7 ms·

There is a weird thing among Seattle residents where they get extremely defensive about our social problems and act as if nothing is wrong and these are 'normal

There is a weird thing among Seattle residents where they get extremely defensive about our social problems and act as if nothing is wrong and these are 'normal city problems'. They're not. I am a longtime resident and while this area has never been the greatest in the last 5 years it has turned into an absolute shithole if I can speak honestly and frankly. I've seriously considered whether or not Seattle is some sort of progressive social experiment where we're all the lab mice blissfully unaware of our surroundings. Just a month ago an engineer at AWS, a young Asian woman, had her skull cracked open when a random assailant hit her in the head with a baseball bat completely unprovoked. This was in the same neighborhood by the way. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10492101/Moment-homeless-man-attacks-Amazon-deliverer-baseball-bat-leaving-fractured-skull.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10492101/Moment-hom... The assailant had 26 offenses on his rap sheet, another graduate of our "catch and release" program of combating crime. This story was buried in the media rather than creating the widespread outrage it deserved. The amount of social disorder this city tolerates is untenable. It was once a beautiful city that in the span of a few years was destroyed under the watch of a small crew of activist politicians. Many stores have closed because it's become too dangerous for the employees. The whole situation is very sad. Yet the city squanders resources and prides itself on absolute nonsense like making plastic grocery sacks and straws illegal while the amount of trash on our streets or in our parks continues to increase. I'm not just referring to general litter either, we're talking syringes, feces, and toxic waste from derelict RVs that are allowed to park wherever they wish without fear of reprisal.

lunatuna 5y ago
This is happening well beyond Seattle, not sure if it is a West coast thing. In Vancouver, it is a similar story [0]. It has gotten substantially worse in the last 5 or so years to the point that it is feeling lawless [1]. I have noticed that there are a lot of policies that seem local but are actual not and are being resold/implemented. I'm really curious what's changed and why are we still digging a hole in this spot where it is clearly not working. The city and province are now spending incredible amounts of money on homelessness saying this will solve the problem but crime is going in the other direction. Some stats are saying otherwise, but reporting is now way down. I was in a parking lot last week downtown and a guy was all messed up and had a fire going in the parking lot. I talked to the security guy he shrugged. When I came back the fire was out, but he was still doing his drug dance. I don't think there was any reporting. I think the security approach was to get the fire out and no other confrontation. The stairwell was full of feces, urine, cat litter, and garbage. I don't think that the parking company can keep up anymore. There seems to be a sense that criminality is ok for those that want to be criminals. I fully get the idea of not criminalizing poverty or addiction, but it is going well beyond the self and creating an ever larger blast radius. A real debate about whose freedoms get protected and whose get run over would be interesting to watch by policy makers. Not sure how they are seeing this, they are as another person mentioned in the Orwellian mode so it isn't decipherable. Is it city and policing policy? Is it the drugs are just too strong and people are beyond help or being expected to have any agency? I really don't understand why this is going on in this direction? I think that politicians are are tied in their own knot and don't know a way out. [0] - https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/robbed-vandalized-peed-on-yelled-at-former-gastown-restaurant-owners-detail-neighbourhood-conditions-to-vancouver-mayor-4527162 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/robbed-vandali... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-chinatown-vacancy-crime-vandalism-1.5907997 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-ch...
- threads2 5y ago
  Is it true that we should blame Campbell for closing that big mental hospital? I'm a compassionate guy but I'm getting pretty sick of schizos yelling on the street. It doesn't feel dangerous though - I think a lot of people come downtown from the suburbs and get kinda spooked. Living downtown, you just avoid Granville (cause it's disgusting) and realize that schizophrenics are more scared of you than you are of them.
  - lunatuna 5y ago
    I really don't have the right answers. Better mental health support is likely part of it. BC is abysmal for mental health in general. I have a friend that lives at Main and Keefer and we hangout on the patio and people watch. It is clear that there are people that are really locked into a major mental illness whether it is schizophrenia or something else. They are being given a place to stay and a meal, which I think is important, but they are left to figure out the rest on the streets. They look like prey for dealers. Once someone is mixing drugs with their illness it gets really messy and anit-social. I've grown up in and around Vancouver. I've never felt that it was dangerous. I'm somewhat regularly down at Hastings and Main and not fearful. Like you mentioned people yelling etc. But business owners are taking it on the chin pretty hard with theft, vandalism and loss of customers. I love Chinatown, but it is definitely at a low right now. I take my daughter, I don't want her to be intimidated and when it does come back I want her there. It is a great part of the city. It should be thriving.
999900000999 5y ago
Thanks for posting this I was strongly considering Seattle, but it looks like LA 2.0 Out of control homelessness, lax criminal enforcement, sky rocking rents. Everyone is liberal until you step in human waste. It appears in Red States they don’t play these games. Even in California, Orange County won’t just let you put up a tent
- thehappypm 5y ago
  It’s LA, without the sunshine, and the sprawl is confined by geography: Seattle is smack dab between two big bodies of water.
tellingtheteuth 5y ago
You’re being downvoted, but this is an entirely accurate view of Seattle. I just left that hellhole after 22 years. The last five years have been consistently hell. Nobody wanted to do anything that will actually help people in the city; just things that allow them to humble brag on Facebook. Seattle is dead.
- tjr225 5y ago
  If it is dead then why can’t I afford a condo there?
  - neidne 5y ago
    The better question is, “why would you want to?” Greed and money are always the answers to these pseudo-righteous questions. Greed and money.
    - tjr225 5y ago
      I already know the answer to your question: It is a great city with a lot to offer. I'm happy to own a house nearby for the time being. Also happy when people like the GP leave this place altogether. Moreover; whether youre talking about Detroit, London, NY, Baltimore, SF, Seattle, Dubai - _whatever_ - claiming a place where millions of real people live their lives is "dead" or a "shithole" or whatever, is an entirely graceless act. Nobody is forcing you to live here, move on with your life, or I'm going to assume you have some sort of weird insecurity that causes you to do behave this way. Presumably that is why the GP created an account just to make this claim; they didn't want it associated with their other internet identities.
      - shdjjj 5y ago
        You know millions of people don’t live in Seattle right? In fact, not even a single million people live there. Unless you count all the posers that claim they are from Seattle. I bet you do. Since you love the city so much, but can’t be bothered to live there.
akomtu 5y ago
Orwell gave this behavior a name - doublethink - ability to believe in two opposite things simultaneously, in this case it's "our city is great, safe and progressive" and "we aren't going down this street to the pub because even police wouldn't come to save us." The actual art of doublethink is believing in the opposites, not just pretending to believe.
- tjr225 5y ago
  If anyone actually thinks those two things and lives in Seattle they make up a very tiny, and paranoid minority.
systemvoltage 5y ago
The current progressive politics is completely deranged and detached from the classic liberal politics. It is not at all what I know as a lifelong liberal. Portland went from 3rd most desirable city to 66th in the nation after the continued self-destruction: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-was-once-a-byword-for-tattooed-vegan-microbrewers https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-...
- astrange 5y ago
  The destruction of Portland exists only in the mind of people who won't turn their TV off. I've had commenters on here tell me it's been burned down and they can't leave their houses. Although "a highly desirable city" isn't the most accurate description of Portland either. It's more like a theme park for white people with waxed mustaches.
  - profile53 5y ago
    I wouldn’t say the media analysis is entirely overblown. The pearl district turned from a beautiful and fun place to visit to a place I can no longer safely walk through. Most shops are shuttered and people in clear psychosis are roaming the streets screaming at each other, threatening violence at passer-bys, etc. Even the 23rd avenue area is taking a turn for the worse in terms of being safe to walk through. I’m curious what you think of those areas specifically.
    - teachrdan 5y ago
      > Most shops are shuttered and people in clear psychosis are roaming the streets screaming at each other, threatening violence at passer-bys, etc. I have to think Covid exacerbated business closures and mental health issues for poor / homeless folks, due to fewer in-person services, etc. Can't think of any city in America that wasn't similarly affected.
      - esyir 5y ago
        To be honest though, I think the US really screwed itself here. One big issue is that the mentally ill can get to the point where they are no longer of sound mind and should be committed. But involuntary commitment draws flack as well, so the response becomes to do nothing. It's also interesting how much impact a single movie had on mental health treatment in the us.
YATA0 5y ago
>Just a month ago an engineer at AWS, a young Asian woman, had her skull cracked open when a random assailant hit her in the head with a baseball bat completely unprovoked. This was in the same neighborhood by the way. There needs to be a new Law of the Internet that describes this situation. "When there's little outrage over a hate crime, the probability of the perpetrator being non-White approaches 1." Something like Coulter's Law [0]. [0] https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/coulters-law/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/coulters-law/
- teachrdan 5y ago
  There's nothing in this article suggesting it was a hate crime. It appears to be someone with serious, untreated mental health issues. Why did you assume this was a hate crime?
  - splintercell 5y ago
    Because there are hundreds of these attacks since the coronavirus epidemic started against Asian-Americans, 99% of the time the assailant is non-white.
- daniel-cussen 5y ago
  Yeah the real culprit is the media. This is the world they wish to come into existence.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Things have definitely gotten bad (I visit downtown every weekend and live in Ballard), but the same thing has happened in other cities as well for similar reasons. So on the one hand, people saying “it’s nothing” are wrong, but people say “Seattle is dead” are also incorrect. These problems can be solved, well, managed, with a bit of a swing to the right (from the far left, which is happening now). I remember Seattle from the late 70s (as a preschooler), the 80s, and the 90s. I even worked at 3rd and Pine McDonald’s in 1994, and it was pretty bad back then, except the retail and office crowd kept things from getting bad until about 7PM each night (I often closed). The new thing now is (a) laws not enforced at all and (b) downtown was completely drained of office workers. Both of those can be fixed.
- sndodnen 5y ago
  Can be solved? Sure, it’s theoretically possible. Will be solved? Lol. Not in the next twenty years, if ever. 90% of the population gives each other reach arounds for banning plastic straws and calling people living on the streets “unhoused neighbors” They could do something useful, but damn, doing nothing and bragging about it feels sooooooo good.
  - agentofoblivion 5y ago
    More like 5%, they just won’t shut up about it and the rest of us silently think they’re morons.
theknocker 5y ago
kstenerud 5y ago
This is normal in a country where inequality is too high. The lower class starts to feel excluded from society. Over time as the groups are separated from each other by wealth, security gates, policing etc, they lose empathy for each other. As inequality grows, the underclass grows resentful, then eventually hostile. "Reaching out" and "being compassionate" won't work, because it does nothing to solve the underlying problem (poverty and exclusion). In fact, it just comes off as condescending (which it is). "Getting tough on crime" only accelerates the decline because now you're declaring war on the underclass. Now they REALLY have nothing to lose, and are fighting for survival. And so you watch in horror as your once beautiful city goes into decline, feeling powerless to do anything. The left pushes for more leniency, the right pushes for more punishment, and the whole city goes to shit while everyone ignores the elephant in the room.
- lolive 5y ago
  Stop spoiling The Batman, please
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  Stop excusing bad behavior.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Inequality is problem, but the problem sure as heck can’t be solved at the local level. Being tough on crime can help push the problem somewhere else at least: next door Bellevue will send SWAT out on anybody who so much as lays down on a bench (annoying the homeless population enough that they move on to Seattle). Being compassionate works in the opposite way: Seattle attracts people from as far away as Texas who have no chance at housing really anywhere, because they will get more support here than where they are from (recently read about some guy who decided to use their on release Texan prison open bus ticket to head to Seattle and then got caught breaking into someone’s house to sleep). Local solutions obviously have adverse impractical effects: you can push the problem to someone else or try to solve the entire country’s problem, there isn’t much middle ground to be had. Some sort of federal solution really is needed, or our cities could be in huge trouble.
daniel-cussen 5y ago
It's domestic terrorism abetted by the media. Sometimes instigated by the media.
black_13 5y ago
Fomorian 5y ago
It's so odd to be a Washingtonian from Snohomish, and hear about what a shithole Seattle is. Everett has a lot of the same problems but nowhere NEAR as bad as I hear things get down there. Broadly speaking I love Washington. I think the people are nice, I think the state is beautiful, I think the towns are generally clean. The experience that I hear Seattleites talk about is not in any way representative of what I see in the rest of the state. And that's crazy to me. It's like Seattle is its own little world, completely insulated from the outside.
- peatmoss 5y ago
  It's probably not as bad as you hear. I think there are two fallacies one can draw: 1. Everything is rosy in the Emerald City 2. Everything is Mad Max in the Emerald City. The corner by McDonalds on 3rd has always been bad, and truly these days it is worse. I was recently down that way and was pretty shocked. But that also isn't most of Seattle these days.
  - heoebcuc 5y ago
    WA is beautiful. Every city has its good and bad areas. Seattle may not be quite as bad as “dead”, but many of the descriptions are accurate *for a given neighborhood* — there far more crappy areas these days than there used to be. I have hope it’ll get better one day. It’s a lovely place most of the time.
    - peatmoss 5y ago
      I think you and I are solidly in agreement on all points. When it’s good, it’s really good. But the bad is heartbreaking and does rather seem to have increased of late.

lunatuna 5y ago

This is happening well beyond Seattle, not sure if it is a West coast thing. In Vancouver, it is a similar story [0]. It has gotten substantially worse in the last 5 or so years to the point that it is feeling lawless [1]. I have noticed that there are a lot of policies that seem local but are actual not and are being resold/implemented. I'm really curious what's changed and why are we still digging a hole in this spot where it is clearly not working. The city and province are now spending incredible amounts of money on homelessness saying this will solve the problem but crime is going in the other direction. Some stats are saying otherwise, but reporting is now way down. I was in a parking lot last week downtown and a guy was all messed up and had a fire going in the parking lot. I talked to the security guy he shrugged. When I came back the fire was out, but he was still doing his drug dance. I don't think there was any reporting. I think the security approach was to get the fire out and no other confrontation. The stairwell was full of feces, urine, cat litter, and garbage. I don't think that the parking company can keep up anymore. There seems to be a sense that criminality is ok for those that want to be criminals. I fully get the idea of not criminalizing poverty or addiction, but it is going well beyond the self and creating an ever larger blast radius. A real debate about whose freedoms get protected and whose get run over would be interesting to watch by policy makers. Not sure how they are seeing this, they are as another person mentioned in the Orwellian mode so it isn't decipherable. Is it city and policing policy? Is it the drugs are just too strong and people are beyond help or being expected to have any agency? I really don't understand why this is going on in this direction? I think that politicians are are tied in their own knot and don't know a way out. [0] - https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/robbed-vandalized-peed-on-yelled-at-former-gastown-restaurant-owners-detail-neighbourhood-conditions-to-vancouver-mayor-4527162 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/robbed-vandali... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-chinatown-vacancy-crime-vandalism-1.5907997 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-ch...

threads2 5y ago
Is it true that we should blame Campbell for closing that big mental hospital? I'm a compassionate guy but I'm getting pretty sick of schizos yelling on the street. It doesn't feel dangerous though - I think a lot of people come downtown from the suburbs and get kinda spooked. Living downtown, you just avoid Granville (cause it's disgusting) and realize that schizophrenics are more scared of you than you are of them.
- lunatuna 5y ago
  I really don't have the right answers. Better mental health support is likely part of it. BC is abysmal for mental health in general. I have a friend that lives at Main and Keefer and we hangout on the patio and people watch. It is clear that there are people that are really locked into a major mental illness whether it is schizophrenia or something else. They are being given a place to stay and a meal, which I think is important, but they are left to figure out the rest on the streets. They look like prey for dealers. Once someone is mixing drugs with their illness it gets really messy and anit-social. I've grown up in and around Vancouver. I've never felt that it was dangerous. I'm somewhat regularly down at Hastings and Main and not fearful. Like you mentioned people yelling etc. But business owners are taking it on the chin pretty hard with theft, vandalism and loss of customers. I love Chinatown, but it is definitely at a low right now. I take my daughter, I don't want her to be intimidated and when it does come back I want her there. It is a great part of the city. It should be thriving.

999900000999 5y ago

Thanks for posting this I was strongly considering Seattle, but it looks like LA 2.0 Out of control homelessness, lax criminal enforcement, sky rocking rents. Everyone is liberal until you step in human waste. It appears in Red States they don’t play these games. Even in California, Orange County won’t just let you put up a tent

thehappypm 5y ago
It’s LA, without the sunshine, and the sprawl is confined by geography: Seattle is smack dab between two big bodies of water.

tellingtheteuth 5y ago

You’re being downvoted, but this is an entirely accurate view of Seattle. I just left that hellhole after 22 years. The last five years have been consistently hell. Nobody wanted to do anything that will actually help people in the city; just things that allow them to humble brag on Facebook. Seattle is dead.

tjr225 5y ago
If it is dead then why can’t I afford a condo there?
- neidne 5y ago
  The better question is, “why would you want to?” Greed and money are always the answers to these pseudo-righteous questions. Greed and money.
  - tjr225 5y ago
    I already know the answer to your question: It is a great city with a lot to offer. I'm happy to own a house nearby for the time being. Also happy when people like the GP leave this place altogether. Moreover; whether youre talking about Detroit, London, NY, Baltimore, SF, Seattle, Dubai - _whatever_ - claiming a place where millions of real people live their lives is "dead" or a "shithole" or whatever, is an entirely graceless act. Nobody is forcing you to live here, move on with your life, or I'm going to assume you have some sort of weird insecurity that causes you to do behave this way. Presumably that is why the GP created an account just to make this claim; they didn't want it associated with their other internet identities.
    - shdjjj 5y ago
      You know millions of people don’t live in Seattle right? In fact, not even a single million people live there. Unless you count all the posers that claim they are from Seattle. I bet you do. Since you love the city so much, but can’t be bothered to live there.

akomtu 5y ago

Orwell gave this behavior a name - doublethink - ability to believe in two opposite things simultaneously, in this case it's "our city is great, safe and progressive" and "we aren't going down this street to the pub because even police wouldn't come to save us." The actual art of doublethink is believing in the opposites, not just pretending to believe.

tjr225 5y ago
If anyone actually thinks those two things and lives in Seattle they make up a very tiny, and paranoid minority.

systemvoltage 5y ago

The current progressive politics is completely deranged and detached from the classic liberal politics. It is not at all what I know as a lifelong liberal. Portland went from 3rd most desirable city to 66th in the nation after the continued self-destruction: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-was-once-a-byword-for-tattooed-vegan-microbrewers https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-...

astrange 5y ago
The destruction of Portland exists only in the mind of people who won't turn their TV off. I've had commenters on here tell me it's been burned down and they can't leave their houses. Although "a highly desirable city" isn't the most accurate description of Portland either. It's more like a theme park for white people with waxed mustaches.
- profile53 5y ago
  I wouldn’t say the media analysis is entirely overblown. The pearl district turned from a beautiful and fun place to visit to a place I can no longer safely walk through. Most shops are shuttered and people in clear psychosis are roaming the streets screaming at each other, threatening violence at passer-bys, etc. Even the 23rd avenue area is taking a turn for the worse in terms of being safe to walk through. I’m curious what you think of those areas specifically.
  - teachrdan 5y ago
    > Most shops are shuttered and people in clear psychosis are roaming the streets screaming at each other, threatening violence at passer-bys, etc. I have to think Covid exacerbated business closures and mental health issues for poor / homeless folks, due to fewer in-person services, etc. Can't think of any city in America that wasn't similarly affected.
    - esyir 5y ago
      To be honest though, I think the US really screwed itself here. One big issue is that the mentally ill can get to the point where they are no longer of sound mind and should be committed. But involuntary commitment draws flack as well, so the response becomes to do nothing. It's also interesting how much impact a single movie had on mental health treatment in the us.

YATA0 5y ago

>Just a month ago an engineer at AWS, a young Asian woman, had her skull cracked open when a random assailant hit her in the head with a baseball bat completely unprovoked. This was in the same neighborhood by the way. There needs to be a new Law of the Internet that describes this situation. "When there's little outrage over a hate crime, the probability of the perpetrator being non-White approaches 1." Something like Coulter's Law [0]. [0] https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/coulters-law/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/coulters-law/

teachrdan 5y ago
There's nothing in this article suggesting it was a hate crime. It appears to be someone with serious, untreated mental health issues. Why did you assume this was a hate crime?
- splintercell 5y ago
  Because there are hundreds of these attacks since the coronavirus epidemic started against Asian-Americans, 99% of the time the assailant is non-white.
daniel-cussen 5y ago
Yeah the real culprit is the media. This is the world they wish to come into existence.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Things have definitely gotten bad (I visit downtown every weekend and live in Ballard), but the same thing has happened in other cities as well for similar reasons. So on the one hand, people saying “it’s nothing” are wrong, but people say “Seattle is dead” are also incorrect. These problems can be solved, well, managed, with a bit of a swing to the right (from the far left, which is happening now). I remember Seattle from the late 70s (as a preschooler), the 80s, and the 90s. I even worked at 3rd and Pine McDonald’s in 1994, and it was pretty bad back then, except the retail and office crowd kept things from getting bad until about 7PM each night (I often closed). The new thing now is (a) laws not enforced at all and (b) downtown was completely drained of office workers. Both of those can be fixed.

sndodnen 5y ago
Can be solved? Sure, it’s theoretically possible. Will be solved? Lol. Not in the next twenty years, if ever. 90% of the population gives each other reach arounds for banning plastic straws and calling people living on the streets “unhoused neighbors” They could do something useful, but damn, doing nothing and bragging about it feels sooooooo good.
- agentofoblivion 5y ago
  More like 5%, they just won’t shut up about it and the rest of us silently think they’re morons.

theknocker 5y ago

kstenerud 5y ago

This is normal in a country where inequality is too high. The lower class starts to feel excluded from society. Over time as the groups are separated from each other by wealth, security gates, policing etc, they lose empathy for each other. As inequality grows, the underclass grows resentful, then eventually hostile. "Reaching out" and "being compassionate" won't work, because it does nothing to solve the underlying problem (poverty and exclusion). In fact, it just comes off as condescending (which it is). "Getting tough on crime" only accelerates the decline because now you're declaring war on the underclass. Now they REALLY have nothing to lose, and are fighting for survival. And so you watch in horror as your once beautiful city goes into decline, feeling powerless to do anything. The left pushes for more leniency, the right pushes for more punishment, and the whole city goes to shit while everyone ignores the elephant in the room.

lolive 5y ago
Stop spoiling The Batman, please
captainredbeard 5y ago
Stop excusing bad behavior.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Inequality is problem, but the problem sure as heck can’t be solved at the local level. Being tough on crime can help push the problem somewhere else at least: next door Bellevue will send SWAT out on anybody who so much as lays down on a bench (annoying the homeless population enough that they move on to Seattle). Being compassionate works in the opposite way: Seattle attracts people from as far away as Texas who have no chance at housing really anywhere, because they will get more support here than where they are from (recently read about some guy who decided to use their on release Texan prison open bus ticket to head to Seattle and then got caught breaking into someone’s house to sleep). Local solutions obviously have adverse impractical effects: you can push the problem to someone else or try to solve the entire country’s problem, there isn’t much middle ground to be had. Some sort of federal solution really is needed, or our cities could be in huge trouble.

daniel-cussen 5y ago

It's domestic terrorism abetted by the media. Sometimes instigated by the media.

black_13 5y ago

Fomorian 5y ago

It's so odd to be a Washingtonian from Snohomish, and hear about what a shithole Seattle is. Everett has a lot of the same problems but nowhere NEAR as bad as I hear things get down there. Broadly speaking I love Washington. I think the people are nice, I think the state is beautiful, I think the towns are generally clean. The experience that I hear Seattleites talk about is not in any way representative of what I see in the rest of the state. And that's crazy to me. It's like Seattle is its own little world, completely insulated from the outside.

peatmoss 5y ago
It's probably not as bad as you hear. I think there are two fallacies one can draw: 1. Everything is rosy in the Emerald City 2. Everything is Mad Max in the Emerald City. The corner by McDonalds on 3rd has always been bad, and truly these days it is worse. I was recently down that way and was pretty shocked. But that also isn't most of Seattle these days.
- heoebcuc 5y ago
  WA is beautiful. Every city has its good and bad areas. Seattle may not be quite as bad as “dead”, but many of the descriptions are accurate *for a given neighborhood* — there far more crappy areas these days than there used to be. I have hope it’ll get better one day. It’s a lovely place most of the time.
  - peatmoss 5y ago
    I think you and I are solidly in agreement on all points. When it’s good, it’s really good. But the bad is heartbreaking and does rather seem to have increased of late.