7 ms·

Boomtown Seattle: Why we move here – and how we’re all in it together

23 points by wallflower 9y ago

taurath 9y ago
I moved here and I enjoy it. Its getting expensive very quickly though, and there are almost zero houses or condos on the market, so most likely I will never be able to buy, even on an engineers salary. All the new construction is luxury apartments, not condos. All after is from a 20-30-somethings perspective: there's also very few areas within the city that are "city-like" in terms of having people around and things to do after work. Belltown, Cap Hill and Fremont are the hangouts - if you live far away from those its very much like living in the suburbs. South Lake Union (Amazon City) is a GHOST town after dark - Amazon has failed pretty hard at creating any sense of culture or livable space as the only thing to do is get gouged by restaurants that are paying far too much in rent. SLU has: * No cheap food * No entertainment * No "hangout" spots except inside of the expensive restaurants Even a beer garden or some food stalls around one of their courts would be a huge improvement.
neonate 9y ago
http://archive.is/zA04x http://archive.is/zA04x
- ssalazars 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing!
lev99 9y ago
It's a great feel good article by Evan Bush, in a publication that usually talks about growing pains more than benefits of growth. I hope this article makes recent transplants feel a little more welcome during the dark cloudy winter.
maxharris 9y ago
I've been in Seattle for three years now, and I'm moving out of state in a month. Why? first, they're doing everything wrong. (Here's an article that explains what most towns in America get wrong: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/ https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) - South Lake Union could have been rebuilt with narrow European-style streets (https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217 https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217). but instead they left all of their old regulations in place, which meant that they ended up building it for cars instead of people. - all of the activated alley projects have failed. the one in Chinatown failed because most of the street died from a museum they put in. another one in the university district only has a single coffee shop in it - Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle - spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state. - the city just put in an income tax on high earners. one of the things that helped me choose Washington state was the fact that there is no state income tax currently. the city's attempt to impose one bothers me because although I don't earn enough presently to have to pay into it, all they have to do is tweak the brackets to get me later on in the future. - the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers. - a massive 9.0 or greater earthquake is an eventuality. there are a large number of old buildings in Pioneer square that will not survive this earthquake without being retrofitted with base isolation technology. this is an extremely expensive undertaking, and absolutely NOTHING is happening on that front. at the same time, the city is increasing spending on handouts for the poor, on bailing out failed bikeshare companies (that happen to be politically connected to the city council...), etc. they shouldn't be providing these handouts or spending millions on bailing out their friends. instead, they should be cutting back spending and certain regulations (again, see https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/ https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) so that people can rebuild Pioneer Square and save it from the coming catastrophe. - taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there. - they should be selling off surface street lanes to streetcar startups so that we have better ways of getting around, and not taking 25 years to do it (Ballard won't get a train running to it for another 25 years, according to the latest ST3 plan). spending billions on digging tunnels as they do now, on projects that will not be completed for decades, is a waste. the Boring Company can do in a week what Seattle can do in a year. - I attended a city council meeting last year. Sawant ran it like a socialist political rally - it wasn't a place where opposing views were at all welcome. she lusts for ever more power.
- aetherson 9y ago
  You sound like you have very eclectic political views. Nothing against that! But I think you'll find it hard to find a place that you substantially agree with politically.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  What is the place you found acceptable to move to? There's not a lot of cities in America that have done well on a lot of these issues where applicable.
- brwnll 9y ago
  I have issues with Seattle, especially the city counsil, and prefer the smaller towns that surround it, but a few of your items are outright falsehoods. >> - Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle Seattle is doing it's best to accommodate growth. Estimates now peg 1,000 people moving to Seattle each week[1], which is not easy to absorb for a city of 700,000. Seattle has had the most construction cranes in America, each month since July 2016[2] to try to cope with growth. >> - spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state. Agreed, Seattle city high earners tax is stupid, but it's being taken to the state Supreme Court where it's widely expected to be tossed out as the Washington State constitution prevents any income tax. >> - the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers. Which area of Seattle are you referring to? There are several skyscrapers being built currently downtown. >> - taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there. I wasn't able to find any reference to this. Do you have one? Seattle is attempting to push cars out by increasing car tab fees and the cost of parking, which appears to be working with y/y ridership up 12% [3] --- My point is only, Seattle city council has a lot of problems, like most do across America, so there is no reason to manufacture ones that don't exist. As someone who has grown up in the area, I'm glad they are taking some action (unlike somewhere like SF) to accommodate the sudden growth of high wage earners, even if they aren't perfect. [1] https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/03/27/25043201/more-than-1000-people-are-moving-to-seattle-every-week-census-report-shows https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/03/27/25043201/more-th... [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/fewer-cranes-on-seattle-skyline-for-first-time-in-years-but-city-still-leads-u-s/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/fewer-cran... [3] https://patch.com/washington/seattle/sound-transit-ridership-12-over-2016 https://patch.com/washington/seattle/sound-transit-ridership...

23 points by wallflower 9y ago

I moved here and I enjoy it. Its getting expensive very quickly though, and there are almost zero houses or condos on the market, so most likely I will never be able to buy, even on an engineers salary. All the new construction is luxury apartments, not condos. All after is from a 20-30-somethings perspective: there's also very few areas within the city that are "city-like" in terms of having people around and things to do after work. Belltown, Cap Hill and Fremont are the hangouts - if you live far away from those its very much like living in the suburbs. South Lake Union (Amazon City) is a GHOST town after dark - Amazon has failed pretty hard at creating any sense of culture or livable space as the only thing to do is get gouged by restaurants that are paying far too much in rent. SLU has: * No cheap food * No entertainment * No "hangout" spots except inside of the expensive restaurants Even a beer garden or some food stalls around one of their courts would be a huge improvement.

neonate 9y ago

http://archive.is/zA04x http://archive.is/zA04x

ssalazars 9y ago
Thanks for sharing!

lev99 9y ago

It's a great feel good article by Evan Bush, in a publication that usually talks about growing pains more than benefits of growth. I hope this article makes recent transplants feel a little more welcome during the dark cloudy winter.

maxharris 9y ago

I've been in Seattle for three years now, and I'm moving out of state in a month. Why? first, they're doing everything wrong. (Here's an article that explains what most towns in America get wrong: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/ https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) - South Lake Union could have been rebuilt with narrow European-style streets (https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217 https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217). but instead they left all of their old regulations in place, which meant that they ended up building it for cars instead of people. - all of the activated alley projects have failed. the one in Chinatown failed because most of the street died from a museum they put in. another one in the university district only has a single coffee shop in it - Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle - spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state. - the city just put in an income tax on high earners. one of the things that helped me choose Washington state was the fact that there is no state income tax currently. the city's attempt to impose one bothers me because although I don't earn enough presently to have to pay into it, all they have to do is tweak the brackets to get me later on in the future. - the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers. - a massive 9.0 or greater earthquake is an eventuality. there are a large number of old buildings in Pioneer square that will not survive this earthquake without being retrofitted with base isolation technology. this is an extremely expensive undertaking, and absolutely NOTHING is happening on that front. at the same time, the city is increasing spending on handouts for the poor, on bailing out failed bikeshare companies (that happen to be politically connected to the city council...), etc. they shouldn't be providing these handouts or spending millions on bailing out their friends. instead, they should be cutting back spending and certain regulations (again, see https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/ https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) so that people can rebuild Pioneer Square and save it from the coming catastrophe. - taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there. - they should be selling off surface street lanes to streetcar startups so that we have better ways of getting around, and not taking 25 years to do it (Ballard won't get a train running to it for another 25 years, according to the latest ST3 plan). spending billions on digging tunnels as they do now, on projects that will not be completed for decades, is a waste. the Boring Company can do in a week what Seattle can do in a year. - I attended a city council meeting last year. Sawant ran it like a socialist political rally - it wasn't a place where opposing views were at all welcome. she lusts for ever more power.

aetherson 9y ago
You sound like you have very eclectic political views. Nothing against that! But I think you'll find it hard to find a place that you substantially agree with politically.
stevenwoo 9y ago
What is the place you found acceptable to move to? There's not a lot of cities in America that have done well on a lot of these issues where applicable.
brwnll 9y ago
I have issues with Seattle, especially the city counsil, and prefer the smaller towns that surround it, but a few of your items are outright falsehoods. >> - Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle Seattle is doing it's best to accommodate growth. Estimates now peg 1,000 people moving to Seattle each week[1], which is not easy to absorb for a city of 700,000. Seattle has had the most construction cranes in America, each month since July 2016[2] to try to cope with growth. >> - spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state. Agreed, Seattle city high earners tax is stupid, but it's being taken to the state Supreme Court where it's widely expected to be tossed out as the Washington State constitution prevents any income tax. >> - the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers. Which area of Seattle are you referring to? There are several skyscrapers being built currently downtown. >> - taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there. I wasn't able to find any reference to this. Do you have one? Seattle is attempting to push cars out by increasing car tab fees and the cost of parking, which appears to be working with y/y ridership up 12% [3] --- My point is only, Seattle city council has a lot of problems, like most do across America, so there is no reason to manufacture ones that don't exist. As someone who has grown up in the area, I'm glad they are taking some action (unlike somewhere like SF) to accommodate the sudden growth of high wage earners, even if they aren't perfect. [1] https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/03/27/25043201/more-than-1000-people-are-moving-to-seattle-every-week-census-report-shows https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/03/27/25043201/more-th... [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/fewer-cranes-on-seattle-skyline-for-first-time-in-years-but-city-still-leads-u-s/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/fewer-cran... [3] https://patch.com/washington/seattle/sound-transit-ridership-12-over-2016 https://patch.com/washington/seattle/sound-transit-ridership...