Same same everywhere: town minding its own business gets discovered by poor artists, writers, dancers and musicians; little local cafes, restaurants and clubs are started; wannabes discover the "charming" area; entrepreneurs sniff profits and start buying up property; poor and middle-income people and artists are displaced. We Americans kill what we love - maybe not all of us, but those of us greedy for money, charm and staying ahead of the game.
9
After the New Yorker earthquake article, local science and emergency response experts here in Seattle felt compelled to take to the airwaves and papers to dial back the hyperbole.
As a 4th generation Seattleite, permit me to do the same now for all those in New York and the nation who think they know this city and its soul and whether it's changing:
Seattle is a boomtown. It was born as a boomtown (gold rush), grew up as a boomtown (fish, timber, Boeing airplanes, software, internet, biotech....), and as a result, has acquired residents like a boomtown does - all at once in big groups.
These big groups arrive, dazzled by the natural surroundings, intrigued by the quirky-bookish-outdoorsy-etc culture, and make up their mind that Seattle is "like this." Then they get mad when it changes in the next boom. The Boeing boomers made the early-boomers mad. The software boomers made the Boeing boomers mad. The internet boomers made the software boomers mad, etc. That is the essential character of Seattle - boomtown.
We still have to find a way to support economic diversity in our city. But name a major, growing city that DOESN'T.
90% of people opining on Seattle's "soul" just moved here 1 boom ago, or maybe 2, and they think that qualifies them to know the place. But they've missed the whole point.
As a 4th generation Seattleite, permit me to do the same now for all those in New York and the nation who think they know this city and its soul and whether it's changing:
Seattle is a boomtown. It was born as a boomtown (gold rush), grew up as a boomtown (fish, timber, Boeing airplanes, software, internet, biotech....), and as a result, has acquired residents like a boomtown does - all at once in big groups.
These big groups arrive, dazzled by the natural surroundings, intrigued by the quirky-bookish-outdoorsy-etc culture, and make up their mind that Seattle is "like this." Then they get mad when it changes in the next boom. The Boeing boomers made the early-boomers mad. The software boomers made the Boeing boomers mad. The internet boomers made the software boomers mad, etc. That is the essential character of Seattle - boomtown.
We still have to find a way to support economic diversity in our city. But name a major, growing city that DOESN'T.
90% of people opining on Seattle's "soul" just moved here 1 boom ago, or maybe 2, and they think that qualifies them to know the place. But they've missed the whole point.
9
Sorry to say but Seattle lost whatever soul it had a long time ago. I worked there for 8 months in 2008. Random people you meet complaining about being forced out of housing into undesirable neighborhoods. Crimes committed in daylight with witnesses and the police refusing to do anything. Uninformed bus drivers on overcrowded buses on routes that are all 10 minutes late all day. Long time residents saying they would never plan on a 15 mile commute to a job because they would not reliably make it on time due to traffic. 11% sales tax. Pit bulls attacking people in the streets and tenants in apartments with their own private lobby to keep laws from being passed to control them. Judges throwing out lawsuits to favor political donors, usually developers.
That was prior to last year, when rents in Capitol Hill etc. doubled again from two years earlier and 28 bus lines were cut. And all this before the 9.0 hits.
That was prior to last year, when rents in Capitol Hill etc. doubled again from two years earlier and 28 bus lines were cut. And all this before the 9.0 hits.
3
As a native, I'm glad you included Mssrs. Durning and Berger in your piece. But I wish you would have pressed them for more historical information about our fair city. You would have learned far more about the civic culture, which has weathered many ups and downs - and I happen to think the income inequality is a HUGE problem - but always settles down. San Francisco envy? Give me a break! Thanks to tribal culture, the Mercer Girls, Scandinavian fishermen, lumberjacks and aerospace visionaries, we will never submit to Californication!
1
We welcome all those priced out of Seattle and SF to Cincinnati. It's a city that has been through a lot, and come out the other side. The city has becoming a much more desirable place for young people over the past 5-10 years. Houses and cost of living are still relatively cheep here.
2
At a concert in San Fransico a year ago, I got into a conversation with an SF resident about how tech is taking over SF leaving little room for the artists , craftsmen etc. We thought the city was losing its soul, Haight ashbury , which is the hippie district of SF is now a "yuppie" & tourist district, because hippies simply cannot afford the rents..
Most techies I know who live in SF have zero respect for arts and culture. They simply live there because well its cool to say "I live in the city". And nope, they are not bothered about the flight/plight of artists. One colleague of mine even had the audacity to say that they should stop doing their Bob Marley stuff and get a real job, learn to code..
Cities are meant to be diverse whereas suburbs tend to have people of the same background flocking together. SF is being turned into one big tech suburb.
The guy that I meant in the city that day said that we have a name for these yuppies who all dress/look alike and walk around engrossed with their handsets : "Scrollers"
Most techies I know who live in SF have zero respect for arts and culture. They simply live there because well its cool to say "I live in the city". And nope, they are not bothered about the flight/plight of artists. One colleague of mine even had the audacity to say that they should stop doing their Bob Marley stuff and get a real job, learn to code..
Cities are meant to be diverse whereas suburbs tend to have people of the same background flocking together. SF is being turned into one big tech suburb.
The guy that I meant in the city that day said that we have a name for these yuppies who all dress/look alike and walk around engrossed with their handsets : "Scrollers"
10
I haven't read all the comments, so I am not sure if this was raised already, but I wish the article included more of the voices of those folks being directly impacted by the lack of affordable housing or those being priced out of their neighborhoods due to gentrification. I also wish the article addressed whether or not these apartments and houses, which are being built at such a rapid pace, are adequately built to survive an earthquake or other natural disaster that could one day impact the west coast, including Seattle. Are we really taking a holistic and thoughtful view of the situation?
2
All new housing must designed snd constructed to comply with city, state, federal, and international building codes which have stringent seismic requirements. Raising earthquake concerns without researching the subject is alarmist and irresponsible.
1
One good thing about all the horrendous growth and upheaval here in Seattle is that the "starter" house I bought in 1989 for $109,000, when I was 31 years old, (and still live in) would now easily sell for $400K-500K. In the next year or two, I plan to to pull the trigger, sell out, and get out of here, back to the upper Midwest, which has evolved quite a bit since I left it in 1987.
3
Seattle would be better off trying to emulate NYC where the public transit system connects "outer" boroughs to the Manhattan hub. Until we solve the transit problem, there is no solution to the housing problem without paving the city over with high-rises.
7
More of the details of the expanded housing plan by the mayor including the 30 per cent affordable housing, does not mention that the developers can opt out of putting the affordable housing in their new construction and instead pay the money to the city which will build the low income/affordable housing in another neighborhood. NIMBY
2
The solution if you don't want to become SF is to keep building - only supply brings down price in the long run, and as long as something is scarce and in demand people will pay for it. The only way the government can get involved is to put a very large tax on capital gains from the sale of underdeveloped land or by asking the construction workers to take a pay reduction. There is no such thing as an affordable 2x4 and builders work with the inputs they are given
5
“Seattle has wanted to be San Francisco for so long...Now it’s figuring out maybe that it isn’t what we want to be.”
That's a way better problem to solve than a blighted region where there's no job, no activity, no nothing.
Looking at it in another way, is the current tech boom in some areas where the once blighted and/or cheap neighborhoods really THAT different from the bygone eras when towns and cities were transformed by textile mills, steel mills, coal mining, auto manufacturing, and even in recent years, shale oil production? No, it's not.
The only difference with the tech boom to the cities is that, if you don't have the education or skills, it'll be impossible for anyone to break into those high-paying jobs, whereas in days yonder, as long as you are willing to work hard and get your hands dirty, you can quite easily get a job without a high school diploma. These days, you would need at a bare minimum a STEM college degree, but preferably a masters or PhD, to get started.
It thus seems and feels almost unfair for the rest of the populace that someone (and those tech workers work hard as well) can enjoy fruits of their work, while everyone else can only look at it with envy. And no government policy can fix green envy, although city and state governments should by all means rip the tax gains and do right to those less fortunate soul by building more affordable housing.
As to complaint about gentrification? Let's lay it to rest. It can be a good thing.
That's a way better problem to solve than a blighted region where there's no job, no activity, no nothing.
Looking at it in another way, is the current tech boom in some areas where the once blighted and/or cheap neighborhoods really THAT different from the bygone eras when towns and cities were transformed by textile mills, steel mills, coal mining, auto manufacturing, and even in recent years, shale oil production? No, it's not.
The only difference with the tech boom to the cities is that, if you don't have the education or skills, it'll be impossible for anyone to break into those high-paying jobs, whereas in days yonder, as long as you are willing to work hard and get your hands dirty, you can quite easily get a job without a high school diploma. These days, you would need at a bare minimum a STEM college degree, but preferably a masters or PhD, to get started.
It thus seems and feels almost unfair for the rest of the populace that someone (and those tech workers work hard as well) can enjoy fruits of their work, while everyone else can only look at it with envy. And no government policy can fix green envy, although city and state governments should by all means rip the tax gains and do right to those less fortunate soul by building more affordable housing.
As to complaint about gentrification? Let's lay it to rest. It can be a good thing.
5
What's so bad about San Francisco? My rich neighbors and I don't mind the inconvenience of stepping over homeless people on the sidewalk now and the....
7
Good luck Seattle. I hope you find a way to balance prosperity with livability. The summer before last, I vacationed there and it was great. It was far from cheap but we had a good time doing all the tourist things.
We drove up to Bellevue to meet a friend and there we saw a tale of two cities. We were to meet at a new Chinese dumpling restaurant in a Microsoft building and were early so we took a look around the mall. There was a Tommy Bahama store, high end furniture, and assorted shops that might be seen in San Jose's Santana Row (Silicon Valley). There were five star hotels built right into the Microsoft anchored complex.
Then there was a also a pedestrian bridge from Tommy Bahama's to Macy's. We walked through Macy's and when we came out the other side we found ourselves in a mall that could have been in any suburb. No more expensive gabardine slacks with Tommy tops but ordinary people shopping at ordinary shops eating ordinary mall food from ordinary mall outlets. The socio/economic bifurcation of Seattle is well underway.
I wish Seattle well and hope they find an answer but progress always seems to come with problems. Here in San Francisco we're limited to about seven square miles so it makes it even harder to house busboys, dishwashers and entry level workers of any kind but we're trying too.
We drove up to Bellevue to meet a friend and there we saw a tale of two cities. We were to meet at a new Chinese dumpling restaurant in a Microsoft building and were early so we took a look around the mall. There was a Tommy Bahama store, high end furniture, and assorted shops that might be seen in San Jose's Santana Row (Silicon Valley). There were five star hotels built right into the Microsoft anchored complex.
Then there was a also a pedestrian bridge from Tommy Bahama's to Macy's. We walked through Macy's and when we came out the other side we found ourselves in a mall that could have been in any suburb. No more expensive gabardine slacks with Tommy tops but ordinary people shopping at ordinary shops eating ordinary mall food from ordinary mall outlets. The socio/economic bifurcation of Seattle is well underway.
I wish Seattle well and hope they find an answer but progress always seems to come with problems. Here in San Francisco we're limited to about seven square miles so it makes it even harder to house busboys, dishwashers and entry level workers of any kind but we're trying too.
3
This is the type of thing where once you recognize the change - it's too late.
Seattle is already too similar to San Francisco.
Seattle is already too similar to San Francisco.
4
If you encourage the growth, then you accept the cultural changes. What are you going to do? Subsidize the businesses (as San Francisco has done) and refuse to allow their employees to buy houses and patronize the businesses they prefer?
1
There is absolutely no "right" to live in a certain place. You either can pay the rent (or mortgage) or you can't. I personally would love to pay less to live in Manhattan but that's not what the market dictates. Does that mean my "rights" are being trampled? What I admire about Seattle is that rather than fall prey to zoning that chokes housing supply (as NYC and SF have done), the city is recognizing that the best way to fight rising housing prices is to build, build, build.
3
I moved to one of Seattle's "trendy" neighborhoods in 2009 and, despite significant savings and a full-time job, was quickly crushed under the rising costs of housing and transportation. My landlord wanted $1100 for a tiny one-bedroom unit and raised the rent to $1300 a year later. With my savings depleted and the rent going up even higher, I fled to the suburbs and was able to get back on my feet. There's something very wrong with our economy when a hard working individual cannot afford even a modest existence in a major city. How long are we going to put up with this?
8
The money and the Californians have taken the bloom off the Austin rose; my soulful yearning for the college town it once was aches very deeply.
4
No one is entitled to live in Seattle. If people don't like what Seattle is growing into, then they should just leave. If they they feel they can't afford the cost of living here and want to stay, then they should make more money. They should get an education and a skill so that they can afford to stay. Otherwise, move to Tacoma and ride the bus to Seattle. Life is not fair; it's very sad but that's the way it is.
1
I've lived in Seattle for 22 years. I consider it my adult home. I sincerely love it here and have adapted to its nuances. Despite my love for this city, I still find myself having to apologize for my Southern California roots. It's as isf no matter what you do, you can never be embraced as a native unless your roots go back three generations or more.
California, on the other hand, welcomes newcomers with open arms.
As liberal and accepting as this city is to foreigners from all parts, the bigotry towards outsiders from their own country, the bigotry towards people from the southern parts of the west coast is appalling.
Gay? Cool. Foreign? Awesome. Wiccan? Welcome aboard. From California? We hate you with a passion undying.
It's a strange dichotomy.
California, on the other hand, welcomes newcomers with open arms.
As liberal and accepting as this city is to foreigners from all parts, the bigotry towards outsiders from their own country, the bigotry towards people from the southern parts of the west coast is appalling.
Gay? Cool. Foreign? Awesome. Wiccan? Welcome aboard. From California? We hate you with a passion undying.
It's a strange dichotomy.
3
Seattle has been ruined. Once the finest city in the land, blessed with a mild climate and set amidst stunning natural beauty --- the Cascade Range to the east, Olympic Mountains to the west, ancient forests, Puget Sound, in-city lakes, ferry boats, islands and offshore orca whales.
A city of distinct neighborhoods where people of social responsibility created culture, their chidren grew running free, skiing, swimming, boating, roaming. Fisherman, teachers, musicians, scientists, cooks, lawyers and store clerks lived in the same charming neighborhoods. Now the affordable bungalows and cedar Craftsman homes are replaced by condos and bland high-rise apartments that block the views of the waters and mountains.
Developers are worshiped by the politicians, as ugly high-rises and 250 square foot apodments raise more taxes than family homes. Police are trigger-happy brutes. Elders are forced from their homes.
Once populated by people as wild, free and natural as mountain winds, Seattle is now full of tech zombies who cannot look up from their smart phones long enough to marvel at the eagle flying above. Once wildly diverse with character and creativity being the measure of a man, the city is now full of bland money grubbers and gadget worshipers.
Yes, there is legal cannabis and a socialist on the city council, but Chief Seattle would not recognize what his homeland has become under the influence of unbridled capitalism and the industrial growth monster.
A city of distinct neighborhoods where people of social responsibility created culture, their chidren grew running free, skiing, swimming, boating, roaming. Fisherman, teachers, musicians, scientists, cooks, lawyers and store clerks lived in the same charming neighborhoods. Now the affordable bungalows and cedar Craftsman homes are replaced by condos and bland high-rise apartments that block the views of the waters and mountains.
Developers are worshiped by the politicians, as ugly high-rises and 250 square foot apodments raise more taxes than family homes. Police are trigger-happy brutes. Elders are forced from their homes.
Once populated by people as wild, free and natural as mountain winds, Seattle is now full of tech zombies who cannot look up from their smart phones long enough to marvel at the eagle flying above. Once wildly diverse with character and creativity being the measure of a man, the city is now full of bland money grubbers and gadget worshipers.
Yes, there is legal cannabis and a socialist on the city council, but Chief Seattle would not recognize what his homeland has become under the influence of unbridled capitalism and the industrial growth monster.
13
I am a Seattle native, 3rd generation, born 1955.
Seattle - changed massively - and not how you'd think. Seattle is now simply North California, overrun with bureaucracy, politicians who have no economic sense, and who appoint non-qualified people to do jobs for which the appointees are not close to being qualified.
Seattle is the epitomy of a beautiful city overrun by bureaucrats and 'smart planning' gone incredibly wrong.
We moved.
Seattle - changed massively - and not how you'd think. Seattle is now simply North California, overrun with bureaucracy, politicians who have no economic sense, and who appoint non-qualified people to do jobs for which the appointees are not close to being qualified.
Seattle is the epitomy of a beautiful city overrun by bureaucrats and 'smart planning' gone incredibly wrong.
We moved.
5
I know that WA doesn't have an income tax - but maybe Seattle should. Have a huge basic exemption - eg, $100,000. Then tax amounts above that, and then use the revenue to provide affordable rents to "lower" incomes. And/or, accept that you'll pay your housekeeper, etc, $50/hr.
4
I grew up in the suburbs of NY and have lived in both San Francisco and Seattle. It's hard for this New Yorker to relate to the anger at technology companies and the people who work for them. Amazon and Twitter are not to blame for the loss of blue-collar jobs in Seattle and San Francisco. Those jobs are being lost such jobs nationally. People have always moved where the jobs were; that was as true of Detroit in 1945 as it is of these desirable West Coast cities in 2015. It makes more sense to train the old residents for the new jobs than to try to prevent people from migrating for jobs.
4
Growing up in Seattle, my Mercer Island neighbors were middle-class, even those with waterfront lots. There was a small pocket of homeless people around the missions of Pioneer Square.
Today when I drive to hike in the nearby mountains: Driving from my home in the University District through Downtown there are tents everywhere along the freeway: under bridges, on medians, behind concrete barriers. And then I turn east, across Lake Washington. The middle-class neighborhoods have been stripped from the Mercer Island shoreline. Shotgun mini-mansions bully the shoreline
Today when I drive to hike in the nearby mountains: Driving from my home in the University District through Downtown there are tents everywhere along the freeway: under bridges, on medians, behind concrete barriers. And then I turn east, across Lake Washington. The middle-class neighborhoods have been stripped from the Mercer Island shoreline. Shotgun mini-mansions bully the shoreline
5
I don't know what makes this Knute Berger any expert but there are a lot of people in Seattle who want different things and no such thing as "Seattle has wanted" to be anything "for years," other than perhaps the Mayors we've elected. NYT just can't resist an opportunity to reference the hatchet job they did on Amazon last month to get more hits. Shame on you, once again.
BTW, I am told that the real estate prices in many neighborhoods are being driven up by absentee international investors. NYT, why not do a real story on that?
BTW, I am told that the real estate prices in many neighborhoods are being driven up by absentee international investors. NYT, why not do a real story on that?
1
Seattle will do what others have. They will resist height and density because it would lessen the quality of life for some, particularly those already established. It will wind up being Boulder by the Sea. Who is anyone kidding? The city council will be just as liberal in words and conservative in deed as Portland and SF and Boulder and Chapel Hill and Ann Arbor and and
2
Vancouver BC is another place that Seattle tries to emulate. Rich in fairly dense neighborhoods, good restuarrants, great parks, beaches, access to water and mountain recreation. But in comparison, of Seattle's biggest deficits is transportation. Dissected by freeways, underserved by bus and rail, sectioned by lakes and rivers, you are always not more than 10 minutes away from a traffic jam and gridlock, except from 11 pm to 5:30 am. The traffic issue is one reason that Amazon, Expedia and others have established in city campuses, where their employees can enjoy the more interesting environment without being stuck in th east of lake burbs after hours or on the freeways locked in gridlock.
1
It's very easy to solve affordable housing problems - rezone all single family lowrise, all lowrise/midrise and anything within half a mile of current multi unit zoning to highrise.
You'd be surprised how fast the housing will appear.
All over the world in the cities much bigger and denser than Seattle the housing problem is solved by pushing out.
Those who want to live in burbs can move to the abundant burbistans. The city is the city. Throw the NIMBYs into the Bertha well.
You'd be surprised how fast the housing will appear.
All over the world in the cities much bigger and denser than Seattle the housing problem is solved by pushing out.
Those who want to live in burbs can move to the abundant burbistans. The city is the city. Throw the NIMBYs into the Bertha well.
6
Heh. "Vibrant". Does that mean, more scary people? I'm fine without vibrancy.
5
The block I grew up on as a boy in Seattle was hard working families, Merchant Mariners, Fishermen, construction or other important Jobs like my father who was a Seattle firefighter.
Those 26 houses on that sleepy block from 40 yeaers ago are now 16 multi use condo/apts that house well over 1000 people on the same block designed for about 45 people.
Seattle actually never lost it's soul, Seattle's soul is huge and will rise above the techies, the real story of Seattle is that we adore a victim of decades of the poorest infrastructure planning imaginable. currently we're dealing with a Multi Billion Dollar under the city tunnel that is years behind schedule, over budget and the end result will be of no use. Decisions on creative ways to bottleneck traffic have been signed off on for the past 50 years.
There's something in the coffee out here that makes us shortsighted on ways to get from point A to point B.
I would say Seattle's soul is not lost, it's just currently stuck in traffic.
Those 26 houses on that sleepy block from 40 yeaers ago are now 16 multi use condo/apts that house well over 1000 people on the same block designed for about 45 people.
Seattle actually never lost it's soul, Seattle's soul is huge and will rise above the techies, the real story of Seattle is that we adore a victim of decades of the poorest infrastructure planning imaginable. currently we're dealing with a Multi Billion Dollar under the city tunnel that is years behind schedule, over budget and the end result will be of no use. Decisions on creative ways to bottleneck traffic have been signed off on for the past 50 years.
There's something in the coffee out here that makes us shortsighted on ways to get from point A to point B.
I would say Seattle's soul is not lost, it's just currently stuck in traffic.
19
thanks for sharing your dream, for it is only a dream. What would it take to "stick" Seattle's traffic, tearing down those multi use apts and building single family homes instead just like it was 40 years ago? Seattle as a beautiful city is through, over and done with. Your city leaders sold themselves out to the highest corporate/real estate bidder a disease that plagues almost all mid- large size cities and even small ones. People need to stand tall and go to City Hall meetings, and also vote the bums out who want to sell out.
2
Many Seattlites love Seattle precisely because it has been a relatively sleepy, low-density, provincial backwater. Many of us (I lived there for well over a decade and left under protest) cringed whenever we heard city leaders (aka rich developers) advocate for becoming a "world-class city." I've never wanted to live in New York or London, not even San Francisco, wonderful places all. Now I'm not sure that I'd want to live in my beloved Seattle anymore. Doesn't matter either way; I couldn't afford to move back.
14
Agree. Seattle has always been a "world-class city." I remember it well as a child, having spent every summer between Gig Harbor and Lakebay, on Delano Beach. Delano belonged to my father's family. I miss it to this day. KEEP SEATTLE STRONG.
And there is no state income tax. The increasingly high-income earners are living in financial heaven. Maybe an income tax starting at around 75 or 80 K could help to equalize things.
15
I recently moved to WA from Silicon Valley (I'm not a techie) in part because upgrading to a better community in SV is almost impossible in part due to of prop 13 trapping you psychologically in your old property and because proportionately the nicer communities have increased in value more than the less desired ones.
In WA (Mercer Island) I've got a lot more house than I ever could have achieved in SV and there is no state income tax which is really nice for when I start drawing on 401K and ESOP funds. CA is so expensive on so many levels-world class living in many ways but harder and harder to feel it really worth it. Leaving really feels like a smart thing to have done.
In WA (Mercer Island) I've got a lot more house than I ever could have achieved in SV and there is no state income tax which is really nice for when I start drawing on 401K and ESOP funds. CA is so expensive on so many levels-world class living in many ways but harder and harder to feel it really worth it. Leaving really feels like a smart thing to have done.
1
Wow, starting state income tax at median household income - good luck with that
median income households are not the ones raising rents, well, perhaps they do by working against the zoning changes and delaying a change that has to come ...
median income households are not the ones raising rents, well, perhaps they do by working against the zoning changes and delaying a change that has to come ...
Golf clap. You'll fit in perfectly on Mercer Island. Please stay there.
Washington State needs a high speed train to Ellensburg and even Yakima. It can stop at Snoquamie Pass for the skiers then head onto Roslyn, Cle Elum, Ellensburg and Yakima for people who want to commute to Seattle on a high speed train instead of driving 2 or more hours, especially in a winter storm. Lots of room for housing and development in Eastern, WA.
13
Yup. After Bertha gets done drilling the tunnel under downtown Seattle we can use her to drill another tunnel under the Cascades to run that high speed train to eastern Washington.
It seems Cities desperately want Firms to contribute to their tax base but heaven help it if the employees of these same firms displace low-income city residents who rarely pay for their use of city services.
For any City to evolve the takers of society need to be replaced by makers or else cities will crumble under the weight of budget deficits.
For any City to evolve the takers of society need to be replaced by makers or else cities will crumble under the weight of budget deficits.
7
The working poor pay far more a percentage in local and state taxes than the wealthy. Especially here in Washington where we have no state income tax.
6
This is such an arrogant comment. The world needs most of it's people to be more than computer programmers. Some of the low-income city residents struggle mightily in order to serve the rich. Without them, there would be no dry cleaning, no groceries, no teacher aides, no fast food. . . All citizens are taxed on their purchases and low-income people spend the highest percentage of their earnings (more well-off people sock more away, where it may grow interest for the individual but contributes nothing to society). Who are the makers and who are the takers? Judging from the silent lines of low-income people who file in and out of, say, Google every workday, these people are the true makers. The ones sitting in their cubicles and eating free snacks? Hmmm. . . .
6
It's funny, only people from Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco could complain about too many high paying jobs or increased property values in their city. You're not guaranteed anything in this life or country besides life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life changes. Cities change. In your pursuit of happiness, if your city has changed so much, that you can no longer attain the quality of life you want, THEN MOVE. Go find a new city to love.
16
That's all fine and dandy, until all the teachers, nurses and other middle class employees have to leave... You make it sound like its a simple solution. If it were so simple, then why, in San Fran, the city with some of the smartest people in the world, are they trying to keep middle and low income people IN the city? Because a city needs them to survive too.
5
Alex:
I prefer to FIGHT for something that I love.
I prefer to FIGHT for something that I love.
3
I wish my area had such problems as SF, Seattle.
Maybe when the earthquake hits, or global warming intensifies, I will begin to see a plethora of Washington license plates here.
Maybe when the earthquake hits, or global warming intensifies, I will begin to see a plethora of Washington license plates here.
My mother, who lives in Lambertville NJ, still pays 2 times what I pay in taxes for a comparable house in Seattle. The West coast knows how to show respect for long time home owners despite its also very savvy tech entrepreneurs.
4
All this nouveau-tech money is not staying entirely in the city proper of Seattle.
These newcomers also cranked up real estate prices and rents in other beautiful, rural areas, i.e.-the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Peninsula.
Got to have those weekend houses too!
These newcomers also cranked up real estate prices and rents in other beautiful, rural areas, i.e.-the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Peninsula.
Got to have those weekend houses too!
8
As a 20 year East Coast transplant --Boston/NYC--I am always amazed that what is considered norma in most US cities is considered abhorrent or aberrant when it takes place in San Francisco and apparently now Seattle as well. I purchased a condo in 2003 in an area that was considered a wasteland surrounded by vacant lots and remnants of the Loma Prieta smack down of the Embarcadero Freeway. Now that I am smack dab in the middle of the all those shiny new high rises should I be lamenting the loss of weed strewn lots and homeless encampments? Sure I sympathize with friends who can't afford to buy a place even when they have two solid incomes, let alone no kids or pets to support. Some are still here and others may leave, but a city is not a static construct and never should be. The hyper-dynamic situation SF is in today is not sustainable over the long haul, but history has proven that the core elements that make it so attractive will survive the onslaught of tech money as sure as it survived the first Gold Rush, the 1906 Earthquake and a host of other social upheavals. That is what great cities do.
12
Marcus, yes! I hear complaints about gentrification in NY. What I don't hear from New Yorkers, though, is even a hint of the idea that the city shouldn't change.
Seattle's strategy is sound but not complete. Yes you need to encourage business. Improving the minimum wage is a great step to reducing inequality and improving affordability for lower income rungs. Encouraging high-density housing construction is great because it increases housing stock which relieves upward pressure on housing costs. So great. You have companies. You have jobs. You have people to work those job and houses for them to live in. So what's the problem???
I'll tell you, even when you do all these things, city planners seem to miss the basics: public infrastructure. You've successfully increased your population in a positive way. But those people need public transportation, better roads, and parking facilities to get around. They need parks and green spaces. Public schools. Libraries. Communications infrastructure including cellular and wifi service. They need fresh water. Power/electricity. Natural gas depending on heating. Unfortunately all the incentives that cities give away to developers for building housing never seem to include money for these necessities. And so even if these cities succeed in increasing their population, so to do they succeed in making those cities less livable and therefore less desirable. I've seen this play out in NYC as well as San Francisco. Doesn't anyone get these basic concepts?
I'll tell you, even when you do all these things, city planners seem to miss the basics: public infrastructure. You've successfully increased your population in a positive way. But those people need public transportation, better roads, and parking facilities to get around. They need parks and green spaces. Public schools. Libraries. Communications infrastructure including cellular and wifi service. They need fresh water. Power/electricity. Natural gas depending on heating. Unfortunately all the incentives that cities give away to developers for building housing never seem to include money for these necessities. And so even if these cities succeed in increasing their population, so to do they succeed in making those cities less livable and therefore less desirable. I've seen this play out in NYC as well as San Francisco. Doesn't anyone get these basic concepts?
16
How narcissistic. I lived in Seattle and elsewhere in the PNW for many years before moving to California, where there are 10 opportunities for every 1 up north. By defining who you want to be as "not EssEff" you are diluting what you can be good at. Give it a rest.
3
I think it would be more useful, if not more appropriate to talk about character rather than soul. Soul implies something that is eternal and unchanging, something that if we loose it we are damned. There is nothing in a city that is unchanging and there never has been. The energy is constantly moving within and between neighborhoods. One area may be dilapidated for a while but then creative people looking for a cheap place to set up shop come in and it becomes avant-garde then trendy. The big money comes in and what had character and maybe a little funk becomes brand name boutique. Meanwhile the creative energy has moved on. If you're not in the stream of it you will probably have to do some searching to find it, but it hasn't died. Seattle will always have character. It oozes out of the hard to find places. It won't always be the same though.
6
Is every story about diversity or gender or race? The real story is the Chinese buyers who are buying up as much American property as possible, rendering whole neighborhoods into "Little Chinas". We don't have "anchor babies" any more, we have "anchor home owners".
9
Banker Babies
3
I'd love it if they would move into my neighborhood.
We recently had to decide whether to move back to Seattle and take on a childhood home in the family since it was built in 1946. On a quarter-acre, each new addition had a story behind it of friends and coworkers who lent a hand, and timbers salvaged from family farms up in Skagit Valley, and now-huge cedars planted by each sibling. Back then, all jobs led to Boeing, whether as vendors or as small neighborhood businesses patronized by the families of those skilled workers. (One could argue that even the music scene owed something to legions of smart kids raised amid tinkering tendencies and garages afforded by postwar prosperity.) The changes in Seattle are tied to the vacuum left by the current irrelevance of that kind of work, as in in many other cities nationwide. Yes, the old industrial areas south of C-link now have some fine craftspeople and creative businesses moving in, but none that we could ever afford, even coming from NYC. (See the recent relocation and up-marketing of the Second Use warehouse.) Yes, White Center has wonderful diversity and affordability, but its days are numbered except as a diorama of liberal-prog gestures (see Greenbridge Houses). But Ballard is unrecognizable, the Georgetown amoeba is spreading over the bridge to South Park, Ranier Beach is rebranding as Columbia City, and our beloved house, sturdy and proud, will likely be torn down for condos for newcomers with no memory or care for any of this.
10
Washington State has no income tax. This means that what little public services we have are funded by property taxes, which are assessed on inflated house prices, and sales tax, which disproportionately burdens the poor. An equitable income tax would mean that all Washingtonians would benefit from the increased wealth brought by the tech industry.
9
You are exactly right, and even the father of one of the state's richest men, Bill Gates Sr, believes we should have an income tax, as do I. You have to be very careful out here to spout that rhetoric because people look at you like you speak with a forked tongue and are being disloyal. But then I do come from the East Coast, where we're used to such things.
3
Love this town, lived here once before and regularly visit. The rail links from SeaTac and the city's water taxi to W. Seattle: A big plus. The huge condo transformation on S. Lake Union? - Good, if you're in real estate, doing the deals and financing, or a high tech worker. Big Bertha and I-5 congestion: Thumbs-down. Still, UW and other private schools make this a topnotch university town, a cornerstone of any good city. Plus, Seattle has many fine neighborhoods/districts - Another cornerstone. Meanwhile, go Hawks - See you at the C-Link in November.
2
I was incredibly heartened to see the mayor's plan to build 6,000 affordable homes. This in a city that will grow by a million by 2030.
In all seriousness, the Amabots have already ruined this city.
In all seriousness, the Amabots have already ruined this city.
4
Portlanders have always looked up to Seattle as a bigger cousin up North, but we haven't wanted SEA'S insane traffic jams, lack of public transport ,real estate prices, etc. PDX is now experiencing some their same problems and the responds has been unneighborly acts: putting no Californians stickers on home for sale signs, ignoring merge lane manners and other urban stress reactions.
Short sighted solutions to immediate problems create more problems. An example: developers are in frenzy to erect housing, i.e. "hipster enclaves", large out of scale apartment buildings with no parking because they are cheaper to build and with assumption that "hipsters" don't have cars. But just as SF and Seattle have found, the young people come to experience not only the high tech jobs but the surrounding natural beauty and need cars for access to recreational areas, the mountains and beaches. If you live in a neighborhood near said apartments, you have now lost your on street parking to the not car-less but parking spot less! Probably a type of "minor" effect, but livability has been affected by the influx of the people that we need to keep to our city vibrant. This type of tension in the neighborhoods makes the Portland that was touted as a chill and friendly place something of the past. We are growing so rapidly, I am afraid we will lose our perspective and welcoming attitude. And maybe our soul too.
Short sighted solutions to immediate problems create more problems. An example: developers are in frenzy to erect housing, i.e. "hipster enclaves", large out of scale apartment buildings with no parking because they are cheaper to build and with assumption that "hipsters" don't have cars. But just as SF and Seattle have found, the young people come to experience not only the high tech jobs but the surrounding natural beauty and need cars for access to recreational areas, the mountains and beaches. If you live in a neighborhood near said apartments, you have now lost your on street parking to the not car-less but parking spot less! Probably a type of "minor" effect, but livability has been affected by the influx of the people that we need to keep to our city vibrant. This type of tension in the neighborhoods makes the Portland that was touted as a chill and friendly place something of the past. We are growing so rapidly, I am afraid we will lose our perspective and welcoming attitude. And maybe our soul too.
6
I say be careful for what u wish for..NY which I grew up is all but lost it what was loved about NY was the local flavor..the one reason for when I was growing up in NY was the local flavor and you could walk anywhere..so now that they are taking all the mom & pop stores out of the neighbors to put these tall buildings it is not the same & getting to pricey ......big box stores and pricey buildings doesn't make a great combo for a neighborhood......so be careful spending all your time wishing to be SF.....
4
Sorry, but the little video with the cranes is "peppy" it doesn't show much more than the Space Needle elevator going up and down. Not very informative.
A few years ago a bumpersticker in Oregon read "Don't Californicate Oregon". Maybe now is the time for "Don't Californicate Washington", or maybe it's too late. We're getting drought refugees from there already.
A few years ago a bumpersticker in Oregon read "Don't Californicate Oregon". Maybe now is the time for "Don't Californicate Washington", or maybe it's too late. We're getting drought refugees from there already.
6
That bumper sticker came out in the `80s in Seattle.
Seattle's main problem is accommodating growth with so little available land to develop -- in short, terrible geography. It is like Manhattan without the latter's great transportation system. Because it's so hard to get into and out of Seattle, one almost has to live there to work there. Seattle's predicament goes way back -- back to the short-sighted leaders and voters who turned down a transportation system in which Seattle could be the center of commerce with workers commuting from outside the city.
6
One more piece of propaganda from the New York Times, which quotes "progressives" who quite literally -- in the case of Rogert Valdez -- have expressed visceral hatred for anyone who owns a single-family house.
I've been here for 19 years, and never would've guessed what this place would turn into. The bright side is that my house will be good trading currency when we leave in two or three years. It's tragic what the local "progressives" have done to what was once such a liveable city.
Oh, and anyone who thinks that Durning, Valdez, and the friends are going to make the joint affordable is kidding himself.
I've been here for 19 years, and never would've guessed what this place would turn into. The bright side is that my house will be good trading currency when we leave in two or three years. It's tragic what the local "progressives" have done to what was once such a liveable city.
Oh, and anyone who thinks that Durning, Valdez, and the friends are going to make the joint affordable is kidding himself.
8
As a UW graduate student in classics circa 1990, I have to say that the problems of rising cost of living in Seattle because of the influx of new corporations was already on the table even then. I worked a lot of hack jobs while there, and many of my twenty-something native co-workers were already preparing to leave because they knew they would never be able to live in the city they were raised in and called home. It can only have gotten far worse twenty-five years on, and should be an object lesson for any place else that is hypnotized by the bogus mantra of jobs, jobs, jobs. Be careful what you wish for!
1
The article overlooks the growing tension thanks to the self-righteous tech bros as they tell locals it's their own fault for not being able to afford to live in the city they've grown up in while they rent hike out the local museums, make it impossible for anyone outside of the tech industry to live in the same city they work in. Unless the bubble bursts soon, Tech Bros are going to wonder what happened to the classic SF flavor as they suck down their Starbucks.
4
There are only 5 real cities in America - NYC, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. Each has an extensive subway system which is what every real city needs. All the others are just a bunch of streets and loosely connected neighborhoods pretending to be a city.
10
Not everyone wants to live in a "real city."
Alas, it is too late for both Seattle and San Francisco... Both have sold their souls to greedy landlords who charge exorbitant rents -- only rich people or workaholic tech slaves need apply. SF has become a BORING and overpriced suburb of Silicon Valley (not vice-versa). 25 years ago, old-timers told me that San Francisco had lost its soul... I didn't believe them then but boy do I believe them now.
3
My family grew up in the Bay Area. I have a family member who is a social worker who serves San Francisco's internally displaced mentally ill population, and her partner is an attorney who practices appellate law serving the involuntarily committed. These are good people, with good jobs, who are engaged in city life, and who provide a real benefit to their city and community when they go to work every day. They also understand that, long term, they will likely not be able to remain in San Francisco if they ever want to put down "permanent" roots. People like this who are forced out are the face of SF losing its soul. Whenever they decide to stop renting their charming but smallish apartment, they will be replaced by the next wave of sex app-developing consumer of $5 artisan toast.
4
I've lived in Seattle for 12 years - there is a very large change occurring, no doubt. But the approach of the city planners is abysmal.
I am all for higher density housing, but what is occurring now are either luxury town homes, 4 to a regular lot that start at >$700K, or pod-ments with 70+ units on a residential street with NO PARKING FACILITY.
Public transit is ridiculously inefficient here, nowhere near expansive enough to expect people to behave as though they live in high density Manhattan where one truly doesn't need a car. I know people that live without a car in Seattle, my family has one for two working adults (I bike because the bus system is so unreliable), but the majority of people simply won't/can't live or get to work without a car.
So go ahead an plan for higher density housing, but you can't put the cart before the horse. Make higher density transit (or at least off-street parking for new higher density housing!) an equal priority. And let's move on from relying almost entirely on buses that get stuck in traffic because of brain-dead 50s/60s interstate planners - that is a hopeless fantasy.
The people you want to attract to live and work here will need to get around, but while you cannot separate transit from housing, the Seattle city planners sure seem determined to try.
I am all for higher density housing, but what is occurring now are either luxury town homes, 4 to a regular lot that start at >$700K, or pod-ments with 70+ units on a residential street with NO PARKING FACILITY.
Public transit is ridiculously inefficient here, nowhere near expansive enough to expect people to behave as though they live in high density Manhattan where one truly doesn't need a car. I know people that live without a car in Seattle, my family has one for two working adults (I bike because the bus system is so unreliable), but the majority of people simply won't/can't live or get to work without a car.
So go ahead an plan for higher density housing, but you can't put the cart before the horse. Make higher density transit (or at least off-street parking for new higher density housing!) an equal priority. And let's move on from relying almost entirely on buses that get stuck in traffic because of brain-dead 50s/60s interstate planners - that is a hopeless fantasy.
The people you want to attract to live and work here will need to get around, but while you cannot separate transit from housing, the Seattle city planners sure seem determined to try.
4
I moved to Portland in the mid-90s and love it here. When I visit Seattle and people know I'm from Portland they say, Oh, I love Portland, it's the way Seattle USED to be.
And even though Seattle & Portland are both adding high-density housing, it's all high-end stuff, not affordable. and much of it is with tax breaks and leveraging taxpayer improvements like light rail that increases land values. Developers need to pay higher fees and cities need to hold them to affordable housing commitments. Where are all the baristas going to live?
And even though Seattle & Portland are both adding high-density housing, it's all high-end stuff, not affordable. and much of it is with tax breaks and leveraging taxpayer improvements like light rail that increases land values. Developers need to pay higher fees and cities need to hold them to affordable housing commitments. Where are all the baristas going to live?
2
There are plenty of states that would love to have this problem. Their job and tax base is steadily eroding as companies move out and shut down factories and offices.
7
So let me get this straight. If a city loses well-paying jobs in declining industries, that's bad. But if a city gains well-paying jobs in an emerging industry, that's bad too. Seattle has a good problem to have as American cities go, but you wouldn't know it from this article.
16
I think the problem is not the growth, as much as it's the rate of growth, which is overwhelming the area's basic infrastructure. Plus companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing have demanded significant tax breaks, so there are limited funds available for expanding that infrastructure.
1
Actually it is, the city isnt their for the people who invested their time, its there for the people who have the arbitrage of the emergent markets working their favor. Not everyone considers their home an investment property, but actually a home. When the neighborhood changes around you for no good reason but the economic influence of "outsiders" you can be sure it is unsettling, and oppressive.
6
I lived in NYC from 1976 until 1991. When I moved to Seattle in 1991, it reminded me of what NYC was like in 1976 - a funky, interesting place with lots of individuality, cool shops and people of different colors and economic classes sharing the same space. Now, Seattle reminds me of what NYC has become - an over-gentrified Disneyland where only people with a lot of money and white skin can afford to live, and real estate development on steroids. After I got my masters and began teaching ESL to immigrants and refugees at local community colleges, I could no longer afford the Seattle rents so I moved about 16 miles south. Although I miss some of the "culture" of the city, I love that my neighbors are black, Samoan, Mexican and Haitian. I love going to the grocery store and seeing my students. I love that there is open space and I can actually see Puget Sound when I'm driving. I'm sad that there is no going back and the things that made Seattle so wonderful and enchanting are disappearing.
18
I'm in the same situation as you.
In Seattle.
Waiting until the anti-growth crowd gets even more entrenched to limit housing and hence more valuable and then I'll sell-out.
So looking for opportunities about where to move.
Any suggestions?
In Seattle.
Waiting until the anti-growth crowd gets even more entrenched to limit housing and hence more valuable and then I'll sell-out.
So looking for opportunities about where to move.
Any suggestions?
this article doesn't mention 2 important things: just how quickly seattle is growing, and how quickly income inequality is growing. if I'm not mistaken, we're #1 in both in the U.S. I'm a lifelong resident and it's clear that the quality of life here, which attracts a lot of this growth, is going south fast. the things that already were the worst aspects of life here before all this - traffic and housing prices - are now far worse. it won't take much more before the people getting the short end of the stick start to show their anger - I don't know a single person who thinks the tech boom's upside outweighs the downside.
14
Speaking as a former Bay Area resident and a long time Seattle area resident, Seattle is nothing like San Francisco, not even close. SF is a world class city, Seattle is a provincial town pretending to be a world class city.
The last 10 years Seattle has taken a major lurch to the left and it has not been good for the city. The mayor is a left wing nut who is anti-business, anti-development. His answer to the city's congested traffic is to put in a dedicated bike lane right in the middle of one of the busiest streets downtown, in a city that rains probably 300 days out of the year. Needless to say the congestion is worse, while virtually no one uses the bike lane.
In the last 10 years under the watch of the liberal left the city has only gone from bad to worse. There are pockets of downtown that is rife with gun violence and homelessness. Seattleites' favorite pastime seems to be organizing protests. Anytime there's a big protest going on in another city, be it occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, you know the hoodlums would come out of nowhere to protest the same causes in Seattle, and violence almost always ensue while traffic and businesses downtown are disrupted.
The millennials who work downtown now might like it, but eventually they will hit 30, get married and have kids. Then they'll want to move to the suburbs and will hate having to commute downtown. This city lacks a metro system like SF. The commute is horrid, and parking is worse. Seattle sucks.
The last 10 years Seattle has taken a major lurch to the left and it has not been good for the city. The mayor is a left wing nut who is anti-business, anti-development. His answer to the city's congested traffic is to put in a dedicated bike lane right in the middle of one of the busiest streets downtown, in a city that rains probably 300 days out of the year. Needless to say the congestion is worse, while virtually no one uses the bike lane.
In the last 10 years under the watch of the liberal left the city has only gone from bad to worse. There are pockets of downtown that is rife with gun violence and homelessness. Seattleites' favorite pastime seems to be organizing protests. Anytime there's a big protest going on in another city, be it occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, you know the hoodlums would come out of nowhere to protest the same causes in Seattle, and violence almost always ensue while traffic and businesses downtown are disrupted.
The millennials who work downtown now might like it, but eventually they will hit 30, get married and have kids. Then they'll want to move to the suburbs and will hate having to commute downtown. This city lacks a metro system like SF. The commute is horrid, and parking is worse. Seattle sucks.
10
Sounds like what Eugene Oregon is and was for the last 20 years- a wannabe, San Francisco. Eugene is on its merry way to what Portland and Seattle are now- former beautiful cities with a fairly balanced wealth distribution to a city where only the successful, the rich and arrogant live.
3
Ask those liberal left protesters how many of them are actually from Seattle, versus how many of them are trust fund kids from elsewhere still trying to live the alternativista dream. As for the horrid commute: there's something called topography. The rich want the gorgeous views, and the want to be near their big-ticket jobs. To the east are mountains, to the west is water. And still, the consumables have to make it into town from the port. So the north-south traffic gets more and more squeezed, and your allegedly "left wing" mayor panders only to Paul Allen's tribe in pursuing the fiasco that is the tunnel. Got it?
3
This year I spent 3 months living in Seattle after a lifetime on the east coast. Yes, the new buildings going up are depressingly generic. Yes, there's very visible growing pains in Cap Hill especially. But they don't know how lucky they are that there simply *is* room to grow. If convenient urban living and short commutes are what the techbros want, Seattle can, in fact, supply it! It seems almost miraculous that a places like Belltown/Denny Triangle exist, so close to downtown and Amazon yet full of underutilized low-density buildings and surface parking lots, ripe for development and density. Yes there'll be some cultural collateral damage, but you'll be just fine, Seattle. And probably a more vibrant city on the other end.
8
sounds like you didn't read the article, it's about livability for the middle and lower classes. You seem fine with the notion that its alright to turn a city that's has/had a vibrant mixed income city into a city occupied only by the rich.. no Seattle, you won't "be just fine...".
13
Lou is right. And although Portland is a much nicer and more accessible city than Seattle, it is rapidly headed in the same overpriced, congested direction
1
@skadel...- techies are often called geeks or dweebs.. often clueless regarding day-to-day, common sense issues. This issue brings out the best from the "geeks". Clueless.
1
I grew up in Seattle and 12 years ago moved to Brooklyn/NYC, where I worked in the music business. 18 months ago, I returned to Seattle for a new job in music at Amazon and to be closer to family. The complaining about Seattle's transformation is sad. Many idiots, some who've been here less than a year, call me "the enemy" for working in tech. It's ridiculous. Yes, the city is changing. Change is good. It's happened to every other major city in the country and we should be so lucky to be faced with what is, essentially, a great problem to have. It's a fantastic opportunity to make Seattle even greater. And we'll figure it out! Still, I pay $1,300 for a massive one-bedroom apartment with an office and dining room on Capitol Hill, a 10-minute walk from my office. Compared to NYC (I know, I know), I still feel like everything in Seattle is on sale. And the outdoors -- mountains, hiking, swimming, snowboarding -- is amazing here. We just need to work together. This artists vs. techies thing is horrible. Especially because as a writer in the music biz, working for a tech company, I feel caught in between. Also, John Criscitello is the epitome of the problem -- a hipster from NYC who arrived just a few years ago, has no roots here, and immediately acts like he discovered Seattle. Meanwhile, he's driving the schism between the city's residents even deeper with his ridiculous "art." Please go away.
19
change is good? for the wealthy maybe, for the poor and middle class - NO! turning a city from a mixed income city to one that is primarily wealthy and insular, is not good. Too bad you don't understand why people call you the "enemy". Maybe now you do, or are you too arrogant to admit it?
8
Wow buddy. Seattle is being given a huge opportunity to grow and not make the mistakes made by other cities, like SF. The thing people like you don't realize is that Seattle CAN have it both ways. We can have a booming tech economy, and make the necessary steps to preserve the artistic and affordable sides of the city. But people like you, who label someone "The Enemy" simply because of where they work, are a large part of the problem. Instead of working together to find a solution, you're just complaining. If you don't want to work towards a better future for all, then go back to the city you're from because I doubt that it's Seattle.
1
I've been here for 19 years, and will leave in the next two or three. We are actively scouting out the next place to live. Seattle's costs are skyrocketing, and its city and county governments are unable and unwilling to deliver services in a competent, cost effective manner.
Seattle's troubles are only beginning. Ten years from now, if not sooner, this city will be a gridlocked playground for the rich. Good luck finding a plumber.
Seattle's troubles are only beginning. Ten years from now, if not sooner, this city will be a gridlocked playground for the rich. Good luck finding a plumber.
1
Born and raised Seattle. Lived in a high density city on the east coast for a number of years and returned to Seattle to get away from the density. Now I am in the process of getting my house ready to sell (ride the bubble) and relocate to a smaller town. I consider myself a "density refugee." Urban areas like SF (used to be one of my favorite cities), NYC, Austin are geared, now, for the young and the rich. Middle aged, middle income are both priced out and mobility out of hip cities. Developers, like their paid lobbyist Roger Valdez (who also used to work for Alan Durning's group) continue to expound simplistic economic theories of supply and demand to justify building and building, yet vacancy rates in my neighborhood, that has been hammered by high density development, are much higher than when the building was significantly slower. Seattle is a boom and bust town, and it's best to get out before the bust happens, again. My "soul" will be tagging along in my density refugee quest.
7
Techies who work 100 hour weeks are not going to have any time or energy to contribute to their own neighborhoods. That, along with unaffordable rents, is what destroys livable communities. No one intends for this to happen, and I'm not even sure the tech companies themselves could stop it - although they could try a little harder! If Google could buy a billion-dollar barge and then scrap the idea, and apply such brilliance to their other projects, maybe they could be an influence for good in a way that somehow doesn't impoverish their shareholders.
6
Let people do what they want.
Government has no business concerning itself with housing and wealth.
Of course, any rules that favor one group over another should be eliminated.
For example, the legal fiction of the corporation should be done away with; etc!
Think for yourself?
Government has no business concerning itself with housing and wealth.
Of course, any rules that favor one group over another should be eliminated.
For example, the legal fiction of the corporation should be done away with; etc!
Think for yourself?
3
Sure, survival of the strongest. That's the law of the jungle. It's also a real good prescription for a populist uprising in 10 years. And once revolutions get rolling, they're reeeaaalll hard to stop.
8
I moved to Bellevue 12 years ago to work for Microsoft, I now work in Pioneer Square. To say Seattle (and the metro area) is changing fast is an understatement. It does feel vibrant and creative though and a hopeful place even with it's problems. I'm impressed that the city voted in a $15/hour minimum wage, and is also trying to think about making this a great place to live and work. They are not getting everything right. I do feel that Seattle and the rest of King County need to work better together on transit. The toll shenanigans on local highways and bridges and the lack of rail across Lake Washington is having a very real negative effect on the quality of life for people who still have to find a way to get to work.
6
For a bunch of "progressives" they sure are resistant to change.
7
Not all change is equal. Seattlites used to think they had it pretty good and set a good example. Not so much now.
Downtown Seattle is a weird mix of homelessness and workers co-mixing. The workers walk quickly to their high-rise enclave, head-phones on, staring straight ahead, walking fast, while the homeless wander and watch and wait outside on the streets. The contrast is extreme and depressing.
25
John Crisciello, the guy putting up 'Wish you weren't here' posters all over town to express his feelings about newcomers? He's lived here for four years and change.
20
so what? he's entitled to his opinion, He's a guy who saw what was happening after only a short time living there, as opposed to the long time residents who stood by and did nothing, allowing the politicians to give the rich real estate developers and corporations what they wanted whenever they wanted.
2
Seattle, your soul left in 1993 when I left California. Loved to visit your seedy under-belly. I miss the bums, rednecks and blue-collar bumpkins.
Enjoy your lactose intolerant, skinny frappe swoosh moose decaf while your men walk around in skinny jeans.
What a loser city. I'd move to Spokane. Or Hermiston OR.
Enjoy your lactose intolerant, skinny frappe swoosh moose decaf while your men walk around in skinny jeans.
What a loser city. I'd move to Spokane. Or Hermiston OR.
8
I just searched the article and the comments for the word "green" and got 0 hits. Why does the conversation about urban development consistently drop the ball on concerns of environment, public green space, urban ecology, or even city aesthetics? Seattle used to be called the Emerald City, but every time a new building goes in (commercial and residential alike) we're left with a little less green space, and with city streets and a city-scape with a little less life. And unavoidably, our lives too are diminished.
7
And every time we restrict the development of new housing in the city, we end up building deeper and deeper into the Cascades.
1
it's called- "Money talks, the environment walks". Even "Green" Democrats become Greed Democrats when wads of cash are waved before them... this is what happens to people who obsessively support the greedy capitalist system. No other system or outlook matters or is relevant, that includes trees, clean air, water and soil.
1
not true @mfischer.. only sometimes, if the city planners are incompetent like in most major cities.
2
One word: TACOMA.
8
"Spinach Inquisition." Love it.
1
Laughed out loud at "Spinach Inquisition." Used to hold my nose when my family would drive by.
Moved to the Eastside in 92 when my father got a job at Microsoft. I left after high school, but enjoyed visiting my family up until they left 2 years ago (job transfer). Noticed at the time how many generic Amazon buildings were going up near Lake Union and the traffic increase, but it wasn't jarring. Now my 32 year old sister is moving back to start a family with her husband, and is very excited. For all the issues mentioned in this article, there is still some great things about the Seattle area. Public schools are high quality, tons of activities, and friendly people to name a few. I don't fear it becoming San Francisco, but I'm sure it will become a little less of the Seattle longtime residents remember.
Moved to the Eastside in 92 when my father got a job at Microsoft. I left after high school, but enjoyed visiting my family up until they left 2 years ago (job transfer). Noticed at the time how many generic Amazon buildings were going up near Lake Union and the traffic increase, but it wasn't jarring. Now my 32 year old sister is moving back to start a family with her husband, and is very excited. For all the issues mentioned in this article, there is still some great things about the Seattle area. Public schools are high quality, tons of activities, and friendly people to name a few. I don't fear it becoming San Francisco, but I'm sure it will become a little less of the Seattle longtime residents remember.
1
If Seattle wants a diverse community, affordable rents and a vibrant arts culture they'll need to spend a lot of money. I think those $100k tech employees should be willing to pay more in taxes to make it happen because these are things they find desirable.
3
there seem a lot of complaints in this thread from those who cannot afford to live in these cities. Perhaps they can move to areas where they can live. for example a teacher making 10% less than in, say SF, can live like a king/queen. why not move and improve your material well being (and that of your family)? Alternatively the option is to obtain job skills (i.e., programming, accounting) that will enable you to make more money so you afford to live in expensive areas. These are the realistic solutions.
5
A city needs teachers. It also needs garbage collectors, mail carriers, delivery people, police officers, fire fighters, baristas, bank clerks, etc. If all those people move away or become programmers and accountants, who will do their work? Granted, it's one way of drastically cutting the city's property values (e.g. no more teachers >> no more schools >> no more families living in the city), but it seems a little too extreme to be a reasonable or desirable solution. Plus, if everyone becomes a programmer or an accountant, they will decimate the demand for and thus the salaries earned in those fields, and then they won't actually be able to make more money or afford to live in an expensive area.
2
The problem with that is that SF, Seattle, etc. still need teachers and other lower-wage workers. Should cities (and their environs) only be able to house high-wage workers?
2
I've lived in Seattle for more than 35 years. In 1981, the year I moved to Seattle, I was able to get a studio apartment on Capital Hill for about $230 a month. It was a great life. There was just one espresso joint on the hill -- a cake bakery called B&O Espresso (which was started in 1976, forced off of Capital Hill a few years ago due to a development project, and moved to Ballard, where it closed for good). In the '80s, a 20-something could work part time and still afford to pay rent. A 20-something could walk around the Hill unmolested by construction projects on every corner. Now, I don't really know how any 20-something could survive living on Capital Hill or any other city neighborhood unless he were rich.
Mayor Ed Murry and the council are very feeble and ineffective. Murray refuses to deal forthrightly with developers who have run amuck in this town (literally kicking out very old ladies to buy buildings with money from the East Coast and Asia). If Ed Murry and the council had any courage or virtue, they would reign in and tax Seattle's rampant developers, who have run roughshod over the city for decades.
So to laud this mayor as being somehow far-sighted or visionary is simply laughable. Seattle is in steep decline; the traffic is unbearably bad; air quality and quality of life continue to suffer. Seattle has been effectively ruined by lack of developer regulation by city leaders and their refusal to even remotely countenance modest proposals for rent control.
Mayor Ed Murry and the council are very feeble and ineffective. Murray refuses to deal forthrightly with developers who have run amuck in this town (literally kicking out very old ladies to buy buildings with money from the East Coast and Asia). If Ed Murry and the council had any courage or virtue, they would reign in and tax Seattle's rampant developers, who have run roughshod over the city for decades.
So to laud this mayor as being somehow far-sighted or visionary is simply laughable. Seattle is in steep decline; the traffic is unbearably bad; air quality and quality of life continue to suffer. Seattle has been effectively ruined by lack of developer regulation by city leaders and their refusal to even remotely countenance modest proposals for rent control.
12
Sounds like NYC. A popular and long standing Italian bakery and espresso store in East Village(11th and 1st. Ave closed a couple of years ago after 110 years in business. Yes, 110 years!. I read about it the other day on the Times. When i lived in NYC, i used to go there regularly for i lived on 10th St. between 1st and Ave A for 3 years. So sad, and sad for Seattle and their current and former long time residents. The decay of the U.S. is progressing ever so much faster.
1
The real estate price gouge is extending well beyond King County. The Islands adjacent and commuter friendly to Seattle are rising rapidly. Islands further out are increasing as the newly flush with tech cash are looking for weekend getaways.
I am currently looking for property in and around the area for a home where I will live in retirement and the prices are steadily going up.
I am currently looking for property in and around the area for a home where I will live in retirement and the prices are steadily going up.
1
The complaints are the same in other places, particularly the Bay Area and the Silicon Valley. But there is one solution that nobody seems to ever mention. A large number of tech jobs can be done from anywhere. So why don't tech companies hire workers and let them live in other places?
5
Jon - because they can't. Humans still need face to face connection. These jobs are not the same as the IT work that is outsourced to India. Thy are often the people who wrote the code to make that technology possible. They need to be around each other.
1
Tech companies should move to the Midwest. The West Coast, from SF to Portland to Seattle, are being run to the ground by liberals who would rather turn the city over to homeless bums and criminals than see it "gentrify".
You can't prevent people from living in beautiful places. Forget about the culture for a minute. Water is very important to many and more are taking notice. Mountains, beaches, great food and parks. These are valuable qualities of life that people search for in places to raise families. I grew up in sf and moved to pdx because it's still affordable. 300k on the west coast in a city with a professional sports team is a deal.
3
once former beautiful places being turned into urban and suburban hellholes. Don't you read past history of cities where this also happened? "White flight"(of the middle class) it used to be called, there a couple of reasons it happens and Seattle's reason is because of the excessive greed that has exploded there. "Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it". As the saying goes. The new crop of Seattle residents maybe tech savvy and rich but they are also foolish and stupid.
1
Seattle is coming to the end of what was heralded by the civic leadership as the "Ten-Year Plan To Eliminate Homelessness". To say that it's been a dismal failure is more than an understatement. In fact, over the last year it appears our homeless population has skyrocketed. As we head into fall, there seem to be clusters of people sleeping in tents, garbage bags and shipping cartons on just about every piece of bare ground that isn't fenced off or in the direct path of traffic. Meanwhile, developers are "gentrifying" low-income housing, building blocks of $1,000-plus per month "apodments" and lobbying for the elimination of neighborhood zoning laws. It's becoming increasingly hard to imagine anything slowing this down except for another economic catastrophe.
12
It's because the city is run by a liberal. Wherever liberals go, homelessness, violence and decay follows. Liberals can't govern if their lives depend on it.
3
It's not just the money and traffic Californians are bringing that is causing a negative effect on Seattle: it's the California attitude: materialistic, shallow, love of big government, taxes, etc. Let's hope the "pioneer spirit" of Seattle survives and ultimately wins.
4
It's the love of money that is causing these problems, and it's not just Californians. By the time I arrived in 2001 after living through the dot com boom in the Bay Area, I could already see that Seattle was becoming like what you described. The transition is now complete and something has been lost, I agree. It is becoming another playground for the rich and while I once used to play in such sandboxes, I don't find them fun anymore.
5
That video was worthless, c'mon, who has time for the tedious 'zen' of a few cranes moving to and fro?
11
I lived in Seattle for 6 years in the mid-1980s. I was on Capitol Hill, and could still afford to work service jobs and get by. The town was just getting to be a major tech hub at that point. I used to walk around everywhere late at night, and never got hassled. It was great.
By the early 1990s, a guy I knew still lived north of the U district and had a good, middle-class job as a county librarian. He couldn't afford to buy a decent house. That was 25 years ago. It must have only gotten worse since then.
Building a few thousand affordable housing units will help, but the real problem is that we overvalue the tech economy, and overpay many of its workers, who create almost nothing of any real value for ordinary citizens. What many of the tech people are doing is making the world safe for multi-national corporations to run everything without human input. Great. Once that happens, everybody will be serfs in a new, dystopian, digital, Middle Ages. It will be like Game of Thrones with smart phones, and whatever replaces them, like implanted, brain-assisted, computer chips. "Hello, Larry? My ear buzzed and I thought it might be you calling..."
13
You forgot the importation of millions of tech workers from India and China that's also changing the culture of this country for the worse.
8
This is so true, we need more voices echoing this sentiment.
I used to fantasize about living in Seattle when I watched "Frasier". Same thing with New York and "Seinfeld". Boston/"Cheers". Seems like the dark ages. I enjoy visiting these cities but the combination of sticker shock and the show's ending has evaporated my dreams of ever living there. Still can't figure out how I once managed to have a comfortable life in the Bay Area-- long ago when carrying a beeper seemed exotic.
3
I lived in Seattle from 1988 to 1992. There was an outcry about rising home prices back then as Microsoft burgeoned. But a lot of people also benefited, especially blue collar workers from Boeing, which was slashing jobs. They sold their cute bungalows and retired early elsewhere. You can't blame the tech buyers unless you also blame the sellers for "selling out." I live in SF and NYC, where the situation is amplified. I don't think social engineering or rent controls will help. This is a huge wave.
7
I've lived in Seattle for 23 years. Graduated high school here, college at Evergreen, lived in a funky old house with a bunch of artists, played in bands throughout my 20s, used coffee shops as my living room... in other words totally enjoyed the "soul" of the city. And I've worked my way up the tech industry for 15 years. I'm grateful for a stable career that enables me to raise my family in the town I love. Am I happy that cost of living is rising? No! Do I find it hard to imagine how folks not in tech afford to live here? Yes! But it's misguided to curse an industry that is bringing thousands of new well paying jobs to your hometown. The article doesn't say this but the dialogue often goes this way. Ask yourself this: Where would Seattle be without the tech industry? Where are there better career opportunities for young adults? It's the one sector of the local job market that has been on fire for the better part of two decades. To blame it for insufficient planning for affordable housing and urban development seems crazy to me. Good jobs are not the problem.
10
Having grown up in Seattle I can tell you this: Seattle's soul is long gone. It's a different city with different values and a different culture. And it's not a better place. I won't be here much longer.
8
San Francisco is a city dominated by those who become anxious if not reaching millionaire status by the time they're 30. It's not just that it is populated with young techies - it's that this population seems to have an entitlement and lack of introspection that keeps the city from being able to initiate policies that perhaps do not benefit them directly. I sincerely hope the leaders of Seattle embark on a serious intervention before it's too late.
At no point in history have we witnessed this kind of enormous surge of wealth to such a large segment of population, most of them under 35. Where as San Francisco was once a place for the old, the young, the single and families of every economic level, it now caters exclusively to the young rich technology workers in every way possible, aided greatly by policy. Unless you live day to day within this culture you have no idea how much this strips away from a city.
At no point in history have we witnessed this kind of enormous surge of wealth to such a large segment of population, most of them under 35. Where as San Francisco was once a place for the old, the young, the single and families of every economic level, it now caters exclusively to the young rich technology workers in every way possible, aided greatly by policy. Unless you live day to day within this culture you have no idea how much this strips away from a city.
8
The city's efforts to keep Seattle's "soul" by encouraging more housing units are actually helping to destroy the city's soul. Independent business and historic buildings are given no consideration at all as the city allows developers to tear them down to build Stalin-esque condos. Independent businesses can't afford the rents in the ground floor retail in these new buildings, so they are filled with chains, or they sit empty.
Seattle once had the lowest percentage of chain stores of any city in the nation. The loss of independent businesses as their smaller, older buildings are torn down has become epidemic. Seattle has always been a very interesting and unique place, and we're on our way to looking like every other US city.
It's also hard to believe the city is truly proactive about affordable housing when it allows another epidemic--the removal of smaller, affordable homes (starter homes) by developers that build enormous homes that sell for well over $1 million. I've lost track of how many letters or postcards I've received from developers wanting to buy my 2 bd home, in order to tear it down. And the county-assessed value of my home is $498K--that tells you how much they are willing to spend to do this.
Seattle once had the lowest percentage of chain stores of any city in the nation. The loss of independent businesses as their smaller, older buildings are torn down has become epidemic. Seattle has always been a very interesting and unique place, and we're on our way to looking like every other US city.
It's also hard to believe the city is truly proactive about affordable housing when it allows another epidemic--the removal of smaller, affordable homes (starter homes) by developers that build enormous homes that sell for well over $1 million. I've lost track of how many letters or postcards I've received from developers wanting to buy my 2 bd home, in order to tear it down. And the county-assessed value of my home is $498K--that tells you how much they are willing to spend to do this.
9
Chris, you've it the nail on the head. Seattle's become a boom-town for developers who've swarmed in like bees to honey.The hypocrisy of the city council pretending to care about affordable housing (AND the environment), when it allows developers to knock down small and medium-size houses with yards (and trees) which are replaced by huge square boxes built up to the periphery with their neighbors and selling for 2 or 3 times the price. They're springing up everywhere seemingly overnight like mushrooms. This fuels a rise in the property taxes for all the neighborhood, so doubly good news for the city, who also gain by having to provide endless new permits.
The development process often involves removing good building material to landfill and replacing it with new. Is this consistent with Seattle's claim to be the most environmentally-conscious in the US?
What I first found attractive about Seattle - coming from arguably one of the most sophisticated and ultra-developed cities in the world (London) - was, in addition to the great variety in house styles and colors, precisely a sense of residual wilderness within the city, with many undeveloped empty spaces where natural vegetation had taken over - these are all being gobbled up in the race to make Seattle a homogenized metropolis. Given a forecast of a doubling of the existing population in 10 years, it is understandable that many Seattlites are not over the moon with this transformation.
The development process often involves removing good building material to landfill and replacing it with new. Is this consistent with Seattle's claim to be the most environmentally-conscious in the US?
What I first found attractive about Seattle - coming from arguably one of the most sophisticated and ultra-developed cities in the world (London) - was, in addition to the great variety in house styles and colors, precisely a sense of residual wilderness within the city, with many undeveloped empty spaces where natural vegetation had taken over - these are all being gobbled up in the race to make Seattle a homogenized metropolis. Given a forecast of a doubling of the existing population in 10 years, it is understandable that many Seattlites are not over the moon with this transformation.
1
Boulder, CO was mentioned in the article.
I regrettably moved away from there 6 years ago but frequently go back to visit as my heart and family are still there. Every time I go back it feels more and more like the Bay. Less easy going. Less friendly. aggressively boring new buildings popping up, astronomical rent, long waits everywhere you go, traffic as bad as I've ever experienced, no end to this in sight. Ultimately, the towns people who came in the 70's/80's/90's decided to cash in and this is the result.
I regrettably moved away from there 6 years ago but frequently go back to visit as my heart and family are still there. Every time I go back it feels more and more like the Bay. Less easy going. Less friendly. aggressively boring new buildings popping up, astronomical rent, long waits everywhere you go, traffic as bad as I've ever experienced, no end to this in sight. Ultimately, the towns people who came in the 70's/80's/90's decided to cash in and this is the result.
6
Seattle will never be as bad as San Francisco for 2 reasons. The first is geography. San Francisco is surrounded on 3 sides by water, and the 4th by Silicon Valley. So, while there is increasing demand, there is no availability of increasing supply. Seattle, on the other hand, is bordered on one side by water but has room to expand on the other three sides. A more proper analogy would be Los Angeles; and indeed, housing prices are comparable to Southern California. The other big difference is the lack of a state income tax in Washington, which gives people more purchasing power to afford housing.
1
Hmm last time I looked, Seattle had 3 different lakes and, oh yeh, a mountain range east of downtown. Where exactly is this space to grow??
1
There are mountains everywhere around Seattle. Perhaps some southern expansion can occur. But to the east you run into the cascades, and there are other issues expanding to the north.
This article doesn't begin to describe the damage that has been done to independent restaurants and businesses. The reason Seattle is attractive to big business is bc it is easy to get people to live here with the amazing livibility... Yet it's running all of them out and replacing them with business center cookie cutter chains and taking away any little parking that is left. Seattle is booming bc it is such a culturally diverse city... But once the high rises run out all the culture, and double real estate, they will turn their backs and close shop in 15 years on the the new city with lower prices... Ask any Seattle RESIDENT and we're NOT happy.
5
High density urban living is a great lifestyle. Seattle is adapting!
1
Interesting coming from someone who lives 61 miles north of Seattle.
1
Says one who lives in a tiny town two counties north!
1
It can be a great lifestyle, but it's not a lifestyle most Seattlites have ever wanted.
The number one problem with Seattle is the total lack of regional transportation planning. We've had some of the country's worst traffic for many years and anyone could see that a growth spurt like the one occurring now would result in gridlock and massive back ups as we've seen recently.
The fact that the City allowed Amazon to locate thousands of jobs (current estimate 15,000 and climbing fast) smack in the middle of the worst traffic choke point in the city without requiring them to fund transit or provide an Amazon bus fleet the way Microsoft has voluntarily done (much to its credit) is just absurd.
As traffic from the suburbs and outlying areas of the city into downtown gets worse, people naturally want to live closer in to avoid soul-crushing commutes. That is the primary driver in Seattle real estate. If you work at Amazon, you have the means and motivation to gentrify formerly middle class neighborhoods.
In the past, big companies like Boeing, Microsoft, Costco, Expedia and others located in the suburbs where land was plentiful, access to transit good and housing cheap. Even Starbucks located it's HQ in an industrial area south of downtown.
It's fine and well that the City is now working to provide low income housing, but the truth is the City's and County's past policies and total inaction regarding transportation infrastructure are a very real driver of increasing gentrification and lessening quality of life for all.
The fact that the City allowed Amazon to locate thousands of jobs (current estimate 15,000 and climbing fast) smack in the middle of the worst traffic choke point in the city without requiring them to fund transit or provide an Amazon bus fleet the way Microsoft has voluntarily done (much to its credit) is just absurd.
As traffic from the suburbs and outlying areas of the city into downtown gets worse, people naturally want to live closer in to avoid soul-crushing commutes. That is the primary driver in Seattle real estate. If you work at Amazon, you have the means and motivation to gentrify formerly middle class neighborhoods.
In the past, big companies like Boeing, Microsoft, Costco, Expedia and others located in the suburbs where land was plentiful, access to transit good and housing cheap. Even Starbucks located it's HQ in an industrial area south of downtown.
It's fine and well that the City is now working to provide low income housing, but the truth is the City's and County's past policies and total inaction regarding transportation infrastructure are a very real driver of increasing gentrification and lessening quality of life for all.
9
This story severely understates civic problems Seattle faces, and overstates how politicians and businesses are dealing/not dealing with it.
The problem isn't growth per se. It's willy-nilly, no-planning, weak infrastructure, big developer growth. Small, locally owned businesses (music clubs, cafes, storess) get shoved out by new construction and soaring rents. Arterials are narrowed for bike lanes, many non-athletes drive because of poor public transport.
No rent controls means rents are soaring, doubling and tripling, squeezing out elderly, infirm and poor residents.
The "density advocate" you quote is a mouthpiece for developers fighting reasonable corporate taxes needed for new infrastructure and affordable housing. (50,000 units proposed by Mayor Murray is a drop in the bucket.) The behemoth Amazon pays/ donates little to such efforts, as it attracts tens of thousands of new workers here.
Unlike in Portland, where green space and architectural diversity were protected as the city grew, Seattle is losing trees, open space at an alarming rate as plain, boxy, aluminum sided apartment buildings and "apodments" replace them. Many new units are tiny, expensive, fully wired studios that may serve single tech workers, but couples? Families?
I'd like to see a truly balanced story, where those more critical of the way runaway growth is being handled here, and who have different solutions in mind, are represented too.
The problem isn't growth per se. It's willy-nilly, no-planning, weak infrastructure, big developer growth. Small, locally owned businesses (music clubs, cafes, storess) get shoved out by new construction and soaring rents. Arterials are narrowed for bike lanes, many non-athletes drive because of poor public transport.
No rent controls means rents are soaring, doubling and tripling, squeezing out elderly, infirm and poor residents.
The "density advocate" you quote is a mouthpiece for developers fighting reasonable corporate taxes needed for new infrastructure and affordable housing. (50,000 units proposed by Mayor Murray is a drop in the bucket.) The behemoth Amazon pays/ donates little to such efforts, as it attracts tens of thousands of new workers here.
Unlike in Portland, where green space and architectural diversity were protected as the city grew, Seattle is losing trees, open space at an alarming rate as plain, boxy, aluminum sided apartment buildings and "apodments" replace them. Many new units are tiny, expensive, fully wired studios that may serve single tech workers, but couples? Families?
I'd like to see a truly balanced story, where those more critical of the way runaway growth is being handled here, and who have different solutions in mind, are represented too.
12
Right on. Seattle has all the problems of SF, and none of the benefits. There are no beautiful neighborhoods here like the Marina, Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff. No downtown park like the Golden Gate park. The downtown is high crime and grungy with lots of homeless people.
The East side, meanwhile, is being swallowed whole by recent Chinese and Indian transplants. There are schools here that are now over 90% asian, and English is not even the 3rd or 4th language. Everywhere you go you hear mandarin or heavily accented English. Sometimes I don't even know what country I live in.
The East side, meanwhile, is being swallowed whole by recent Chinese and Indian transplants. There are schools here that are now over 90% asian, and English is not even the 3rd or 4th language. Everywhere you go you hear mandarin or heavily accented English. Sometimes I don't even know what country I live in.
2
The city's political leaders sold themselves out, as usual to the mega- corporations. Seattle wouldn't be in such a pickle if it didn't allow Amazon.com to gobble up so much property just north of the Space Needled for their privately owned amusement "park", displacing hundreds if not thousands of middle income people. Seattle's troubles actually started with Bill Gates and Microsoft back in the early 1980's, it went downhill quickly from there, with Californians coming up and buying single family homes from about 1985 on wards. Money buys politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, and the foolish citizenry just go along the ride, then complain like crybabies afterward. I have no sympathy for the whining locals both in Seattle and Portland. Regarding Oregon, the "We don't want Californians moving here" logo goes back to before i moved out here 2 decades ago, but saying that our local pols also are crooks, taking $$$from real estate developers, changing well meaning and effective laws against excessive development.. Shame on them and shame on us for just watching this disaster unfold and not don't anything about it.
4
What diversity? When we visited our Indiana-born friend in Seattle a few years ago, he saw our faces as we drove around the city and said, "yeah, I know. I miss black people."
12
You weren't looking at the right places. Go to Rainier Beach or South Center, or Renton.
Next time you should pay a visit to South Seattle, allegedly the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in the USA.
A big difference us that Asians and Asian-Americans are the largest minority group in the City, unlike most midwestern cities.
2
The Landscraping of the 70s' is back! Demolition is the new normal in Seattle. Sustainability and historic preservation mean nothing. There are very few lawyers left to speak for the people because it is an uphill battle. The city is now regularly accepting demolition applications in Pioneer Square despite being the first district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They are spiking the Kool-Aid with "low income housing" and leaving out the fact that developers can pay higher fees to not actually build any low-income housing. The only winners are the developers and the city collecting their permit fees. The last thing Seattle wants is input from the communties they are destroying; so don't bother them. Most likely the date for accepting public comment has passed anyway. Thanks for the "Grand Bargain" Mayor Murray .
9
I guess that 9 months or so of damp, dreary, dank, and dismal weather has really begun to tell.
8
This! This is the key here - man, I just couldn't deal with the clouds and the rain. Give me the rather brutal upstate NY winters (and Toronto is an hour away from me, which is a beautiful city) and 9 months of reasonable weather than 9 months of gloom and beautiful summers.
1
It's a failure of the market when it becomes that even "moderate" income households need subsidized housing.
4
It is always interesting with the local reality becomes the national news. While the article mentions some of the burdens, and financial benefits of the newcomers, remember that the great thing about SF is that it is an international city. Seattle, even still, is very much a regional one at that. That being said, I truly believe this the burdens expressed in this article would be lessened by increased efforts to promote public transportation solutions. Yes, while the main neighborhoods--Cap Hill, Ballard, Fremont, U District, are seeing high concentrations of new buildings and people, our transportation system is in flux right now. While we are highly anticipating the arrival of our expanded light rail systems, connecting North Gate to Downtown, to the Airport, the burden of the incoming density problem would be significantly lessened by a more substantial public transportation plan. This would make it easier for those under the six figure salary mark to get where they need to be to work, school, and to carry on their lives in Seattle.
2
I lived in Seattle for 6 years in the mid-1980s. I was on Capitol Hill, and could still afford to work service jobs and get by. The town was just getting to be a major tech hub at that point. I used to walk around everywhere late at night, and never got hassled. It was great.
By the 1990s, a guy I knew still lived north of the U district and had a good, middle-class job as a county librarian. He couldn't afford to buy a decent house. That was 25 years ago. It must have only gotten worse since then.
Building a few thousand affordable housing units will help, but the real problem is that we overvalue the tech economy, and overpay many of its workers, who create almost nothing of any real value for ordinary citizens. What many of the tech people are doing is making the world safe for multi-national corporations to run everything without human input. Great. Once that happens, everybody will be serfs in a new, dystopian, digital, Middle Ages. It will be like Game of Thrones with smart phones, and whatever replaces them, like implanted, brain-assisted, computer chips. "Hello, Larry? My ear buzzed and I thought it might be you calling..."
2
As someone who moved to Seattle from California in the 80's, I withstood comments then about "Californication" and the ill effect that Californians (like me) were having on Seattle. I often felt like an outsider during the 18 years I lived in Seattle, experiencing a provincialism unlike any I've experienced elsewhere. While the housing crisis is, indeed, real in Seattle and San Francisco (to which I returned with housing sticker shock), the reality is that there are changes everywhere where business is booming. We can't have our cakes and eat them, too. Creating affordable housing initiatives seems smarter to me than blaming Californication all over again.
2
I recently moved to the Bay Area to work in tech, and one thing I have certainly noticed is that the techie culture is pervasive, invasive and generally everywhere. For a person like me, this can be thrilling because the Bay Area offers a level of networking, opportunity, and excitement that someone like me would not receive in any other market - even Seattle. However, while the Bay Area's laissez-faire capitalism approach to tech will always keep it as the world's tech hub, it isn't hard to see the problems that it creates for citizens here. I think the trick is not for Seattle to become the next Bay Area, but to be a different side of the same coin, offering up an alternative to the tech-centric, often gold-rush atmosphere of the Bay Area. They need to carve out their own paradigm it sounds like they're doing just that.
1
Why don't more people see the folly of more and more development, more and more population growth? Our society is built on a giant Ponzi scheme, with social and environmental disaster the end result.
6
Good luck Seattle, I hope you do a better job that what was done here. What a shame to see this City ruined.
10
They're not doing a better job here. They are emulating S.F., and the results will be similar.
1
I've lived in all three of these places: Seattle, Austin and the Bay over the last 15 years. There are major themes that are consistent in all these places.
1) At one point in their history all 3 cities were considered liberal cities. All had working class and artistic communities, pretty good school systems and infrastructure. All have top public universities in their zip codes. Neither Washington nor Texas have state income taxes.
2)These low cost, trendy, resource rich intellectual enclaves were perfect places for tech companies to relocate, while negotiating HUGE tax abatements for gracing these cities with their businesses.
3) The ensuing population explosion then takes a significant toll on housing costs, public school overcrowding, quality of public services and roads.
4) Because of existing tax abatements and a lack of tax base (ie no state income taxes), it's impossible to keep pace with infrastructure demands of the exploding populations.
5) The cost of geographically desirable houses with good schools has gotten insane. So have the ever escalating local property taxes ( mine went up 15% last year alone)
6) The end result: these cities are no longer liberal, they are no longer cheap,they are no longer trendy ( at least for people with normal incomes) and their infrastructure is far outstripped by demand.
1) At one point in their history all 3 cities were considered liberal cities. All had working class and artistic communities, pretty good school systems and infrastructure. All have top public universities in their zip codes. Neither Washington nor Texas have state income taxes.
2)These low cost, trendy, resource rich intellectual enclaves were perfect places for tech companies to relocate, while negotiating HUGE tax abatements for gracing these cities with their businesses.
3) The ensuing population explosion then takes a significant toll on housing costs, public school overcrowding, quality of public services and roads.
4) Because of existing tax abatements and a lack of tax base (ie no state income taxes), it's impossible to keep pace with infrastructure demands of the exploding populations.
5) The cost of geographically desirable houses with good schools has gotten insane. So have the ever escalating local property taxes ( mine went up 15% last year alone)
6) The end result: these cities are no longer liberal, they are no longer cheap,they are no longer trendy ( at least for people with normal incomes) and their infrastructure is far outstripped by demand.
12
San Francisco "progressives", despite their supposed concern for the middle and working classes, are actually the driving force behind the ridiculous state of SF's real estate market:
*SF has a boom and bust economy because politicians and neighborhood activists pick which businesses are allowed to operate in San Francisco. If City Hall and NIMBY groups were not allowed to to choose private sector winners and losers, SF's economy would have a broader, more stable base which would help maintain a more rational housing market.
*Challenging all proposed buildings at the ballot box keeps all but the most motivated and deep pocketed real estate investors out of SF.
*A high-stakes, idiosyncratic development approval process dominated by a few key political figures makes any project that might increase SF's housing supply a lengthy, corrupt, graft-ridden, and highly inefficient undertaking. Very few builders and investors can afford to supply the required payouts, free apartments/condos, no-show jobs, and 'consulting' gigs.
*Stopping all new construction and building conversions is in landowners' interest, especially in attractive districts like Telegraph Hill and Noe Valley, because it keeps rents and purchase prices high.
*SF has a boom and bust economy because politicians and neighborhood activists pick which businesses are allowed to operate in San Francisco. If City Hall and NIMBY groups were not allowed to to choose private sector winners and losers, SF's economy would have a broader, more stable base which would help maintain a more rational housing market.
*Challenging all proposed buildings at the ballot box keeps all but the most motivated and deep pocketed real estate investors out of SF.
*A high-stakes, idiosyncratic development approval process dominated by a few key political figures makes any project that might increase SF's housing supply a lengthy, corrupt, graft-ridden, and highly inefficient undertaking. Very few builders and investors can afford to supply the required payouts, free apartments/condos, no-show jobs, and 'consulting' gigs.
*Stopping all new construction and building conversions is in landowners' interest, especially in attractive districts like Telegraph Hill and Noe Valley, because it keeps rents and purchase prices high.
3
I lived in Seattle and Austin for a while. I happily left both each time. What the author fails to cite about these places is the soul-sucking traffic. Any city experiencing such tremendous growth as well as stratospheric cost of living should be obligated to invest heavily in European-scaled public transit. But the elephant in the room is the cost of doing so, and the total disregard such a heavy investment would make on the overall livability for its blue collar citizens. Austin, I would argue, is even worse than Seattle; no one wants to sit in traffic 45 minutes each way breathing fossil fuel to see a great band or sample a great food truck under those conditions. These super-rich tech wizards are fine with having their cake, and stuffing their faces while logjamming the soul right out of a place.
9
I moved to San Francisco from Brooklyn in 2004. It was still recovering from the so-called 'Dot-Com Boom' and had tons of character and diversity. In the 11 years since the city has undergone a complete makeover. It has chased away its working class and artists who can't afford the insane rents and the small Mom-and Pop places are closing every day. The sky is filled with cranes and parts of downtown now look like Houston or Atlanta.
Cookie-cutter people fill the streets along with the huge increase in traffic. All of this is consistent with the 21st century theme in America - 'You better have money' - only writ far larger in this once classy city.
Cookie-cutter people fill the streets along with the huge increase in traffic. All of this is consistent with the 21st century theme in America - 'You better have money' - only writ far larger in this once classy city.
5
Describes Seattle to a T.
1
I was lucky enough to live in San Francisco during the summer of '83 in a cheap apartment on Potrero Hill while doing a summer job. The smell of roasting coffee from the giant Hills Brothers plant as I came off the 101 into the city center was overpowering in the wafting fog. Nights after affordable dinners of clam chowder in sourdough bowls at the still working-class wharf, my flatmate would crash early while I prowled the gritty warehouse-district clubs. Afternoons after, I'd roll out of bed and into a Haight that still had grimy yet colorful vestiges of its 60s soul. Now, the warehouses are sterile lofts with hipster restaurants, the roasting plant is yet more of the same, and the Grateful Dead have scattered to the Four Winds and beyond. I left my heart in a San Francisco of another place and time.
My times in Seattle visiting a sibling's family over the years bring me much of the same feelings of warmth, love, and nostalgia for an authentic, diverse, and vibrant city living its progressive values. I'm just hoping I won't reach my elder years to find yet another city has taken and then broken my heart.
My times in Seattle visiting a sibling's family over the years bring me much of the same feelings of warmth, love, and nostalgia for an authentic, diverse, and vibrant city living its progressive values. I'm just hoping I won't reach my elder years to find yet another city has taken and then broken my heart.
5
Flying from Salt Lake City to Sun Valley the other night I overheard the man in front of me explaining to his seat mate that he commutes to Seattle from Sun Valley to work. Only has to spend a couple of days a week there! Not the first one I've headroom who does that! For the past few years, real estate in Sun Valley area has been way down while in Seattle it continues to rise and when I was there for a week in May the traffic was a joke. But then it was for many of the years I lived there, due to the length of Lake Washington and the undulating shoreline on the West side of town. Those us who were smart enough to buy homes close to downtown when most people wanted to live in the suburbs had the pleasure of easier commutes and great profit when we retired, sold and moved away. The number of my old Seattle friends who are moving to Sun Valley increases every year!
1
As a longtime Seattleite, I have been following this story for a while and have a variety of divergent thoughts on it (as I think any open-minded person should have about such a complex and dynamic topic).
However, I am pretty well set on one thing: incredulity and disappointment that John Criscitello continues to succeed in riding this wave into publicity for his own brand. I really don't understand it, he offers little in the way of creativity or insight on this situation yet seems to appear in every article about it. Please realize that this is a man who moved from NYC to Capitol Hill a few years ago, and in typical Seattle style has become the biggest finger pointer at anyone who has followed. His art adds little to our city and would be more aptly described as crude graffiti (not to sound like an old codger, I actually do enjoy street art and appreciate its role in countercultural movements within a city - I just don't think that wheat pasting pictures of penises and angry text blocks warrants your picture in every newspaper).
In the future I would appreciate if you would stop giving this guy his 15 minutes simply for being the loudest voice in the room. It has become increasingly common for me to find that any real insight on the situation is found in the comment section - maybe ask one of those folks instead of a blathering tool.
However, I am pretty well set on one thing: incredulity and disappointment that John Criscitello continues to succeed in riding this wave into publicity for his own brand. I really don't understand it, he offers little in the way of creativity or insight on this situation yet seems to appear in every article about it. Please realize that this is a man who moved from NYC to Capitol Hill a few years ago, and in typical Seattle style has become the biggest finger pointer at anyone who has followed. His art adds little to our city and would be more aptly described as crude graffiti (not to sound like an old codger, I actually do enjoy street art and appreciate its role in countercultural movements within a city - I just don't think that wheat pasting pictures of penises and angry text blocks warrants your picture in every newspaper).
In the future I would appreciate if you would stop giving this guy his 15 minutes simply for being the loudest voice in the room. It has become increasingly common for me to find that any real insight on the situation is found in the comment section - maybe ask one of those folks instead of a blathering tool.
9
seattle is famous for poor planning, poor zoning, poor transportation, and poor education. Boeing moved its corporate years ago fro a reason.
we lost our arts community about 15 years ago with the onset of tech forcing prices up.
Seattle is also one of the most black/white segregated cities i have seen.
this "liberal" berg is just right for the souless
we lost our arts community about 15 years ago with the onset of tech forcing prices up.
Seattle is also one of the most black/white segregated cities i have seen.
this "liberal" berg is just right for the souless
4
I spent two years there at the middle--the sweet spot--of this building spree. I was on a sabbatical at University of Washington and spent a chunk of the time in that place that is in all your videos, Belltown. Seattle is a dynamic city with a lot of charm and still enough space for wise expansion. I'm glad they're thinking about these issues now.
1
Our mayor is trying to find middle ground? What a crock. In 1994 I rented a tiny Seattle cottage for $410/month. I worked for Washington Mutual and rode the bus, going through a “skid row” area of Belltown. Then in 1999 I saw flyers reading, “Go to Belltown for the art. Buy in Belltown, Kick the Artists Out.” It’s only more of the same. Until the next dot-com or banking failure.
4
Seattle was Californicated years ago. Is this yet another surprise to millenials? The ones enjoying the 4th Gen remake of a 1970 song that seems so new? Ironically brought to you by the paper featuring "What You Can Buy for One Bazillion Dollars."
5
"think tanks" like Smart Growth Seattle or in San Francisco's SPUR are not independent groups advocating for more density. They are paid for by the Real Estate industry. Just follow the money.
11
Interesting article. SF holds a special place in my heart - it's the first city outside of my hometown that really grabbed me when I first visited it, and its vibe and beauty have always been special.
But man, the city has really changed, and in many ways, for the worse. Yes, it's a good thing that there's more prosperity, but it's become a less diverse, more homogenous place - and the counter-cultural vibe that was always a big part of its appeal has yielded an unfortunate blandness.
But man, the city has really changed, and in many ways, for the worse. Yes, it's a good thing that there's more prosperity, but it's become a less diverse, more homogenous place - and the counter-cultural vibe that was always a big part of its appeal has yielded an unfortunate blandness.
13
Seattle's gov't leaders have bent over backwards for the tech industry and developers and paid zero attention to livability issues until it was too late. Mayor Murray waxes on about preserving "working-class roots" but the city has a social engineering plan guaranteed to crush it, making us miserable in the process.
Middle-class neighborhoods were rezoned "urban villages"; code for high-density with no thought to the carrying capacity of arterials and terrible public transit system. Then the city doubled-down on their anti-car agenda and put us on "road diets": narrowing arterials to accommodate bicycle lanes and force cars to wait behind buses discharging passengers, which hasn't improved bus speeds and created more gridlock.
The mayor's "Housing Affordabiity and Livability Agenda" advisory group consists of "progressive" elites like featured think-tanker Alan Durning. The HALA group devises policy with zero input from neighborhood residents. They decided it would be great to rezone middle class neighborhoods for increased height and density, because developers would rather build there than less desirable areas in the city that could handle it. Small businesses are being forced out of "underutilized" commercial properties, and can't afford to rent in the buildings that replace them.
Seattle may look good to the techie newcomers, but to anyone who's lived here for more than 20 years, the city's a planning train wreck.
Middle-class neighborhoods were rezoned "urban villages"; code for high-density with no thought to the carrying capacity of arterials and terrible public transit system. Then the city doubled-down on their anti-car agenda and put us on "road diets": narrowing arterials to accommodate bicycle lanes and force cars to wait behind buses discharging passengers, which hasn't improved bus speeds and created more gridlock.
The mayor's "Housing Affordabiity and Livability Agenda" advisory group consists of "progressive" elites like featured think-tanker Alan Durning. The HALA group devises policy with zero input from neighborhood residents. They decided it would be great to rezone middle class neighborhoods for increased height and density, because developers would rather build there than less desirable areas in the city that could handle it. Small businesses are being forced out of "underutilized" commercial properties, and can't afford to rent in the buildings that replace them.
Seattle may look good to the techie newcomers, but to anyone who's lived here for more than 20 years, the city's a planning train wreck.
18
What's done is done and the tech companies are not going anywhere. Should we pave over the Cascades or build more densely within the city to support the growth? Those road diets have been proven again and again to have made streets safer with a minimal effect on traffic. I'm sorry that saving my life as a pedestrian/cyclist is worth less than the additional 30 seconds added to your commute.
1
I moved from the New York metro area to Seattle. I've not witnessed this much wealth and this many corporations in one city since the salad days of Manhattan circa 1986. The difference is that NYC has been in decline, as Seattle has been rising since the early 2000s. Pound for pound we have more employers and jobs than any city in the country. We also are a beacon for the homeless around the world. It's Dickensian.
America is all about winners and losers. The cities mentioned in this article--Austin, San Francisco, Seattle. There are a select group of cities left in the U.S. which will stand as fortresses of jobs and wealth. The rest of the country has been left to wither. Like leaving farmland fallow.
The NYT chose to highlight a remark made about an Amazon techie who is pulling down six figures, living on a smartphone, doing work, whilst walking around Seattle. This is not endemic to Seattle. That is a social illness.
Seattle was America's last untouched city, and the real estate interests in Seattle have the power to control city planning. Indeed, it's a done deal. If you aren't in now, you can't get in--unless you are wealthy.
I moved here in '97 for work, and to play music. I got to enjoy both when they were at there high water marks. The water was let out of the tub. The artists are all gone. ALL GONE!.
Seattle is the most beautiful city in the U.S. But it lost its soul. Like the Native Americans driven off the land, the spirit of art and beauty is dead here.
America is all about winners and losers. The cities mentioned in this article--Austin, San Francisco, Seattle. There are a select group of cities left in the U.S. which will stand as fortresses of jobs and wealth. The rest of the country has been left to wither. Like leaving farmland fallow.
The NYT chose to highlight a remark made about an Amazon techie who is pulling down six figures, living on a smartphone, doing work, whilst walking around Seattle. This is not endemic to Seattle. That is a social illness.
Seattle was America's last untouched city, and the real estate interests in Seattle have the power to control city planning. Indeed, it's a done deal. If you aren't in now, you can't get in--unless you are wealthy.
I moved here in '97 for work, and to play music. I got to enjoy both when they were at there high water marks. The water was let out of the tub. The artists are all gone. ALL GONE!.
Seattle is the most beautiful city in the U.S. But it lost its soul. Like the Native Americans driven off the land, the spirit of art and beauty is dead here.
91
If you think the artists are all gone, you must not be paying very much attention. Seattle has a hugely vibrant visual and performing arts scene.
2
NYC has been in decline? Tell that to the real estate brokers asking for record prices! Apparently, the myth that NYC is in decline lives on (and has been false for decades).
1
NYC on the decline? think not pal.. NYC even though i don't live there myself anymore, from what i can see and have heard from my friends still living there is way more interesting and diverse than good old "white' Seattle.
2
Not strictly speaking a Seattle story, but Seattle-related.
Our family would visit Seattle periodically when I was young -- from the late '50s into the early '70s. Way before the tech era. It always seemed nice and normal and the Space Needle a happy reminder of the '64 World's Fair.
But the highlight of every trip was a visit to Lake Wenatchee, two hours east of the city in the Cascade Mountains, where my aunt and uncle had a cabin.
This was a wonderland, with water glacially cold, a thick forest, utterly dark at night, where campers might be visited by timid but hungry bears and as I recall a glimpse of snow-capped mountain (Dirtyface?) in the distance. I even water-skied (though I did not stay up for long).
It was like nothing else I'd experienced. And it instantly felt like home.
I haven't been back. (Life has away of catching up to you.) But it's the sort of fond memory I'd like to revisit when I retire.
But I've persistently discovered in later life that such places, once affordable, (Nantucket, Maine's coastal islands, the Cascades) are now way outside my means. Here, I have heard that Microsoft millionaires have built expensive homes in the area ... and that the rent on the cabin went way up.
I don't wonder at why.
Our family would visit Seattle periodically when I was young -- from the late '50s into the early '70s. Way before the tech era. It always seemed nice and normal and the Space Needle a happy reminder of the '64 World's Fair.
But the highlight of every trip was a visit to Lake Wenatchee, two hours east of the city in the Cascade Mountains, where my aunt and uncle had a cabin.
This was a wonderland, with water glacially cold, a thick forest, utterly dark at night, where campers might be visited by timid but hungry bears and as I recall a glimpse of snow-capped mountain (Dirtyface?) in the distance. I even water-skied (though I did not stay up for long).
It was like nothing else I'd experienced. And it instantly felt like home.
I haven't been back. (Life has away of catching up to you.) But it's the sort of fond memory I'd like to revisit when I retire.
But I've persistently discovered in later life that such places, once affordable, (Nantucket, Maine's coastal islands, the Cascades) are now way outside my means. Here, I have heard that Microsoft millionaires have built expensive homes in the area ... and that the rent on the cabin went way up.
I don't wonder at why.
4
"Sounds like a first world problem" says Detroit
7
This is a problem of our own making because Seattleites shoot themselves in the foot in order to keep their city small.
40-50 years agotwo groups fighting over putting in a third highway down the East side of the city or light rail. Both groups were strong enough to kill the other but neither was strong enough to get its plan passed. Then in the 90s, we voted to put in light rail at a much higher cost and still just have one line running from downtown to the airport. The rest of our transit is by bus in a region with the 4th worst traffic in the nation.
Then there is the constant gripe about how Amazon ruined the South Lake Union neighborhood by making it a playground for the rich. When I first moved here, there was a plan to make that entire area into a massive Central Park-style park. It would have been within walking distance of downtown and on the shore of Lake Union. The land was being given to the city by Paul Allen if we'd pay for the construction of the park. A great deal, right?
Well, the provincial-minded residents of Seattle got all up in arms saying the plan would only give rich people space to build expensive condos around it. Now we've got a bustling neighborhood by day and deserted at night. And the only ones who go there to use it are the same rich techies.
This is the Seattle way. Fight hard to keep change from happening and then yell when the change inevitably comes and hurts those of us who have been here for many years
40-50 years agotwo groups fighting over putting in a third highway down the East side of the city or light rail. Both groups were strong enough to kill the other but neither was strong enough to get its plan passed. Then in the 90s, we voted to put in light rail at a much higher cost and still just have one line running from downtown to the airport. The rest of our transit is by bus in a region with the 4th worst traffic in the nation.
Then there is the constant gripe about how Amazon ruined the South Lake Union neighborhood by making it a playground for the rich. When I first moved here, there was a plan to make that entire area into a massive Central Park-style park. It would have been within walking distance of downtown and on the shore of Lake Union. The land was being given to the city by Paul Allen if we'd pay for the construction of the park. A great deal, right?
Well, the provincial-minded residents of Seattle got all up in arms saying the plan would only give rich people space to build expensive condos around it. Now we've got a bustling neighborhood by day and deserted at night. And the only ones who go there to use it are the same rich techies.
This is the Seattle way. Fight hard to keep change from happening and then yell when the change inevitably comes and hurts those of us who have been here for many years
12
Paul Allen bought up all the land anyway and went ahead with his plans. Vulcan signs are everywhere and that's one of Allen's companies. The building I was in leased by the University of Washington was paying an exorbitant amount of rent to Vulcan.
I think the development of SLU was one of the better things that has happened to Seattle. Unfortunately the problem is traffic. While I love the water and mountains setting (we lived on the sound with views of Whidbey and the Olympics in Mukilteo, and we now live on the shore of Lake Ontario in Youngstown NY), I'm happier here for a number of reasons.
I think the development of SLU was one of the better things that has happened to Seattle. Unfortunately the problem is traffic. While I love the water and mountains setting (we lived on the sound with views of Whidbey and the Olympics in Mukilteo, and we now live on the shore of Lake Ontario in Youngstown NY), I'm happier here for a number of reasons.
1
One of the major problems Seattle has is that there's no rent control. Building affordable housing is only going to work so long as all parties can agree on what "affordable" means--there's nothing in legislation or regulation to specify. I don't think that's changed. So I have friends who have lived in the city for years who are getting priced out, even with good jobs, because Amazon keeps expanding and since Seattle's on the water there's only so many places you can go.
I live on the Eastside, and house prices here keep rising. My husband and I moved to Snohomish County--north of King, which is where Seattle and Redmond are located--because we flat out couldn't afford a house in King County. Our house has appreciated so much in the two years since we bought it that we'd never afford it now, and prices don't show any signs of dropping. I'm sure there's a bubble here somewhere, but so long as tech companies keep coming to the area, there will be people who need to buy houses, and again, we're on the coast: we can only build up so much.
But the 405 commute keeps expanding as people try to find places to live on the Eastside, the 520 and 90 bridges are packed every morning even with the toll on 520, and traffic into and in Seattle itself is a nightmare. And that's without taking into account Expedia's planned move from Bellevue into Seattle proper. I'm glad I don't work there; the commute I have is bad enough.
Tech companies, stop coming here. Please. We've got enough.
I live on the Eastside, and house prices here keep rising. My husband and I moved to Snohomish County--north of King, which is where Seattle and Redmond are located--because we flat out couldn't afford a house in King County. Our house has appreciated so much in the two years since we bought it that we'd never afford it now, and prices don't show any signs of dropping. I'm sure there's a bubble here somewhere, but so long as tech companies keep coming to the area, there will be people who need to buy houses, and again, we're on the coast: we can only build up so much.
But the 405 commute keeps expanding as people try to find places to live on the Eastside, the 520 and 90 bridges are packed every morning even with the toll on 520, and traffic into and in Seattle itself is a nightmare. And that's without taking into account Expedia's planned move from Bellevue into Seattle proper. I'm glad I don't work there; the commute I have is bad enough.
Tech companies, stop coming here. Please. We've got enough.
12
Mr. Criscitello is also a transplant, not a native, for what it's worth. But he's not in tech, and "cool" so I guess he deserves to be here. I do like his art though. Very funny.
3
When Roger Valdez gets the last word in an article about Seattle losing its soul, you know all is nearly lost. Mr. Valdez, as a developer lobbyist, is only concerned with getting as much private and public money for the developers that pay his salary. That is no crime, he serves his employers well, but this hardly makes him an authority on what constitutes the soul of a city and how to keep it.
His "Seattle Way" sounds disturbingly like Clinton and Blair's Third Way which has delivered plenty of corporate profits, but has consistently failed to deliver improvements for the middle class.
His "Seattle Way" sounds disturbingly like Clinton and Blair's Third Way which has delivered plenty of corporate profits, but has consistently failed to deliver improvements for the middle class.
13
We are visiting Seattle as I write this. We are middle class working folks who have lived in San Francisco for 30 plus years.
Seattle will loose this battle, just like SF already has. I know a lot of good people who have left SF due to housing costs. The city has lost its old identify. I do not like the new one.
With how zoning has developed in the last 50 years, there is no way to build enough housing in the central cities to meet the demand as the population increases. Even if one could legally do it the holders of the existing inflated mortgages would never let it happen.
Once prices go up, they will never be allowed to go back down to allow affordable middle clas housing in the central cities. The paper holders would loose their shirts if they did.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Seattle will loose this battle, just like SF already has. I know a lot of good people who have left SF due to housing costs. The city has lost its old identify. I do not like the new one.
With how zoning has developed in the last 50 years, there is no way to build enough housing in the central cities to meet the demand as the population increases. Even if one could legally do it the holders of the existing inflated mortgages would never let it happen.
Once prices go up, they will never be allowed to go back down to allow affordable middle clas housing in the central cities. The paper holders would loose their shirts if they did.
Welcome to the 21st century.
59
That is precisely why willpower is needed to realize that zoning is a tool to shape the future of the city, not a sacred pact, and just ignore the protests and gnashing of teeth. Rezone the way that makes sense, let the NIMBYs deal with it.
1
Don't dare discuss "planning." Or rent control. Or making sure that so-called economic systems benefit--and don't harm--all human beings and the planet's other inhabitants.
Because "development" and higher profits are next to godliness. Don't stand in the way of Progress: embrace being forced out. Embrace living far away from your work in an area with terrible public transportation. Embrace and thank God for your two or three jobs. Embrace your betters who pay astronomical rents and still have scads of "disposable income." Thank them for their patriotic participation in the order!
Embrace the latest escalation of what was already a bizarre system of imposed disparities. Don't dare mention that techno-industrial capitalism harms all life and serves the short-term concentration of wealth of the few. Don't think about the fact that millions of decent-paying jobs and untold amounts of "wealth" disappeared during this last round of [insert euphemistic idiot-speak here]. And never, ever question the great-and-lasting benefit of the latest manifestation of godliness and the human spirit: TECHNOLOGY!
In the immortal words of one of film's great patriotic characters, Haven Hamilton, played so well by Henry Gibson in Robert Altman's Nashville, Keep A-Goin'!
Because "development" and higher profits are next to godliness. Don't stand in the way of Progress: embrace being forced out. Embrace living far away from your work in an area with terrible public transportation. Embrace and thank God for your two or three jobs. Embrace your betters who pay astronomical rents and still have scads of "disposable income." Thank them for their patriotic participation in the order!
Embrace the latest escalation of what was already a bizarre system of imposed disparities. Don't dare mention that techno-industrial capitalism harms all life and serves the short-term concentration of wealth of the few. Don't think about the fact that millions of decent-paying jobs and untold amounts of "wealth" disappeared during this last round of [insert euphemistic idiot-speak here]. And never, ever question the great-and-lasting benefit of the latest manifestation of godliness and the human spirit: TECHNOLOGY!
In the immortal words of one of film's great patriotic characters, Haven Hamilton, played so well by Henry Gibson in Robert Altman's Nashville, Keep A-Goin'!
5
Seattle leaders have been striving to create a "world-class city" since Paul Schell was Mayor - at the cost of livability and affordability. I've spent 5 decades in Seattle and greater Metro area. Although I am progressive politically, Seattle become so liberal, sterile and PC that I moved to Camano Island 10 years ago. Thank goodness I own my 75 year-old 2 bedroom one bath rental in View Ridge - it will go for close to 3/4 million when I sell in the near future.
Seattle? You can have it, young Amazonians. It's not the city with a soul that I grew up in. If grunge were to come around today, it would sprout somewhere like Everett, rather than Seattle.
Seattle? You can have it, young Amazonians. It's not the city with a soul that I grew up in. If grunge were to come around today, it would sprout somewhere like Everett, rather than Seattle.
6
We're all glad to hear that you got yours and got out. I hope you don't get a repetitive stress injury patting yourself on the back.
1
The tech boom is no reason to bully the engineers moving there. Putting up the discriminatory signs like the ones John Criscitello has is childish.
8
Nikolai,
Perhaps engineers can put up signs to mock those who benefit from the tax dollars that they generate and how much they help people like Criscitello who, by comparison, pays far less as a proportion of his income.
Perhaps engineers can put up signs to mock those who benefit from the tax dollars that they generate and how much they help people like Criscitello who, by comparison, pays far less as a proportion of his income.
If you mention to anyone who lives in San Francisco that you think the tech boom is good be prepared to have them never speak to you again.
7
It's so ironic -- this this incredibly beautiful place to live (we lived there for 10 years), has become a place where it takes 2 60-hour-a-week jobs to pay the rent, so it's impossible to have a balanced family life. Beauty everywhere, but no time to enjoy it if you're working for a super demanding 24-7 employer like Amazon.
I do have a solution! Tech companies should move to Philadelphia, where 3-bedroom houses in great locations can still be had for $160k. It is possible to work reasonable hours, even take some time off occasionally. It is possible for 2 people to live off one programmer's income. And that allows people here to do creative artistic things that don't pay a lot of money.
Seattle is gorgeous, but I think Philly has way more fun.
I do have a solution! Tech companies should move to Philadelphia, where 3-bedroom houses in great locations can still be had for $160k. It is possible to work reasonable hours, even take some time off occasionally. It is possible for 2 people to live off one programmer's income. And that allows people here to do creative artistic things that don't pay a lot of money.
Seattle is gorgeous, but I think Philly has way more fun.
9
But Amazon thinks working eighty hours a week for them should be fun enough for you.
4
And why exactly do you think Philly wouldn't change??? Even 2 hours northeast - tech companies are actually gobbling more space in NYC than the Wall St. and law firms.
Funny I grew up in Philly and just got back from a visit. Philly is definitely a lot more affordable and has a public transit network to support the growth. But let's be honest--Philly has been resistant to change for decades. Otherwise, it would be an absolute gold mind being so close to NYC, DC, the ocean and being so walkable and dense. A tech expansion in Philly would arguably be met with greater resistant than almost other city. I hope I'm wrong because I would love if Philly could convince me to move home closer to my family. I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
3
Capitol Hill is the most obviously depressing part of Seattle to walk through now. Condos everywhere. In Greenlake where I live, where the lake is the center of attraction for joggers, walkers, bikers, swimmers, I have seen more Indian and Asian and Black faces in the last year at my local grocery stores and in the parks than I have in the last 8 years. But racial diversity seems to have come with economic homogeneity that's hitting my neighborhood like a ton of bricks. In the face. All those people of color are making ridiculous money. Every independent house on my block is gone, save for two. Mine and the one next to it. Both old, drafty and schlumpy looking and owned by the same lady. And two blocks from the lake and each with a driveway to hold two cars each and each with a backyard. I won't mention my rent because it's absurdly low (ok I'll mention it; it's 1200 for a two bed/bath with large basement and backyard) . And it hasn't gone up since 2009 when we moved there, except by 50 dollars this past month. I know I'll never be able to afford to rent, let alone buy in Greenlake or anywhere in Seattle once the house I live in goes on the block. It's not clear to me why the landlady isn't selling: maybe she's waiting for the light rail to come in and then everything is up for grabs. A real estate guy knocked on my door and left a card for me and pleaded with me to pass it on to my landlord. The development boom in this town is just so conspicuous.
57
As a professional writer who works full time with computer programmers, I can personally say they are some of the most close-minded, rude, tone-deaf, self-absorbed, culturally-ignorant people I have ever met in my life. Why society glorifies these shallow, insensitive people is absolutely beyond me. Stay strong, Seattle, and here's hoping the writers and artists there continue to thrive!
32
they have money
america worships anyone w money
america worships anyone w money
3
so you would not prefer to work with these groups (and be unemployed instead)?
1
As soon as the new super highway on Seattle's west side is completed, the city will lose the soul of its quirky downtown with its wharves, underground Seattle, and ethnic restaurants. Too bad. It was a great place to visit and enjoy.
12
This is classic "day late and a dollar short" journalism. Seattle is long gone. Austin is about gone. Big money (domestic and foreign) destroys everything in sight.
32
Wow, this article could so easily just substitute the word "Austin" for the word "Seattle" and be just as true (with some slight modifications for drought vs. rainy, Tex-Mex and BBQ vs. I'm not really sure, etc.
7
When you try and fight the laws of nature, strange things happen. San Francisco is trying to fight the laws of supply and demand, and is losing. San Francisco wants both no increases in cost or density of housing. In other words, "Now that I am here, don't let the next guy in." Whoever is the newcomer is the one who is "ruining the city". That attitude is extremely self centered and counter-productive in the end. The US is a free country and people should be encouraged to live where they want. If San Francisco doesn't build more housing, then in the end the "rich white guy" wins because he has the money to outbid the next guy.
There is a referendum on the ballot in SF that wants to have a moratorium on market rate housing for the Mission neighborhood for 18 months. The reality is that is only going to drive rents up for available apartments in that area and will slow down the availability of "affordable housing" (market rate developments are required to also have affordable housing component). The goal of the moratorium is not about increasing the supply of affordable housing (which actually increases as more housing is built), but rather ensuring the demographics of the Mission remain latino to ensure that the current supervisor gets re-elected. It is this pandering to existing residents that is ensuring that in the long run there will only be those who are either very wealthy or live in affordable housing. The middle class will be wiped out.
There is a referendum on the ballot in SF that wants to have a moratorium on market rate housing for the Mission neighborhood for 18 months. The reality is that is only going to drive rents up for available apartments in that area and will slow down the availability of "affordable housing" (market rate developments are required to also have affordable housing component). The goal of the moratorium is not about increasing the supply of affordable housing (which actually increases as more housing is built), but rather ensuring the demographics of the Mission remain latino to ensure that the current supervisor gets re-elected. It is this pandering to existing residents that is ensuring that in the long run there will only be those who are either very wealthy or live in affordable housing. The middle class will be wiped out.
9
Opposition to Prop I is not about re-electing the current Supervisor - he's termed out and thus can't run again - what is is about is challenging the myth of trickle down economics applied to housing. More luxury housing does not create more affordable housing.
Speaking as a Bay Area resident who can't afford to live here, isn't a tech worker and would like to move to Seattle one day: I hope my family and I receive a warmer welcome from the local artists than what I've been led to expect from this article. I can assure you, if we settle there, it'll be because we want to be there, not because we want to make life more expensive for you.
We're not so different from you. We would also like to be able to find affordable housing and still have money left over for pomade, tattoos and art.
We're not so different from you. We would also like to be able to find affordable housing and still have money left over for pomade, tattoos and art.
5
From my own experience as a transplant here, the people most opposed to the changes here are too passive, shy and polite to ever actually say anything about it. The silent majority of this city is from someplace else and enjoys all the new amenities that come with living in a denser city. Yes, the growing pains are immense but our light rail and public transit network is being expanded drastically (tho not quickly enough). This city is more alive and vibrant each year thanks to the influx of new people. Don't get too caught up reading the commentary here and especially the Seattle Times.
5
The "artist" Mr. Criscitello has lived in Seattle all of 4 years, and is universally loathed for his hypocrisy and media outreach. I was disappointed to see him included in this article.
Maybe look at Portland too? I have my eye on Albuquerque, cheap and quirky.
1
Too late!!!
9
Good luck, Seattle. But I hope you CAN pull from our region's experience some good ideas AND implement them to avoid the pain we are experiencing here.
6
Has Seattle sold its soul to the devil? You would pretty much have to think so by trying to get anywhere these days. What a mess!
4
I've lived in SF for 20 years, first as a tenant and now resident/landlord, and I don't work in tech. The demand for housing is not a new thing in SF; what is new is the present reflexive market conditions coming on the heals of the largest real estate collapse in history. Properties on the market 5-6 years ago sold fast, at low prices, from many long time owners who were forced to dump real estate due to the financial collapse. We also have the most tenant-friendly housing market in the country, bar none. But the draconian housing/building laws and fierce tenant protections force new owners to Ellis-evict tenants, or simply keep available units vacant (there are 15,000 VACANT units in SF right now) because owners do not want the SF protected tenant albatross around their neck. Add Air BnB, which provides a non-committal option for rental income, and you have your housing crisis.
23
My wife and I moved to Seattle 3 years ago. We've witnessed our home almost double in value over that 3 year span. The development occuring in South Lake Union is akin to the development in San Francisco South of Market in the late 90's. Honestly, there's really nothing Seattle can do. Light rail for downtown is years away (btw, SF was light years ahead w/ BART). The infrastructure here is low grade (no state income tax) so services and roads are poor at best. Some of the plans the mayor has outlined are sketchy at best (e.g., high density housing, or micro apartments that reach 5 stories of more, ugly in appearance and ruin established neighborhoods).
It's a beautiful city. It will be SF in a matter of years. Nothing the bureaucracts can stop.
It's a beautiful city. It will be SF in a matter of years. Nothing the bureaucracts can stop.
16
You guys crack me up! I was born and raised here. I've seen the greater Seattle area go through the good times and the bad. Seattle has a deeply engrained pioneer spirit forged from a century of being an economic unknown. We survived Californication in the 80s and we will survive the Amazonication of the city as well. I remember when you never stayed downtown after 6 p.m. because of the crime. It was a dead zone. I don't see the downside here of having a vibrant city with a bustling economy. We will eventually hit another rough patch, as we did when the famous billboard went up asking the last one in Seattle to remember to turn the lights out after the Boeing crash. We are a resilient lot. Trends come and go. Good times come and go. People try to change us but we change very slowly. To be a successful resident of our state you have to assimilate, not try to conquer. Like any major city, we evolve. It's the norm. Yet we still hold on dearly to our quirky past, such as riding the monorail or watching pirates land every year at Alki Beach. Quit trying to analyze us - we are doing just fine without all the soul and quake nonsense.
90
eventually the high tech bubble will burst , like it did in 2001. Then many of those complaining, who will see their property values and incomes fall, will complain.
1
Right on Zerricane from another native with over 50 years here. Good times are awesome! 25 years ago I was making $10/hr working in a cabinet shop in Ballard--now I am making six figures, all without a college degree. All the newer Seattleites can lament their view of the loss of culture, but I appreciate riding the wave of good times---it won't last forever, so take a dose of scandanavian wisdom and sock away some money for the next rainy day.
2
I moved out to King County from Manhattan 4 years ago and pray every day that Seattle doesn't follow the trend I saw in NYC for the past 2 decades. Indeed there is a hugely different mind set here. For the first time in my life I have met wealthy people who are truly liberal not only in their words but in their actions as well. There are some obvious exceptions like Jeff Bezos who is more interested in flying to the moon than supporting local charities.
Affordable housing is indeed a priority but the real issue for Seattle's soul is its horrible traffic. Seattle resembles Atlanta in that the major highways go right through the heart of the city causing major traffic jams almost every day. There are many affordable neighborhoods outside Seattle, but commuting from them to work is a nightmare. If there were light rail and high speed trains in and around Seattle there would be no need for high density housing.
Affordable housing is indeed a priority but the real issue for Seattle's soul is its horrible traffic. Seattle resembles Atlanta in that the major highways go right through the heart of the city causing major traffic jams almost every day. There are many affordable neighborhoods outside Seattle, but commuting from them to work is a nightmare. If there were light rail and high speed trains in and around Seattle there would be no need for high density housing.
43
Yes, but where light rail and trains go, the real estate gets more expensive. Exhibit A: Portland.
Less diversity is a pitfall?
1
Absolutely. Nothing reinforces Seattle's embedded culture of mediocrity like a huge bulge of people who grew up in the same places, went to the same schools, live in the same kind of houses in the same kind of neighborhoods, work at the same jobs, watch the same movies after dining at the same restaurants and then go home and read the same books. If there is one thing so many of us agree on it is that we don't understand why so many other people, especially people of color who we feel very uncomfortable to be around (they're so different!!), find us so dense, unaware, and insufferable.
4
One of the larger issues is that there is still a lack of understanding about density and what is really causing this growth. The so called "conservationist" groups think that Seattle's boom is only being caused by developers and if they simply stopped building then Amazon and all the other tech companies would put their growth on hold and stop attracting people to the region. Obviously, the reality is that as long as these companies continue to hire and Seattle continues to be surrounded by beautiful mountains and water, people are going to continue to move here and they need a place to live. These groups always point out that SF is the 2nd densest city in the US and we are only becoming more like them by building so much within the city. Of course the reality is that SF is the 2nd densest by a long shot and has very little "vertical density" like NYC. One of the only reasons Seattle is less dense is because our industrial only zoning takes up over 10% of the land within the city (not arguing against this). Considering that we are pushed to the limits of our natural surroundings, we are left with either 2 choices--build vertically within the city or remove all of the tech companies and other prosperous businesses. Density often makes a city more desirable and therefore more expensive but it can also be used to make room for affordable housing if done right. Limiting growth makes a city more expensive and does not leave any room for affordable housing.
50
Encourage appropriate development with appropriate land use controls and implement mandatory inclusionary housing on all new development. at the same time, streamline the development process to not add review time/environmental costs that dramatically increase the cost of development and are passed directly onto the consumer. there has to be a compromise between the trickle of building permits most cities issue for "affordable" development and china-level mega-development.
1
Activists are focusing on the wrong enemy. The tech workers in SF are well paid by external standards, but all of that money--all of it--flows to landlords, either directly or through higher prices for services. (My dentist's landlord increased his rent almost 40% this year.)
The problem is that our economy rewards rent-seeking property owners and developers above all else.
The problem is that our economy rewards rent-seeking property owners and developers above all else.
33
That isn't true at all.
The economy in the Bay Area (where I work) rewards the technology sector. Those people must live somewhere and yes, landlords and developers benefit from that. But they are not the drivers of it.
The economy in the Bay Area (where I work) rewards the technology sector. Those people must live somewhere and yes, landlords and developers benefit from that. But they are not the drivers of it.
I've lived in the S.F. Bay Area 19 years and saw Dot-Communism come and go, but this latest boom is being pushed by tax credits given the tech companies so they can lease fleets of private buses and ferries. Google buses were the first one to make landfall in the traditionally hispanic Mission District that was awash in hipsters, artists and small business owners. Genentech, Yahoo and Oracle followed suit and they dropped tens of thousands of overworked techies into the family centric neighborhoods that were both sustainable and affordable - both were a trademark of San Francisco. With the help of Mayor Ed Lee these companies were given a no tax status while they terraformed the entire city into an unaffordable nightmare for anyone who is not wealth enough not to care about what something costs. These companies employ ferries that now crisscross the bay and the worst kind of inflation has taken hold. Whole neighborhoods are being unrooted. A small town Corte Madera in the no growth county of Marin has allowed developers to build 10,000 new housing units and not one new lane for the traffic they have created. Public transportation used to work, but today it offers no relief. The same is true for San Francisco. In two year over 250,000 new residents have landed and not one new road has been built and new public transportation is unaffordable thanks to Ed Lee's corrupt schemes. Meanwhile, those who cannot afford $6,000 a month rents flee to Detroit and Sacramento.
21
This is clear and excellent info that anyone following the Seattle boom or covering it for media outlets and contrasting/comparing it all to the Bay Area MUST know. You captured it very well, Michael.
4
Most of this statement is simply not true. Corte Madera is an elitist town of 8,000 people that like most of Mari8n has successfully resisted nearly all new housing. One new apartment building on a transit line was THE issue in the subsequent city council race. SF is adding about 10000 residents per year, not 125,000.
The Bay Area's great challenge is that it is a very attractive place and attracts massive high income job growth. With 7.6ml people, the region is more than twice as dense as a region than the Puget Sound region. The Bay Area counties placed strict constraints on sprawl years ago. But most cities continue to approve job-producing projects, but, not enough housing.
The Bay Area's great challenge is that it is a very attractive place and attracts massive high income job growth. With 7.6ml people, the region is more than twice as dense as a region than the Puget Sound region. The Bay Area counties placed strict constraints on sprawl years ago. But most cities continue to approve job-producing projects, but, not enough housing.
4
Also, most importantly, no major improvements in transportation. Marin County has always resisted any type rail connection with SF, and BART is relatively overpriced and limited is distribution. Heavy traffic is the inevitable outcome, and Seattle will see more of it unless it improves infrastructure in coordinated way. This should be one of the things that Seattle should learn from SF.
3
I have lived in Seattle for the past 43 years. I beg to differ with Mr. Valdez as we hit the crossroads in Seattle back during the dot,com boom/bust in 1997 through 2000. We witnessed the advent of high priced homes, apartments and condos. Most retail and restaurant activity back then was being geared toward the well paid dot,com workers and instant millionaires. The city sat on its hands and watched as many long time residents were forced out by the escalating cost of living. We have learned little since that time as we are repeating the same scenario today.
Today rents go up by as much as 15% in on year. A starter home typically an 80 to 100 year old house that needs extensive renovation and is typically 1,000 square feet starts at $500K if you are lucky enough to find one. New one bedroom condos can't be had for less than $400K on up. I have friends on Capital Hill that rent a one bedroom apartment ( a term I will use loosely here) that is no more than 480 square feet, is in an old drafty building with no parking and rents for $1,500 a month. The six figure Amabots and other techies have overrun the city and the rest of us are being systematically forced out. Even at a minimum wage of $15/hour which we have not hit as yet just how does one afford rent of $1,500 a month. Class warfare is real and most of us are losing the battle.
Today rents go up by as much as 15% in on year. A starter home typically an 80 to 100 year old house that needs extensive renovation and is typically 1,000 square feet starts at $500K if you are lucky enough to find one. New one bedroom condos can't be had for less than $400K on up. I have friends on Capital Hill that rent a one bedroom apartment ( a term I will use loosely here) that is no more than 480 square feet, is in an old drafty building with no parking and rents for $1,500 a month. The six figure Amabots and other techies have overrun the city and the rest of us are being systematically forced out. Even at a minimum wage of $15/hour which we have not hit as yet just how does one afford rent of $1,500 a month. Class warfare is real and most of us are losing the battle.
63
I've dreamed of escaping L.A. for Seattle or Portland, but alas, they are too expensive for me now. Luckily, I do love New Mexico.
1
'...I have friends on Capital Hill that rent a one bedroom apartment ( a term I will use loosely here) that is no more than 480 square feet, is in an old drafty building with no parking and rents for $1,500 a month...'
That apartment would be no less than $2500 a month in NYC. More like $3000 a month. And, of course, it would not come with free parking.
That apartment would be no less than $2500 a month in NYC. More like $3000 a month. And, of course, it would not come with free parking.
2
Story seems thin. It says what an apartment costs in San Francisco, but not in Seattle. I thought the story was about Seattle.
Anyone who has lived in the Puget Sound region knows, as Perry Brown has pointed out, that housing prices in Seattle have been unaffordable for anyone save the wealthy for the past 20 years. The story doesn't address this, nor does it examine the fallout from the burst of the housing bubble in 2007-08. For those familiar with the region, this story could have been written 10 or 15 years ago and would be no different--the SF vs. Seattle deal is nothing new. What is, relatively, new in the Puget Sound region is the rise of public transportation. It is now easier than it has ever been to live outside Seattle and commute to work. Towns like Tacoma are worth writing about. The rise of these cities, the abandonment of a working class ethic in favor of something more enlightened, is nothing short of transformative, and that's a direct result of the ever-escalating cost of living in Seattle.
In a very real sense, Seattle has become somewhat isolationist, an island of wealth and privilege surrounded by the real world. Not a place where a lot of people would choose to live, even if they had the means.
Anyone who has lived in the Puget Sound region knows, as Perry Brown has pointed out, that housing prices in Seattle have been unaffordable for anyone save the wealthy for the past 20 years. The story doesn't address this, nor does it examine the fallout from the burst of the housing bubble in 2007-08. For those familiar with the region, this story could have been written 10 or 15 years ago and would be no different--the SF vs. Seattle deal is nothing new. What is, relatively, new in the Puget Sound region is the rise of public transportation. It is now easier than it has ever been to live outside Seattle and commute to work. Towns like Tacoma are worth writing about. The rise of these cities, the abandonment of a working class ethic in favor of something more enlightened, is nothing short of transformative, and that's a direct result of the ever-escalating cost of living in Seattle.
In a very real sense, Seattle has become somewhat isolationist, an island of wealth and privilege surrounded by the real world. Not a place where a lot of people would choose to live, even if they had the means.
30
"It is now easier than it has ever been to live outside Seattle and commute to work. " No it's not!
Gridlock is a daily event in entire region. Weekends can be worse because there is no rise & fall in traffic patterns unlike the weekday. Recently the "HOV Express Lanes" opened on 405: Bellevue-Lynwood requiring a 3+ occupant or a toll. Traffic density has become worse on that stretch & accidents doubled.
Bus routes have been cut & fares increased. Ferries are an issue too.
It's always felt like an island in the NW corner of the US. Yet people keep moving here despite a high COL.
What's unique is that there can be only so many roads and residences due to geography. Bodies of water: Puget Sound, Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish- mountains: Cascades & Olympics w foothills + refuge/park areas & floodplains of rivers, limiting expansion & traffic flow. There's also poor construction planning with the large number of townhouses, giant mansions, and luxury apartments built outside of cities that were up until recently, rural areas.. The roads just aren't built for the high traffic density in Woodinville, Bothell, Duvall, etc..
The ONLY place it might be easier to commute to Seattle is possibly from North & South directions IF you happen to live near a Light rail stop. Even then, delays and cancellations are not uncommon.
Tacoma and Everett are developing, but they have headaches of their own involving deplorable traffic & affordable housing availability.
Gridlock is a daily event in entire region. Weekends can be worse because there is no rise & fall in traffic patterns unlike the weekday. Recently the "HOV Express Lanes" opened on 405: Bellevue-Lynwood requiring a 3+ occupant or a toll. Traffic density has become worse on that stretch & accidents doubled.
Bus routes have been cut & fares increased. Ferries are an issue too.
It's always felt like an island in the NW corner of the US. Yet people keep moving here despite a high COL.
What's unique is that there can be only so many roads and residences due to geography. Bodies of water: Puget Sound, Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish- mountains: Cascades & Olympics w foothills + refuge/park areas & floodplains of rivers, limiting expansion & traffic flow. There's also poor construction planning with the large number of townhouses, giant mansions, and luxury apartments built outside of cities that were up until recently, rural areas.. The roads just aren't built for the high traffic density in Woodinville, Bothell, Duvall, etc..
The ONLY place it might be easier to commute to Seattle is possibly from North & South directions IF you happen to live near a Light rail stop. Even then, delays and cancellations are not uncommon.
Tacoma and Everett are developing, but they have headaches of their own involving deplorable traffic & affordable housing availability.
1
I lived in Seattle in the 90's. Even then, I could only afford shared housing. I had friends move up from California who couldn't believe how cheap housing was. I completed a second bachelor's degree at UW and loved the school, but I moved to the midwest for grad school, so that for the first time in my life, I wouldn't have to work while going to school, and wouldn't rack up more in additional debt just to live in Seattle.
1
As someone who has lived in Seattle 12 years, working in non-profit fundraising, I can testify that my heart is being broken by the incredibly rapid rise in cost of living, especially rents. Seattle is an amazing place - as just one example, we were the first city in the world to sign the Charter for Compassion - and we are world leaders in many important areas of altruistic endeavor such as environmental activism and early learning. The rapid rise in cost of living, however, is gradually destroying the opportunity for people to choose modest lives of contentment and service. The numbers just aren't working.
139
Yes, it's long over in Seattle. Want to be sure to say, however, that environmental and early learning activism are not in the category of altruism. Both have everything to do with everyone's well-being, including yours.
1
If there's one silver lining in this, it's that it's doing away with stupid, ineffective and coffee-table ideas such as Charter for Compassion and similar programs.
If my pay increases were commensurate with the rise in the cost of living in Seattle, I would not care. But they are not. That's unjust. Period. I am a humble clerk in an art supply store. I see prices rise, which compensate my employer, but my wages do not follow.
Well, to the revolution!
Wait, I forgot. The system has cleverly constructed things such that I can only afford a torch, a pitchfork, and most embarrassingly, lederhosen. Can't afford the armed guards the rich have.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Is it ever going to be tough. Might have to move to Federal Way or White Center and commute to my $13.50/hr. job. I know, I know, I know. I did it to myself. Shouldn't have studied the humanities in an inhumane world.
Well, to the revolution!
Wait, I forgot. The system has cleverly constructed things such that I can only afford a torch, a pitchfork, and most embarrassingly, lederhosen. Can't afford the armed guards the rich have.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Is it ever going to be tough. Might have to move to Federal Way or White Center and commute to my $13.50/hr. job. I know, I know, I know. I did it to myself. Shouldn't have studied the humanities in an inhumane world.
1
Technology is a Faustian bargain and it will also be the last mistake of humanity.
20
Exciting times!
The ironic thing about this phenomenon of rapid-gentrification is that is displacing those who would have traditionally displaced others in the past. Whereas the upper-middle income whites who moved to Seattle, Portland, New York (pick your urban area) in the late 1990s or early 2000s displaced poorer minority groups, those who are moving to these cities now are displacing the largely white middle class. The exacerbation of income (and wealth) inequality makes this a trend that is sure to continue -- where cities are all but un-affordable and the most desirable places to live for overall quality of living.
115
To further your excellent point, it should be noted that Seattle has historically zoned it's residential and suburban areas against minorities. In fact, several SCOTUS cases addressed the issue either head-on or tangentially (as in with school district cases). In terms of affordable living and diversity, Seattle has arguably never really been welcoming at all.
13
What poor minority groups were displaced in Seattle in late 1990s/ early 2000s? I know that went on in NE Portland and I can't speak to SF, but really, the phenomenon you describe is more about class than race. Seattle has retained the crux of its minority neighborhoods through these waves of gentrification.
Working-class ethnic white neighborhoods have also felt gentrification throughout many cities, although it doesn't quite fit the tired "poor minority" narrative: Polish in Greenpoint Brooklyn, Irish in South Boston and Philly's Fishtown, Scandinavians in Seattle's Ballard, etc.
And to clarify, my beef is certainly not with poor minorities; rather, with those who those who like to make blanket generalizations, as it relates to gentrification.
Working-class ethnic white neighborhoods have also felt gentrification throughout many cities, although it doesn't quite fit the tired "poor minority" narrative: Polish in Greenpoint Brooklyn, Irish in South Boston and Philly's Fishtown, Scandinavians in Seattle's Ballard, etc.
And to clarify, my beef is certainly not with poor minorities; rather, with those who those who like to make blanket generalizations, as it relates to gentrification.
2
In New York City, the 'poorer minority groups' have not been displaced, as once subsidized, always subsidized and the rich live wherever they want, always have, always will.
It is the middle class that gets nothing but the bills.
It is the middle class that gets nothing but the bills.
1
I grew up in San Francisco and have lived just north of Seattle for the past 15 years, and let me tell you, Seattle is in no danger of losing it's soul. People here are friendlier, less competitive, and less pretentious than in the Bay Area, and there is far more artistic and creative activity here than in SF due to the fact that arts organizations have no trouble finding inexpensive places to operate from. We've got the largest film festival in the USA, Pike Place Market, world class symphony, ballet, and opera, and more outdoor activities than you can think of.
Yes, traffic in certain places/times is an issue, but that has to do more with poor freeway design in the 60's/70's than pure car volume, and anyone who's lived here for a while knows how to avoid it.
Yes, traffic in certain places/times is an issue, but that has to do more with poor freeway design in the 60's/70's than pure car volume, and anyone who's lived here for a while knows how to avoid it.
86
The thing I liked about Seattle more than anything else when I lived there was that there isn't this pressure to live at a fast pace and be at the cutting edge for fear of being left behind that one experiences in cities like SF & NYC. One can slow down and actually breath there and be more "mindful", as the au courant term would have it. Seattle's soul is more diffuse and quiet than that of other places, but it's definitely still there, e.g. Georgetown, the as-yet still relatively untouched parts of Ballard along Leary Way, Greenwood, etc.
8
Well Matt, I got to Seattle before Microsoft showed up. You have no idea what's already gone. Saying Seattle isn't as bad as San Francisco isn't saying much.
2
Here's how my daughter avoids traffic through Seattle: don't drive during rush hours (anytime before 10am or between 3 and 6pm.) Kind of puts a cramp in your mobility.
1
Good for Seattle. But there are more players in the expensive housing market - wealthy Chinese and Russian buyers are here big time. In Silicon Valley, add in wealthy Indian buyers. And the Chinese have a reputation for, in some cases, buying a house when they child isn't even in elementary school, and leaving it vacant until the age when they plan on having their wunderkind (maybe born here as an anchor baby) come back to the US and go to Stanford. This is true.
16
Politicians do nothing about 'affordable' housing. Anywhere. They always merely stick bandaids on the problem. We live in a society where extreme capitalism is the order of the day. In New York as well there is no 'affordable' housing. When it comes time to dole out subsidies or units, as with health care, it's always families/couples under $50,00 a year and above the poverty line. Everyone else is on her/his own to manage to survive a marketplace that sucks American workers for every dime they have from every angle. From College/Education costs, rents, cable/phone, transportation, food, Health Care every angle sucking like vampires. And they want to dismantle Social Security!! What a joke of a system. Not sustainable.
18
Seattle's home prices have been more-or-less unaffordable for the at least the last 20 years (the very rich excepted, of course) for anyone wanting to live anywhere near where the the good jobs are and that is not likely to change any time soon. There may be affordable houses out in the suburbs, but Seattle's horrible traffic makes that an unattractive option unless a person doesn't mind a 1-2 hour commute each way every day. I am sure that SF is no better or worse. As far as diversity is concerned, I am pretty confident that Seattle is no more diverse than SF.
7
We lost much of our diversity and "working class" people decades ago as you point out. Walk down the streets of downtown and you will see hordes of techies with their Amazon badges or from whatever tech company they work for, headphones on and wired into their I-phones oblivious to others around them totally disengaged. If this is "quality of life", Seattle has it in spades.
7
Disagree. Until a few years ago you could buy a decent-sized single family house in, say, Ballard, Crown Hill or Greenwood, for $300-$400k. Even less for a fixer-upper, or if you were willing to live north of 105th or in Renton or West Seattle. And none of these is more than 30-45 minutes away from downtown most days by, and often less.
2
I would love to live in a world where $300-400K was affordable for working people. Can you tell me where that world is?
4
On a related note, Denver CO has this same problem. Five years ago, I could rent a spacious studio blocks from downtown for $500 monthly. Today, that same studio is doubled in price.
1
You can fault the tech companies all you want but it is the city leaders who are to blame. Their agenda has always been urban density at all cost without any consideration to the quality of life. It started before the tech companies, If you build it they will come, and come they have. Rezoning, removing height restrictions, allowing closet size apartments (pods), tearing down anything and everything to make room for a new skyscraper or luxury condominiums. The Seattle city council has an agenda, and it is a developers wet dream. And now, here come the Chinese millionaires looking for a place to hide and invest their money. Seattle was gone long ago.
47
You said it. Developers are behind all this: their eyes light up like pinball machines at the thought of property to sell at higher and higher prices. Face it: everywhere worth living in this entire country is being jacked up by developers, and much of what's being bought at those sky-high prices is being snapped up by overseas investors.
MWM,
What's the alternative to higher density? If the area is going to continue growing (I doubt you can stop that), if you develop low density soon all the beauty of the area will be gone. It will require the building of more freeways, which will be filled up in 10 years, and you'll have to build even more.
Let's face it, you can't go back to the 60's and 70's. Maybe those days were nice in some ways, but they're gone.
What's the alternative to higher density? If the area is going to continue growing (I doubt you can stop that), if you develop low density soon all the beauty of the area will be gone. It will require the building of more freeways, which will be filled up in 10 years, and you'll have to build even more.
Let's face it, you can't go back to the 60's and 70's. Maybe those days were nice in some ways, but they're gone.
2
I raised my daughters in Seattle and then moved abroad. Now they've returned and are trying to buy homes. But "Mr. Lee" is calling from China and offering owners three times what the local market bears. Then they went to an arts production in Burien and discovered it was created by artists who had fled Fremont (our neighborhood) due to the geeks moving into the "center of the universe" and housing prices were no longer affordable. Yes, Seattle is losing its soul.
144
I lived in Seattle for 10 years until a few years ago, just as this newest tech/influx wave was really getting underway. When I first moved there I stayed just south of Fremont for a few months in a friend's house, just before it and nearby Ballard got hit with the gentrification bug. I liked walking there to get a coffee or something to eat and just walk around, but even then I had no desire to live there. It had too much of that "Hey look at me I'm a hipster!" vibe that just seems forced and pretentious.
So I moved several miles north to the Greenwood area, where rent was affordable, there was decent shopping, eating and cafes nearby (and the obligatory Starbucks of course--this one having an actual homey/neighborhood feel with great views of the Cascades and even a slice of the Olympics), Green Lake and Puget sound were just a few miles away, and downtown was a 15 minute drive and 30 minute bus ride away.
Now it too is undergoing gentrification and rents have become unaffordable for many workers, forcing them to move further north to a kind of cultural no-man's land along the Highway 99 corridor, consisting mostly of smallish houses, low-rise apartment buildings, strip malls and auto dealerships (and casinos if you're into that sort of thing). Might as well move up to Bothell or Lake City, which at least have decent commercial/cultural centers and parks, and eventually a stop on the extended airport light rail line.
So I moved several miles north to the Greenwood area, where rent was affordable, there was decent shopping, eating and cafes nearby (and the obligatory Starbucks of course--this one having an actual homey/neighborhood feel with great views of the Cascades and even a slice of the Olympics), Green Lake and Puget sound were just a few miles away, and downtown was a 15 minute drive and 30 minute bus ride away.
Now it too is undergoing gentrification and rents have become unaffordable for many workers, forcing them to move further north to a kind of cultural no-man's land along the Highway 99 corridor, consisting mostly of smallish houses, low-rise apartment buildings, strip malls and auto dealerships (and casinos if you're into that sort of thing). Might as well move up to Bothell or Lake City, which at least have decent commercial/cultural centers and parks, and eventually a stop on the extended airport light rail line.
15
My daughter and her husband used to live in Burien and, after a short hiatus in Portland, came back to the Seattle area wanting to buy in Burien. Before that she lived in Greenwood, but she knew that was a hopeless case. Surprise. Houses that needed major, major work were selling for over $400,000. Houses that were in decent condition were snapped up in an instant. And for those who don't know, Burien is a south suburb of Seattle once very much a working class town and still nothing like the trendier areas. I wish my daughter had been able to do the same. She really liked the community. And, by the way, she and her husband each have good, professional jobs but they didn't want to spend all their money on housing.
4
Same in Manhattan, which has only uber wealthy foreign nationals laundering money by buying multimillion dollar apartments all cash and those with subsidies of various types, from rent control and stabilization to Section 8 housing.
The middle class has been driven far out to the boroughs and beyond.
The middle class has been driven far out to the boroughs and beyond.
1
From reading the article, the Mayor of Seattle plus many ordinary and leading citizens would like to preserve a diverse and affordable city for as many as possible. This is democracy in action and I applaud them.
Mistaken are people who believe that the acquisition of wealth solves all problems, brings happiness, or in any way constitutes proof of a life well-lived. I think it was Joseph Campbell who said many people in their mid 30s to mid 40s reach the top of the ladder only to find that they were climbing the wrong wall.
I hope that a realization of true human values and respect for the earth (which has given rise to all of us and supports us) will ultimately emerge in our species. Otherwise we are lost. I'm not particularly hopeful.
Mistaken are people who believe that the acquisition of wealth solves all problems, brings happiness, or in any way constitutes proof of a life well-lived. I think it was Joseph Campbell who said many people in their mid 30s to mid 40s reach the top of the ladder only to find that they were climbing the wrong wall.
I hope that a realization of true human values and respect for the earth (which has given rise to all of us and supports us) will ultimately emerge in our species. Otherwise we are lost. I'm not particularly hopeful.
35
To be fair, Seattle has always had an inferiority complex with California but the latest influx of migrants is a true flush of the toilet on the good old days of relative obscurity and low prices. Congratulations Seattle, you are now a fully vested, generic, "West Coast" city with all the spoils that brings.
15
Seattle is many things, but generic isn't one of them. Anyone who thinks it's generic probably doesn't get outside the actual generic areas like Belltown, Green Lake and South Lake Union much--or the East Side. Check out Greenwood, West Seattle and Georgetown--and Capital Hill, of course. Unlike Stein's Oakland, there's still a "there" there.
3
This article is written from the viewpoint that the big problem is not enough housing being built, due to objections of citizens, and red tape. Ha! What about the policies of effective Rent Control? These policies are a joke in SF. Don't cover up the immense wealth and greed of SF developers.
24
It's kinda irrelevant if your median housing price is $500K vs. $1,000,000.
Because both of those numbers far exceed what average people could ever afford to pay for a home. It means the majority of decent homes are unaffordable except to the top 1% in income. To buy that $500K home would take roughly $150K in income, and a 20% downpayment of $100,000.
Also, as Seattle expands as a tech industry region, the prices will escalate over the next 10 years to almost the same as San Francisco. Just check out Boston or NYC.
This is all great for those who own existing home, and get a giant windfall. Also fantastic for realtors. Not so great for outsiders, or young people, who may be locked out of the housing market for a lifetime.
BTW: it is useless to talk about the building of costly new high rise apartments, with studios or one-bedroom units for wealthy tech workers. In a few years, when those folks want a HOME to RAISE A FAMILY, a fancy apartment with no space won't be much help.
Because both of those numbers far exceed what average people could ever afford to pay for a home. It means the majority of decent homes are unaffordable except to the top 1% in income. To buy that $500K home would take roughly $150K in income, and a 20% downpayment of $100,000.
Also, as Seattle expands as a tech industry region, the prices will escalate over the next 10 years to almost the same as San Francisco. Just check out Boston or NYC.
This is all great for those who own existing home, and get a giant windfall. Also fantastic for realtors. Not so great for outsiders, or young people, who may be locked out of the housing market for a lifetime.
BTW: it is useless to talk about the building of costly new high rise apartments, with studios or one-bedroom units for wealthy tech workers. In a few years, when those folks want a HOME to RAISE A FAMILY, a fancy apartment with no space won't be much help.
81
First time home ownership in King County has dropped drastically because no one can afford homes there, even the tech workers. I *am* a tech worker, I get paid decently but I'm not in the 1% and I can't afford a house in Redmond, Bellevue, or Seattle itself. A friend of mine posted stats the other day that indicated you need an annual income of almost $78k to afford an "average" house in the Seattle metro area--and I know what house prices are here, the price quoted won't get you very much.
Sure, my house has appreciated drastically since my husband and I bought it, but I could never afford it if we were looking now. I have co-workers who can't afford anything because they weren't looking when prices were lower and now it's too much for anyone to pay. And yet new construction keeps going up; there are three or four new developments in my area, one right down the street. Those houses are selling, so *someone's* buying...I just don't know who.
Sure, my house has appreciated drastically since my husband and I bought it, but I could never afford it if we were looking now. I have co-workers who can't afford anything because they weren't looking when prices were lower and now it's too much for anyone to pay. And yet new construction keeps going up; there are three or four new developments in my area, one right down the street. Those houses are selling, so *someone's* buying...I just don't know who.
3
Except that the Puget Sound region has one thing the Bay Area doesn't....lots of undeveloped land and room to expand.
1
The escalating home prices help no one except developers. Many newcomers can't afford the prices, current tenants can't afford the rent increases, and homeowners only benefit if they plan to leave Seattle (WA relies heavily property taxes, so escalating prices hit fixed and low-income homeowners very hard). As Silicon Valley is discovering, even the upper income will be affected when they can't get teachers for their schools or local police. And how did Mayor Murray respond? By packing his housing committee with developers and excluding the family neighborhood groups. The result? More market-rate development proposed by the city with very little of it going to low or even moderate income families. It seems that NYT didn't read the HALA report or any of the local coverage of it.
1
Unlike SF, Seattle doesn't lack for land that could be redeveloped residentially, especially with apartment buildings of varying density and capacity. E.g. SoDo, Georgetown, North Seattle along Highway 99, etc. And when the new viaduct replacement tunnel gets completed there will be lots of new apartment buildings going up (admittedly mostly higher-end given their proximity to Eliot Bay and downtown).
Plus, Seattle, while also surrounded by large bodies of water, isn't as divided by them as SF is. On the other hand, outside of the relatively small downtown area, Seattle is mostly detached single-family houses and low-rise apartment buildings, and most of those aren't going to be town down to make way for high-rise apartment buildings.
But by far the biggest hindrance to residential development in Seattle is the relative lack of supporting infrastructure, especially mass transit. It's gradually being addressed with the extension of the airport link light rail line and addition of street cars in and around the downtown area. But it's not nearly enough. And downtown, where most of the jobs are (at least in Seattle proper, as opposed to across Lake Washington), parking is expensive and difficult to find, and traffic can be a nightmare.
Seattle will eventually address these issues--it has to--but not without major growing pains, especially for long-time residents, who tend to have a territorial view of their beloved city.
Plus, Seattle, while also surrounded by large bodies of water, isn't as divided by them as SF is. On the other hand, outside of the relatively small downtown area, Seattle is mostly detached single-family houses and low-rise apartment buildings, and most of those aren't going to be town down to make way for high-rise apartment buildings.
But by far the biggest hindrance to residential development in Seattle is the relative lack of supporting infrastructure, especially mass transit. It's gradually being addressed with the extension of the airport link light rail line and addition of street cars in and around the downtown area. But it's not nearly enough. And downtown, where most of the jobs are (at least in Seattle proper, as opposed to across Lake Washington), parking is expensive and difficult to find, and traffic can be a nightmare.
Seattle will eventually address these issues--it has to--but not without major growing pains, especially for long-time residents, who tend to have a territorial view of their beloved city.
35
Another factor is growth management laws passed many years ago for the whole region to try to limit exurban growth around the city. It inevitably pushes up densities in the city. I live in what was a blue collar neighborhood but it is gentrifying quickly. The lot behind my house in a which had small Seattle style house sold last year, was subdivided, and four three story "skinny" houses put up. Each went on the market for half a million dollars and each sold readily to young, single people. I met one of my new neighbors who is a young computer engineer at Amazon.
14
The core city should be denser. Exurban and suburban development is wasteful and inefficient. As the population in the region rises, the city will only become more dense. It is logical to build in areas where infrastructure and city services already exist and can be expanded upon. While not perfect, Seattle is growing in a smarter way than many American cities.
2
There's always the old saying that you have to take the rough with the smooth. With all the undoubted challenges of such rapid growth (one we could have better prepared for had we committed to a light rail system back in the '70's) the upsides are substantial. Downtown Seattle is vibrant and busy day and night and this vibrancy extends to neighborhoods such as Ballard which are seeing a similar boom in building thanks to an already existing plan to concentrate development in places already zoned for it. That density brings with it a critical mass of people whose presence stimulates new and better cultural and economic amenities.
Unfortunately, we're not as forward thinking as Portland to the south and it generally takes us a while to find the right solutions to our public policy challenges. But we do get there in the end and, this time, maybe we're a bit ahead of the game.
Unfortunately, we're not as forward thinking as Portland to the south and it generally takes us a while to find the right solutions to our public policy challenges. But we do get there in the end and, this time, maybe we're a bit ahead of the game.
8
Ask anyone who has lived in Austin for 10 -15 years what they think of the changes occurring there, primarily due to Austin's tech industry.
Austin's change/increase in housing costs, population, traffic, chain hotels/restaurants etc. makes Seattle's change seem minimal.
Austin's change/increase in housing costs, population, traffic, chain hotels/restaurants etc. makes Seattle's change seem minimal.
9
Well, I live in Seattle and have seen it first hand over the past decade. There's nothing minimal about it. 15-20 towering cranes dominate the downtown skyline. Neighborhoods are quickly losing their character as record stores have closed to make way for banks. My wife and I just started a family, and we're not sure we'll be able to stay here.
2
In Austin, the change in the vibe is even worse than the rising cost of living. It used to be a laidback, creative place, and now it's all about ostentation and Type A behavior.
2
I've lived in Seattle for the entire 26 years of my life and I can't remember a time when Californian immigration wasn't being discussed. People have been complaining about the 'yuppification' of Seattle since way before I was born. It's a boom/bust city and residents are notoriously fickle. If you don't like living in a dynamic, evolving city then move to Tacoma.
52
Ah, the love it or leave it crowd. Yes, those who would dare to express concern about living conditions and income disparity should simply get the hell out. Move somewhere you can afford, even if you have no interest whatsoever in being there, even if that place holds nothing for you.
Place means nothing anymore. "Dynamic, evolving," indeed.
Place means nothing anymore. "Dynamic, evolving," indeed.
4
I moved here 20 years ago, and my job involves working closely with those who control large amounts of wealth. California was an unwanted child here in the 80s, however today the influx is from other states, especially the Northeast. Seattle was a boom/bust city until it found it's center of gravity. Now the Chinese are here in large numbers with very large checkbooks. Seattle is the new Amsterdam/Beijing of the world. It's silly to contemplate a Seattle that is anything short of the most advanced new-age city in the world. Given we are located on a virtual geographic postage stamp with our back to the Cascades and front to the Puget Sound, 20 years from now we will be the new Los Angeles. We've already inherited California's drought and siphoned off a good portion of their engineers. But any notion that Seattle can exist as a city for the middle class is pure folly. Oh, and our "socialist" council member, Kshama Sawant, she lives in a million dollar abode with her rich Microsoft partner. See the irony? Kshama Sawant, the socialist, is an engineer from India. Not California.
3
California immigration? Tell that to Eugene....in 1982.
The problem is that technology has no soul.
95
Grunge has SOUL. Seattle created Grunge; Seattle killed Grunge with noise ordinance laws to make way for the real estate developers.
2
Yes, my city has changed over the last 30 years and consideralbly more in the last 10 years.
The heart and soul of Seattle is not in the SLU area (Amazon) but still exists in Pioneer Sq, Belltown, Wallingford and parts of the retail district.
I wish I could afford to live in the urban center of Seattle but paying 2,000 for a studio is not a priority in my life or a rational expenditure.
This city is not perfect but still a wonderful place to live. Stainless steel and glass are beautiful, but happiness is an amenity that money can't buy.
The heart and soul of Seattle is not in the SLU area (Amazon) but still exists in Pioneer Sq, Belltown, Wallingford and parts of the retail district.
I wish I could afford to live in the urban center of Seattle but paying 2,000 for a studio is not a priority in my life or a rational expenditure.
This city is not perfect but still a wonderful place to live. Stainless steel and glass are beautiful, but happiness is an amenity that money can't buy.
22
Pioneer Sq, Belltown and Wallingford are the soul of Seattle? Yikes! We're in trouble.
2
If you go back to the 1980's, Seattle was complaining that Californians were moving to their city to escape escalating home prices.
23
I have lived and worked in both places - my two favorite cities in the US. They are vastly different. While interesting to compare and contrast, they face different challenges and have different economics. Seattle's tech scene, while impressive, is tiny relative to SF's. It's like comparing NY and Charlotte because they both have a banking industry.
15
Same reason I left Austin after college.
If I wanted to pay $2500/month for a one bedroom around beard-implanted hipsters I'd live in Brooklyn.
Rich, white, trust fund kids that hate themselves for being white. No thanks.
If I wanted to pay $2500/month for a one bedroom around beard-implanted hipsters I'd live in Brooklyn.
Rich, white, trust fund kids that hate themselves for being white. No thanks.
22
I was an ecologist for most all my life in the Bay Area. Prices, traffic...they've been going up for a while. But the sensibilities of the South Bay area has now permeated the entire Bay Area which has morphed into a soulless place, connected not by music, art, and the beauty of the Bay, but by the next gadget. I understand that companies like Google send limos to S.F. neighborhoods to pick up their employees and drive them to work in Menlo Park. Makes me want to gag.
89
I lived there during college, in the late 70s, and early 80s. I thought it was bad THEN. I remember trying to drive to Lake Temescal one weekend (not a holiday) and the traffic was literally bumper to bumper the whole way there AND BACK. It took hours to get to a place that was about 20 miles away! What a nightmare.
In those days, I paid about double for an apartment what it cost me back in the Midwest. I loved the Bay area culture, weather and ambiance. But I knew right off I could never afford it, and the crowded freeways and lack of access were just miserable.
Since then, the population of California (and the Bay area) has increased by over 35%. I'm not even counting the illegal aliens.
In those days, I paid about double for an apartment what it cost me back in the Midwest. I loved the Bay area culture, weather and ambiance. But I knew right off I could never afford it, and the crowded freeways and lack of access were just miserable.
Since then, the population of California (and the Bay area) has increased by over 35%. I'm not even counting the illegal aliens.
2
I have many friends that work for Google. None are picked up by limo. Most can't afford to live close to the office, even with a Google salary. Some commute 30 mins to an hour every day to work. I have never heard of any of my friends in Bay Area tech being picked up by limo.
4
Re San Francisco and Google limos to and from Silicon Valley. This simply is not the case. Google and other Silicon Valley employees have access to multiple, company-sponsored coaches to take employees to and from San Francisco for the one hour commute. While there is a disagreement about whether the Google folks in San Francisco make the City better of worse (and I won't get into that discussion here), the one thing people agree upon is that the coaches are an effort to deal with the horrible traffic on U.S 101. Most people agree that is better to have the coaches for multiple Google employees to use and other SV companies) rather than to have single cars for each commuter/employee.
4
Seattle residents are so spoiled. What if they lived in Detroit or Sao Paulo, Brazil? Then they'd have real concerns about their city's soul.
19
Detroit has many, many awful problems.
Traffic and affordable housing are not among them. You could buy a livable home there for $30K, maybe less. You could buy a near-mansion with every amenity for under $100K.
That doesn't solve their problems, but it does help. It means average Detroiters can afford to own their own home.
BTW: the bombed out awful stuff you see in the media is DOWNTOWN Detroit. The suburbs there are thriving and quite lovely. Heck, they have an IKEA.
Traffic and affordable housing are not among them. You could buy a livable home there for $30K, maybe less. You could buy a near-mansion with every amenity for under $100K.
That doesn't solve their problems, but it does help. It means average Detroiters can afford to own their own home.
BTW: the bombed out awful stuff you see in the media is DOWNTOWN Detroit. The suburbs there are thriving and quite lovely. Heck, they have an IKEA.
11
I have lived in both. born and raised in Detroit and have lived the past 43 years in Seattle. Given a choice few places compare to Seattle surrounded by water and mountains but is has grown soulless. Technology has no soul. I am headed back to my roots forced out by the high cost of living here in Seattle. Am I happy about it, certainly not, do I feel spoiled not hardly. I do look forward to the new energy that is reinvigorating Detroit. I can buy a house there for $30,000 not $1 million. There will be major challenges and tribulations. Even at my age I look forward to working alongside the young people who have started up new small businesses there as they seek to rebuild the community. Seattle has seen its better days and is fast becoming a ghetto of rich white techie kids overpaid for what they do and content to have relationships withe their I-pads.
3
I believe the point is to maintain a city that isn't spoiled for medium and low-wage earners, and to not create one where only "spoiled" kids can afford to live. Your comment is akin to "Eat your chemically-enriched Monsanto food because there are starving kids in Africa who would gladly do so."
2
Well it goes to prove you can't have everything. Liberals love Seattle and run it so they should be able to solve the problem! Build free housing and move poor people in to keep the diversity they say they want. But maybe that would affect property values....
7
People on social security should receive housing vouchers for one bedroom units. The bottom level of social security is $735 per month, not enough to pay the average rent of $1000 per month in most cities.
1
If you really got SSI of $735 a month in Seattle, you would qualify for both food stamps AND Section 8. Section 8 would give you a voucher for housing, if you can find it, and they would pay about 75% of your rent.
However, that obviously doesn't solve the problem and may even be making it worse.
However, that obviously doesn't solve the problem and may even be making it worse.
2
Really? Someone forgot to tell Social Security that. Mine is under $300 a month. Never make the mistake of being a stay at home mom, and getting divorced before 10 years. Then again, I later learned the scoundrel had never paid taxes anyway.
1
@Miriam: if you were married for at least 10 years (legally, even if separated), then you qualify for HALF of your ex husband's benefit. Likely it is far more than $300. You cannot take both; you must choose whichever is larger and stick with that.
The only problem is if you divorced BEFORE 10 years. Then you can only collect on your own benefit.
But -- if you have that few years of work, you will get SUPPLEMENTAL SS, and I believe the minimum is now close to $600 a month. And at that level, you will qualify for food stamps and Section 8 vouchers. So while not great, it is also not "nothing".
The only problem is if you divorced BEFORE 10 years. Then you can only collect on your own benefit.
But -- if you have that few years of work, you will get SUPPLEMENTAL SS, and I believe the minimum is now close to $600 a month. And at that level, you will qualify for food stamps and Section 8 vouchers. So while not great, it is also not "nothing".
1
Seattle, the way to keep your soul is to stop spending all day staring at your device. There is a real world out there; you need to enjoy life.
How many smartphone users does it take to change a light bulb? They can't, there's no app.
How many smartphone users does it take to change a light bulb? They can't, there's no app.
190
Seattle actually knows this better than almost any major city in the country. Seattle consistently ranks as one of the most active, most educated, best-read cities in America. When it rains (which is often) we're apt to curl up with a book and a mug of coffee. When it doesn't rain (we have absolutely glorious summers), we head out to our beautiful mountains, lakes, and shorelines.
22
Coming from Boston, that is a rather long pitch. ahem.
5
And just what, exactly, does this have to do with the article?
1
I have lived in downtown Seattle for the past 15 years and watched the evolution of the city due to the growth of Amazon. While there are aspects of the growth that are good, I am wary of the culture of people that Amazon has brought to town - they are not invested in the city's long-term outlook just as they are not invested in Amazon's long-range future. It's all about some intense experiences with the goal of moving on.
Many friends have been priced out of their apartments and have moved away. I guess you could say it's 'survival of the fittest' but it leaves me somewhat sad to see them go. Most were in lower paying non-tech jobs, supporting the arts, social services and education.
There are no easy answers.
Many friends have been priced out of their apartments and have moved away. I guess you could say it's 'survival of the fittest' but it leaves me somewhat sad to see them go. Most were in lower paying non-tech jobs, supporting the arts, social services and education.
There are no easy answers.
97
Once again we see that the Liberals are the true Luddites who try to kling to the past. The only people in SF worried about the loss of a counter culture are the Loony Lefties from the 60s who want to relive thier glory days... Imean the Tea Party is a Counter Culture Movement but the phrase "Protest is the highest form of patriotism" does not seem to count... I guess because most of those people are productive citizens. "Things Change" and usually for the better... Spending Tax Money of lower and middle income people to stop change is just crazy. I mean compare CA's population and economy before WW2 with it today, and that was only 75 years or so ago... People need to stop having the government subsidize their lives and get up and move... I did I left SF to Raleigh for a better life, a hose that cost $106 grand, gas that cost $2 a gallon, low taxes and a highly educated city... One wonders how Seattle is going to stop change? I mean has anyone looked at the population projects for the next 50 years? Change is constant and it is coming....
4
You have to love incoherent rants borne of retrograde politics. Liberals are suddenly Luddites?! If only. No, liberals are staunch believers in Progress.
"Stop change." Wow. Guess people aren't allowed to express concerns about the fact that very specific changes don't benefit them.
"Stop change." Wow. Guess people aren't allowed to express concerns about the fact that very specific changes don't benefit them.
6
While I understand the disruption, there is also an advantage for the city in increased funding for services and maintenance.
(for you CA people) We in Chicago would welcome you. We have a great public transport system, vibrant culture, a Great Lake and no earthquakes or mudslides. We do have some winter, but maybe that would be a nice change for you.
(for you CA people) We in Chicago would welcome you. We have a great public transport system, vibrant culture, a Great Lake and no earthquakes or mudslides. We do have some winter, but maybe that would be a nice change for you.
10
Sorry but you couldn't pay me enough to suffer through a Chicago winter. Or a Chicago summer for that matter. But I do enjoy visiting.
10
Absolutely right. Chicago (where I lived for a year a long time ago) is a wonderful city. And we can only envy your public transportation system which puts ours to shame and is one reason we are struggling with rapid growth, in addition to the housing challenges.
4
http://earthquaketrack.com/us-il-chicago/recent
Chicago sure does have earthquakes, perhaps you meant "as bad as the west coast?"
You also have pretty hot summers and really cold winters as well as tornadoes. Let's not paint the west coast as being more disaster prone while painting Chicago as disaster free.
Chicago sure does have earthquakes, perhaps you meant "as bad as the west coast?"
You also have pretty hot summers and really cold winters as well as tornadoes. Let's not paint the west coast as being more disaster prone while painting Chicago as disaster free.
6
A dynamic economy with great urban amenities
Cute, preserved, low-scale neighborhoods
Housing affordability
Pick any two (unless you are Minneapolis).
Cute, preserved, low-scale neighborhoods
Housing affordability
Pick any two (unless you are Minneapolis).
55
Much of the Midwest features these three amenities -- but they lack the weather that those along the Pacific so enjoy. Guess one just can't have it all!
4
There used to be a regional aerospace industry providing jobs.
2
Until the unions drove them out! And it wasn't union wages since the firms pay nearly as much elsewhere., It was the insane work rules that prevented effective management. The same problem occurs in the public schools, where .$20,000+ per student isn't enough to teach all children to read!
4
Still is. Ever heard of Boeing? They've got plants all over the greater Seattle region from Kent to Everett.
3
yes and it still would be but the high cost of union labor made it impossible.
1