odd industrial smell that permeates the entire town. I used to drive from Chicago to near Detroit on a regular basis, and I could always tell when I hit Gary because of the sudden change in smell. But as far as I know, not much of note has come out of Gary, Indiana in decades. Wikipedia describes it like this:[0]

Like other Rust Belt cities, Gary's once thriving steel industry has been significantly affected by the disappearance of local manufacturing jobs since the 1970s. As a result of this economic shift, the city's population has decreased drastically, having lost 61% of its population since 1960.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary,_Indiana

Tacoma smelled- paper pulp plants, and more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_of_Tacoma

I see Gary also had paper plants, but I think it also had a ton of other industrial activity.

post-truth

The words of someone who's never left the I-5 corridor.