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> Seattle's reckoning/correction is coming. The city is doing everything in its power to chase money away And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are stil

by disown 6y ago

> Seattle's reckoning/correction is coming. The city is doing everything in its power to chase money away And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are still going up. The construction boom hasn't mitigated. Seattle isn't doing a good job at chasing money away. > People are growing tired of the messy streets, needles are tents are spreading as the city ignores the problem. It's just a handful of streets. It's certainly not endemic to the city. 99.99% of seattle doesn't have that issue. Unfortunately for seattle, that problem is concentrated around the touristy section. > On the plus side, our landlord is doing everything in his power to keep us happy, for the first time. Is he lowering the rent?

seanmcdirmid 6y ago
I just moved to Ballard, and we have a few homeless encampments (the closest one to me is at Ballard park). I'm really surprised in how bad it isn't here: the residents are mostly well behaved and don't leave needles or anything like that hanging around (and they don't poop on the streets since the city installed a bunch of portable toilets). It is still kind of a bummer, but it is far from a deal breaking nuisance.
mancerayder 6y ago
> And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are still going up. The construction boom hasn't mitigated. Seattle isn't doing a good job at chasing money away. I don't have skin in the game here, but I noticed this statement, which I think isn't right. You need to consider that commercial construction, skyscrapers no less, take years. From conception to funding to planning to approvals to building, the lag is long. So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles. Latency is huge. No one thought up COVID, WFH or even CHAZ when they were standing around plastic models of plastic buildings.
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  Amazon buildings tend to go up fairly quickly, many a couple of years of planning and construction, especially since Paul Allen's Vulcan real estate (who owns most of the land and construction) laid all the plans a long time ago. > So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles. Considering that none of these buildings are very tall, we are fairly safe then. But I think this slow down will be useful in the long run: Downtown Seattle is currently turning into office space for Amazon without much for anyone else anymore. Especially compared to downtown Portland, which is a much better place to live (more retail and services, better access MAX). The boom was really going in the wrong direction, it would be nice if it could be corrected.

by disown 6y ago

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

I just moved to Ballard, and we have a few homeless encampments (the closest one to me is at Ballard park). I'm really surprised in how bad it isn't here: the residents are mostly well behaved and don't leave needles or anything like that hanging around (and they don't poop on the streets since the city installed a bunch of portable toilets). It is still kind of a bummer, but it is far from a deal breaking nuisance.

mancerayder 6y ago

> And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are still going up. The construction boom hasn't mitigated. Seattle isn't doing a good job at chasing money away. I don't have skin in the game here, but I noticed this statement, which I think isn't right. You need to consider that commercial construction, skyscrapers no less, take years. From conception to funding to planning to approvals to building, the lag is long. So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles. Latency is huge. No one thought up COVID, WFH or even CHAZ when they were standing around plastic models of plastic buildings.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago
Amazon buildings tend to go up fairly quickly, many a couple of years of planning and construction, especially since Paul Allen's Vulcan real estate (who owns most of the land and construction) laid all the plans a long time ago. > So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles. Considering that none of these buildings are very tall, we are fairly safe then. But I think this slow down will be useful in the long run: Downtown Seattle is currently turning into office space for Amazon without much for anyone else anymore. Especially compared to downtown Portland, which is a much better place to live (more retail and services, better access MAX). The boom was really going in the wrong direction, it would be nice if it could be corrected.