I recently visited the Seattle area and the surrounding burbs a few months back. We drove through this one area called "Newcastle" and they have this mini downt

I recently visited the Seattle area and the surrounding burbs a few months back. We drove through this one area called "Newcastle" and they have this mini downtown shopping area. The entire place smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Since statistics trail the reality by a decent margin, the person I was with indicated it had been occurring for already a decade. Several areas already closed down their offices and moved to more affordable locations with a very large amount of office space available. It is almost like a dead city in the burbs with all the empty offices, except for the traffic of people who don't even need to work there. The schools have also taken a huge hit in quality with once high ranked public schools now ranked among the lowest. As far as real estate goes, the developers don't care, and they influence alot of local politicians. Foreign buyers just sit on the property with ultra fast purchases, muscling out alot of new home buyers. Then when the price hits a high, only then do they sell. All it does is damage the local economy as they have no real incentive to participate in a constructive manner. On the other end, attacks and aggressions against minorities fell a bit as the more racist types get forced out of the market and them and their police buddies can't randomly attack minorities without some repercussions. All in all, it's complex, and maybe they'll find some long term resolution. We also visited the area further outside the burbs and there are (relatively) massive home development projects everywhere.