6 ms·

Crackheads, the homeless, and a particularly loud (and occasionally violent) group of youth that are constantly at the corner of 3rd and Pike. Persistent (thoug

Crackheads, the homeless, and a particularly loud (and occasionally violent) group of youth that are constantly at the corner of 3rd and Pike. Persistent (though not apocalyptic levels of) gun crime. Downtown Seattle can be a bit rough. I wouldn't lay it squarely at the feet of the mayor though - a lot of it traces back to city planning gone disastrously wrong. Just a few off the top of my head: - the southern end of downtown is strictly commercial. Little to no mixed zoning here, meaning that as soon as 5pm rolls by the entire area is a ghost town. If you're there past 6-7pm you will see that the homeless and addicts move in to fill the void. There is no residential or leisure traffic to balance this out. This is US-style single-purpose urban zoning run amok. Vast portions of the urban core is entirely idle after work hours. - downtown Seattle isn't a cultural or entertainment core, unlike the downtowns of most cities. The actual food scene, nightlife scene, music scene, etc, are in surrounding neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Ballard, Fremont, etc. This contributes to low foot traffic after work hours, which contributes to higher crime and simultaneously a magnified perception of danger. - poor urban planning decisions meant an explosion in large-scale development without sufficient requirement for retail frontage. Lots of buildings that take up the entire block with little to no ground-floor retail, making it a pedestrian dead zone and contributing to the feeling of walking down a shady alley no matter where you are. See: much of Belltown, where the declared intent was to produce a walkable neighborhood full of restaurants and nightlife - except few residential buildings wanted to play host to them. This has resulted in little pockets of activity with vast stretches of nothingness in between them.

kevin_rubyhouse 13y ago
I live in Redmond/Bellevue and this is very interesting. Do you know anywhere that I can read more about this?
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Justin Carder from CHS talks periodically about 3rd and Pine even though it's off his 'beat.' That street corner is a mess but it's been a mess for quite a while and it's obvious that stepped-up police presence alone won't address the problems there, or they'd already be fixed.
nostromo 13y ago
Compared to SF, Seattle's homeless issues are... quaint.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Right.. and compared to Detroit, Seattle's crime issues are quaint. Saying that SF has a worse issue with homeless is damning with faint praise.
saosebastiao 13y ago
None of this has anything to do with McGinn. These policies started almost 5 decades ago.
- sleepybrett 13y ago
  The 3rd and Pine issue has existed in one form or another, on that very spot for at least 15 years ( I used to work at 3rd and Pine back in the day ). Blaming the sitting mayor for that street corner is laughable.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    The difference is, the rest of downtown now looks like 3rd and Pine used to.
HelloMcFly 13y ago
What city do you live in? Have you lived anywhere else? I work in downtown Seattle and my work takes me a-walking across huge portions of it, and my bus stop is right by 3rd and Pike. I've certainly never felt unsafe, and only occasionally have I been accosted by the homeless (or possibly crackheads) looking for money. There are some problem spots, but nothing terribly aggressive, certainly not by standards I've come to expect from my time in other major cities. It's much, MUCH better than what I saw/experienced while living in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco or Kansas City. Seattle may have some issues with theft, but violent crime isn't out of control. Play around with this [1] Wikipedia lin or this [2] comparison tool: Seattle is 30th in total violent crime amongst cities with a population above 250,000. Not great, but not bad. For Murder Seattle is 67 out of 75. That's, comparatively, very good. As for your specific points, I agree with them without regarding them as contributing as much negative impact as you state. You make it sound like Seattle is some pedestrian ghost town where you're taking your life into your own hands by taking a wrong turn. Like any city, some neighborhoods are better than others for leisure activities, and there are some worth avoiding into the night. But it's no worse than most other cities, and often considerably better. -- [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_r... [2]http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Seattle&s1=WA&c2=kansas+city&s2=MO http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Seattle&s1=W...
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I live in NYC currently. Besides living in Seattle (2 yrs) I've also lived in San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Waterloo, and London (Ontario, not the cool one). I've seen a lot worse than what happens in downtown Seattle, and yeah, SF has it a lot worse. A lot worse. I also have an intense dislike for the urban one-upsmanship that seems uniquely American in my experience. As if having seen/lived through worse crime is a badge of honor, and that people living/working in elevated crime areas (just less elevated than some other places) should just suck it up. SF is the absolute worst in this regard (far worse than Seattle), where any criticism about the state of poverty and crime in the city elicits a "hurrr go back to the midwest then hurrrr". A spade is a spade, even if there are bigger spades out there. The fact that Seattle's urban planning cockups are less severe than San Francisco's should come only as a very mild, very cold comfort. Part of Seattle's problem - one that I touched on but didn't expand on earlier - is that it feels less safe than it actually is. When it comes to quality of life though, perception of safety is equally important as actual safety. The vast stretches of nothingness at night presents a huge perception problem that I don't think can be conquered by simply telling people "yeah, that nearly empty street with no businesses and a lot aggressive panhandlers making catcalls at you isn't so bad, statistically your odds are good!". Seattle isn't that dangerous of a city - I made that clear earlier. The downtown is mildly sketchy, the homelessness problem is acute but not as bad as some other places, but the complete void that fills downtown after work is a huge problem that prevents any major progress on this front. By the way, Seattle is a pedestrian ghost town. Even Pioneer Square on a busy night is ghostly compared to every other urban core in North America I've ever been to. Downtown Seattle (qualified as Olive/Pine all the way down to Yesler or Jackson, and west of I-5) is completely f'ing deserted at night.

kevin_rubyhouse 13y ago

I live in Redmond/Bellevue and this is very interesting. Do you know anywhere that I can read more about this?

aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Justin Carder from CHS talks periodically about 3rd and Pine even though it's off his 'beat.' That street corner is a mess but it's been a mess for quite a while and it's obvious that stepped-up police presence alone won't address the problems there, or they'd already be fixed.

nostromo 13y ago

Compared to SF, Seattle's homeless issues are... quaint.

jlgreco 13y ago
Right.. and compared to Detroit, Seattle's crime issues are quaint. Saying that SF has a worse issue with homeless is damning with faint praise.

saosebastiao 13y ago

None of this has anything to do with McGinn. These policies started almost 5 decades ago.

sleepybrett 13y ago
The 3rd and Pine issue has existed in one form or another, on that very spot for at least 15 years ( I used to work at 3rd and Pine back in the day ). Blaming the sitting mayor for that street corner is laughable.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  The difference is, the rest of downtown now looks like 3rd and Pine used to.

HelloMcFly 13y ago

What city do you live in? Have you lived anywhere else? I work in downtown Seattle and my work takes me a-walking across huge portions of it, and my bus stop is right by 3rd and Pike. I've certainly never felt unsafe, and only occasionally have I been accosted by the homeless (or possibly crackheads) looking for money. There are some problem spots, but nothing terribly aggressive, certainly not by standards I've come to expect from my time in other major cities. It's much, MUCH better than what I saw/experienced while living in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco or Kansas City. Seattle may have some issues with theft, but violent crime isn't out of control. Play around with this [1] Wikipedia lin or this [2] comparison tool: Seattle is 30th in total violent crime amongst cities with a population above 250,000. Not great, but not bad. For Murder Seattle is 67 out of 75. That's, comparatively, very good. As for your specific points, I agree with them without regarding them as contributing as much negative impact as you state. You make it sound like Seattle is some pedestrian ghost town where you're taking your life into your own hands by taking a wrong turn. Like any city, some neighborhoods are better than others for leisure activities, and there are some worth avoiding into the night. But it's no worse than most other cities, and often considerably better. -- [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_r... [2]http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Seattle&s1=WA&c2=kansas+city&s2=MO http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Seattle&s1=W...

potatolicious 13y ago
I live in NYC currently. Besides living in Seattle (2 yrs) I've also lived in San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Waterloo, and London (Ontario, not the cool one). I've seen a lot worse than what happens in downtown Seattle, and yeah, SF has it a lot worse. A lot worse. I also have an intense dislike for the urban one-upsmanship that seems uniquely American in my experience. As if having seen/lived through worse crime is a badge of honor, and that people living/working in elevated crime areas (just less elevated than some other places) should just suck it up. SF is the absolute worst in this regard (far worse than Seattle), where any criticism about the state of poverty and crime in the city elicits a "hurrr go back to the midwest then hurrrr". A spade is a spade, even if there are bigger spades out there. The fact that Seattle's urban planning cockups are less severe than San Francisco's should come only as a very mild, very cold comfort. Part of Seattle's problem - one that I touched on but didn't expand on earlier - is that it feels less safe than it actually is. When it comes to quality of life though, perception of safety is equally important as actual safety. The vast stretches of nothingness at night presents a huge perception problem that I don't think can be conquered by simply telling people "yeah, that nearly empty street with no businesses and a lot aggressive panhandlers making catcalls at you isn't so bad, statistically your odds are good!". Seattle isn't that dangerous of a city - I made that clear earlier. The downtown is mildly sketchy, the homelessness problem is acute but not as bad as some other places, but the complete void that fills downtown after work is a huge problem that prevents any major progress on this front. By the way, Seattle is a pedestrian ghost town. Even Pioneer Square on a busy night is ghostly compared to every other urban core in North America I've ever been to. Downtown Seattle (qualified as Olive/Pine all the way down to Yesler or Jackson, and west of I-5) is completely f'ing deserted at night.