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In Midst of a Tech Boom, Seattle Tries To Keep Its Soul
HughPickens.com writes: Nick Wingfield has an interesting article in the NYT about how Seattle, Austin, Boulder, Portland, and other tech hubs around the country are seeking not to emulate San Francisco where wealth has created a widely envied economy, but housing costs have skyrocketed, and the region's economic divisions have deepened with rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco at more than $3,500 a month, the highest in the country. "Seattle has wanted to be San Francisco for so long," says Knute Berger. "Now it's figuring out maybe that it isn't what we want to be." The core of the debate is over affordable housing and the worry that San Francisco is losing artists, teachers and its once-vibrant counterculture. "It's not that we don't want to be a thriving tech center — we do," says Alan Durning. "It's that the San Francisco and Silicon Valley communities have gotten themselves into a trap where preservationists and local politics have basically guaranteed buying a house will cost at least $1 million. Already in Seattle, it costs half-a-million, so we're well on our way."
Seattle mayor Ed Murray says he wants to keep the working-class roots of Seattle, a city with a major port, fishing fleet and even a steel mill. After taking office last year, Murray made the minimum-wage increase a priority, reassured representatives of the city's manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them., and has set a goal of creating 50,000 homes — 40 percent of them affordable for low-income residents — over the next decade. "We can hopefully create enough affordable housing so we don't find ourselves as skewed by who lives in the city as San Francisco is," says Murray. "We're at a crossroads," says Roger Valdez. "One path leads to San Francisco, where you have an incredibly regulated and stagnant housing economy that can't keep up with demand. The other path is something different, the Seattle way."
Seattle mayor Ed Murray says he wants to keep the working-class roots of Seattle, a city with a major port, fishing fleet and even a steel mill. After taking office last year, Murray made the minimum-wage increase a priority, reassured representatives of the city's manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them., and has set a goal of creating 50,000 homes — 40 percent of them affordable for low-income residents — over the next decade. "We can hopefully create enough affordable housing so we don't find ourselves as skewed by who lives in the city as San Francisco is," says Murray. "We're at a crossroads," says Roger Valdez. "One path leads to San Francisco, where you have an incredibly regulated and stagnant housing economy that can't keep up with demand. The other path is something different, the Seattle way."
What Seattle really needs is better mass transit. The bus system is decent as far as U.S. cities go, but the traffic is some of the worst in the nation. If they're going to continue growing the metro area, they need some kind of mass transit that makes it possible to get around without adding even more cars to the highway.
Perhaps rather than making up a conservative position that doesn't exist, you should try actually understanding the conservative position.
$15/hr minimum wage means McDonalds can afford that burger robot to replace half their employees.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Seattle: Huge problems with traffic. Amazingly, amazingly, Seattle residents often mention that there are areas with poor internet service!
Portland: Unlivable. The traffic is 10 times worse than 2 years ago. The slowly, slowly moving cars make the pollution far worse. The Portland city government has been allowing the construction of huge apartment buildings with no parking. The parking problem lowers the value of all the buildings in the area.
There are many other areas of corruption. Here is just one: The Portland law against plastic bags favors a nearby company that makes paper bags. Paper bags are far worse for the environment because someone has to cut trees, trucks then bring the trees to a plant where they are processed with chemicals that also cause pollution. The paper bags cost grocery stores 10 times more than plastic bags and are so weak they often cannot be fully packed. Paper bags become weak when wet in the frequent rain. People who don't want the problems shop outside of Portland; Portland is a small city of 609,456 people (2013).
Often humans are not good at taking care of themselves.
...because of multiple government regulations that have choked off supply, namely:
* Rent Control
* Excessive environmental regulations
* Excessive land use regulations
* An institutional hostility to landlords (so bad that many landlords simply refuse to rent at all since renters could tie them up in court for years when they tried to sell the property).
* California's general hostility to development.
And now San Francisco has said they'll try to limit price increases by restricting supply. Looks like someone failed Economics 101.
Bonus: Did you know that the Rev. Jim Jones (yes, that one) once served on San Francisco's Housing Authority?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
So one vote for leveling all the hills, filling in all the water and requiring everybody drive pickups.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How many whines about too many tech jobs ruining Seattle for the workin' man do we need to see?
Every town without a tech boom wishes they had your problems.
Mine went from $180 a month $7,500 deductible Major Medical plan to a $950 a month $12,500 deductible Bronze Major Medical plan. I was told that I had crap insurance before and that is why it went up, but it was with the same company and the only change was that they raised the deductible and raised the premium.
After this new premium kicked in with no notice and after my bank started sending me overdraft notices due to the insurance company taking out an unapproved amount from my checking account (a process commonly known as "theft"), I immediately went searching for other insurance and got the plan down to only slightly over double what it used to be for 60% higher deductible.
A few years later, I was let go from my job and redid my application for insurance, hoping for some assistance with the premiums, but unlike the commercials for Obamacare which state "most qualify for assistance", I did NOT qualify for assistance, and did not qualify even for tax rebates. Still paying 100% of the premium, which is infinity percent of my salary. Before Obamacare, insurance was 2.5% of my salary, then it went up to 14% overnight, and now it is up to infinity percent. Still Hoping for Change.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
After living in Seattle for 40+ years, I can tell you that this place lost its "soul" a long time ago.
There are still remnants here and there but they're being cleaned up as quickly as possible.
And as bad as it is in many ways, it's still one of the better places to live on the west coast.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
On the plus side, I got a new car two weeks ago.
You're doing something wrong. If you don't have any income, you should qualify for Medicaid. ObamaCare is for people who actually have an income.
The irony is that many of the products under development are expected to be used in every corner of the world.
But somehow they can only be developed by bringing people all together in one place.
????
You can't really get a decent place for $500k in Seattle.
Now if only we would permit Tiny Houses in the driveways of retired SFH zoned properties, so they could keep their house, and rent/lease the land, people could easily buy a Tiny House for $30k and have equity in the actual house. This would double population but allow people to keep their older giant houses with unused garages that they no longer use.
Most of use use transit, bike, or walk to work here. Car driving is something the suburbanites do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, Medicaid does not automatically apply if you're poor. Source.
Note: "There is currently no federal requirement that states provide health coverage to adults without dependent children. These adults qualify for Medicaid coverage only if they have a disability or are age 65 or older. However, about half of states provide some coverage through federal waivers or state-funded programs for non-disabled adults who have limited incomes but do not otherwise qualify for Medicaid."