In Midst of a Tech Boom, Seattle Tries To Keep Its Soul 394
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 they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
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And if they put their new housing development near the transit, so much the better. It seems to me, as an East Coast observer, that San Francisco's high prices are due to physical limitations (like Manhattan lite) and rules against new development. If there are 100,000 homes, and 150,000 households wanting to live in them, you are going to have high prices. It should be possible for Seattle to avoid that.
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I've been looking in to this lately. Apparently in the late 70s early 80s they passed a law that says property taxes can only increase at a MAX of 2% per year. Inflation is 4% per year so over 10 years your effective taxes drop by HALF. This means you can't pay for infrastructure improvements as density increases, and there's no incentive for people to sell, which means there's no property to develop in to higher density residential stuff... if you can even get the local city council to approve such a proje
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This was on top of 15 years of ridiculous increases. In the early 2000s my house went up $500 a year. When I moved out after 10 years, the last two of which had a similar 2% max, the taxes had gone from $4200 to $7800.
Greedy politicians can suck it. Taxes are not even yet down to where they should be. Politicans ripped off citizens for years for amounts tied to house prices AKA housing bubble inflation rather than general inflation.
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"This means [government] can't pay for infrastructure improvements as density increases"
Perhaps there is a market for a privately funded transit system then.
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Privately funded transit systems always have the problem that their most needed resource -- land tracks to build rail/road/etc. -- is a public resource and require a functional government to grant them right-of-access. Something local multi-millionaires, NIMBY suburbanites and just about everyone has a vested interest in stopping.
It's the most classic example of "I got mine, so screw you" attitude there is; despite all the BS about altruism and "making the world a better place" that Silicon Valley seems to
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There's more jobs than housing
Because companies like Google, Facebook, etc., insist on locating themselves in an area that can't accommodate the 100,000 employees they've hired.
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I've been looking in to this lately. Apparently in the late 70s early 80s they passed a law that says property taxes can only increase at a MAX of 2% per year. Inflation is 4% per year so over 10 years your effective taxes drop by HALF.
dude, what? Property tax is a rate, and unless it's legislatively prescribed that the rate is lowered every year (so as not to increase the dollar total which was paid by more than 2%), then your post is all kinds of wrong.
If the property values stayed exactly the same in nominal terms, then they're actually losing real value because of inflation, and are therefore being taxed less.
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I came to say this same thing. Seattle growth is somewhat constrained by geography. Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Elliot Bay make it difficult to just "build out." Those same features, combined with a bunch of hills, make also make it difficult to get in and out. I commute to Downtown Seattle via bus on a regular basis. Since the carpool lanes are full the bus frequently doesn't move any faster than the rest of the traffic. It's not unheard of for the bus to take 90 minutes to cover the 20 miles of
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Re:What they really need (Score:5, Interesting)
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> LynnwoodRooster
Howdy, neighbor!
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;) Born and raised in Ballard. Then moved to Lynnwood. Then moved to Edmonds. Now down to Ventura, CA - I like the sun and the warmth... :)
Born and raised in DC. Then moved to Renton. Then moved to Bothell. In a few years we're emigrating to Phnom Penh. If you like sun and the warmth, there's plenty of it there, lol. :)
Cheers
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Light rail is ALWAYS expensive no matter how you do it, doubly true if you choose to bury it. It will NEVER be financially viable and will suck the tax payer dry trying to live up to the dream.
Busses are better and more adaptable, but even then are rarely financially viable.... You just loose less money funding them as the tax payer because a buss and some roads to drive them on is ALWAYS cheaper than laying track and buying a train to run on it....
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Ah, yes, fsck rail, because the SR99 tunnel project [bloomberg.com] has worked out so well so far...
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Suburbs would work just fine if we built SkyTran PRT systems.
Re:What they really need (Score:4, Informative)
Except it doesn't work that way in real life [streetsblog.org]:
(emphasis added)
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The problem is that if you add more traffic t
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FASTER mass transit is the word you're looking for.
I work in downtown Seattle, we bought a house in Puyallup where they are still affordable. I use the Sounder commuter train, its a 45 minute trip. At a rough guess at least half of the Sounder riders travel further to Tacoma and maybe beyond - e.g. the train is still quite full when I get off at Puyallup on my way home.
Link Light Rail is being expanded, but Link is slow, has many stops, its ok for shorter distance trips.
It's that way in basically every major city outside of those with subways.
I live in a major city and would take public transit if I reasonably could, but I'm not willing to turn my 30-minutes-each-way commute into 90 minutes.
Re:What they really need (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in a major city and would take public transit if I reasonably could, but I'm not willing to turn my 30-minutes-each-way commute into 90 minutes.
Which is EXACTLY the problem with public transit, It's almost never convenient for anybody using it, takes longer than driving yourself, and always requires financial support from tax payers because you never can charge the riders enough.
Public transport is great for what it is, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking it is a solution for traffic congestion or that we can make it convenient and cheap enough to get people who have other options to ride it...
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People in Chicago are laughing at you.
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People in Chicago are laughing at you.
They definitely aren't laughing all the way to the bank. Both Illinois and Chicago have a long list of financial woes.
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
You're supposed to factor in the money saved in traffic jams, road repairs, accidents, road plowing, pollution, stress, old-people-off-the-road, parking...
The point is NEVER for the public transit system to "break even". It's a quality of life investment which as lots of hard-to-quantify returns.
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How much do the roads cost to operate vs what they collect in fares?
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What are you riding your bike on, dirt paths? Who do you think pays for those roads and bike paths you use?
At least car drivers pay for roads in the form of gas taxes. What exactly do you pay for?
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Gas taxes don't even closely suffice to pay for all road repairs so these funds need to be taken from general taxes. Basically, cyclists (who don't damage the road) pay for car drivers as well.
Re:What they really need (Score:4, Insightful)
Texas couldn't find [worldchanging.com] a single road that paid for itself 100% through gas taxes and other user fees. Why should transit be held to a higher standard?
And can you name a city that doesn't force developers and business owners to provide free parking and yet the majority of people still prefer to drive?
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
To offer a single counter point, when I was living in Long Beach, CA and commuting into downtown Los Angeles, I opted to take the blue line instead. It took a little bit longer, but it was worth it for me because my employer subsidized the cost of the ticket as part of a county initiative to reduce traffic congestion.
My options were sit in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour every morning, or kick back on the train and read for about an hour and fifteen minutes. To me, the extra 30 minutes I spent on the train every day was worth not having to sit in traffic and pay for gasoline.
Just an opinion here, but I think that a person has to be a certain kind of sick in the head to actually prefer the "freedom" of sitting in their own car in traffic if given the opportunity take mass transit instead.
I also had co-workers who took Amtrak trains into work from 50+ miles away. Another co-worker of mine rode the bus in.
It has been my experience that in most cases, the challenge of getting people to take mass transit is cultural and based in classicism. I met people who had trouble getting their brains wrapped around the fact that I was making a six figure a year salary, and riding the train through south central Los Angeles. "You have a car, why would you want to subject yourself to that?" was a question that someone once asked me.
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It ain't safe for you to ride the bus through Central LA everyday. Especially not some pasty white dude making 6 figures; you're going to get their attention. You use the past tense; I'm going to guess you didn't really do it for very long. I will say that I've never been to LA; but I did the same thing in Memphis years ago. Only I wasn't a 6 figure eco green hipster, I was actually poor with no car.
You are making some generalizations that while close to true, are exaggerated. I rode the train for three ye
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I am in the TC myself. I specifically chose housing on the LRT and it is 15 minutes to work by train, 30 minutes round trip.
That said, it does take a long time to get anywhere in the suburbs due to the hub and spoke model of the bus system.
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I keep telling everyone about SkyTran, but they think I'm crazy, so just keep using your slow-ass buses.
Houston (Score:2, Informative)
Look at Houston for guidance. 25% of our workforce is oil and gas, many of whom are engineers. There's 18000 people at the Space Center. Then there's all the other stuff downtown.
Housing here is quite affordable despite the abundance of high paying jobs. Driving is a necessity (and traffic kinda sucks and things are really spread out), but $3500 would lease you a 5000+ sq ft house here in a really nice area within a reasonable drive to work.
Re:Houston (Score:5, Funny)
So one vote for leveling all the hills, filling in all the water and requiring everybody drive pickups.
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There is absolutely nothing I envy about the city of Houston, it is easily my least favorite city in the United States and I have lived in many of them. In every category of relevance to me, Houston is horrifying.
- It is filthy
- Much of it is falling apart
- Traffic is bad, and the roads are perpetually under construction
- The culture/people are really the worst combination of South-East combined with the worst combination of Texas, with no redemption whatever. Right to the bottom line every time, disregardi
The solution is simple (Score:2)
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Between the mountains and the sound, I expect development-ready land is kind of at a premium. The best place to look is where it's already developed, in a low-rent ready-gentrify way.
When the developer dollar speaks, who can gainsay?
Because ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
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Sure, gentrification is an option. But only to a point. Gentrifying every neighborhood leaves you with San Francisco level housing costs, which is what they're trying to avoid.
This is the problem with allocation of scarce resources. Demand goes up without a corresponding increase in supply and price goes up. Getting a bunch of tech companies to relocate to Seattle along with all of the workers and you're going to get higher prices because land is in finite supply. There's no way around it except to sta
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Don't tear down neighborhoods to build commercial zones. In fact, make a concerted effort to keep a sensible ratio of residential to commercial zoning and the housing prices don't shoot through the roof.
Limiting commercial zones causes a similar problem, since companies with more money will force others out of the city. And if all of the non-tech companies start to leave the city, non-tech workers will have to leave to. You have the same problem with a slightly different cause.
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My point was that you have to maintain a balance. If you do like what was done in California, and tear down neighborhood after neighborhood to have commercial development, you drive the people out into the remote suburbs because you drive housing costs through the roof and the people have to keep moving farther and farther away from their jobs just to be able to afford to live. Then again, if you go to far in the other direction, you can drive away too many jobs and that doesn't help your city either.
The
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What is wrong with leaving the city? Why should a magical line drawn on a map make a difference? Why do people want to make cities into insular bubbles that don't interact with the rest of the region? But commercial buildings in the suburbs, and residential buildings in the suburbs, and then people will live in the suburbs and have a higher quality of life than living in the city.
Or just stop teaching people that they must have a job in the city and no where else, get rid of parochialism. That's a major problem in so many cities. People want to be in the city limits even though it cames with more drawbacks than advantages, the demand makes the housing prices skyrocket, it drives out the middle class, it drives out people with families, it destroys the public schools, and the only reason for it is that some people care about having a desirable zip code.
In most places, that has already happened, then the new real estate "out of the city" becomes desirable, because the highly paid workers that work at the company that located outside the city want to live close to work. For example, Microsoft isn't located in Seattle itself, it is in Redmond. So Redmond real estate becomes pricier because all the borg drones want to live near the MS campus. All the tech companies aren't located in San Francisco, they are located in Silicon Valley so more housing is built
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The problem is that neighborhoods are fighting the construction of apartments and other affordable housing. Anytime someone tries to build an apartment building (even the small apodments we have here), NIMBYs show up and scream that the lower classes will spread drugs and rock and roll music over their precious streets.
Well, the NIMBYs are right, but it will take at least 10 years for that to happen. When a new apartment complex is built, it is beautiful and desirable and a bunch of people move in. Then when another apartment complex is built in a another area of time a few years later, the residents move to the new building. The owners of the old building are forced to rent for lower amounts to anyone who will sign a lease. The new tenants scare off the old tenants, and the cycle continues. The lower rents insure that no
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Yeah, there's always a fight between the NIMBY types and the corporations who can buy their way in. The poor get trapped between them because they have no one fighting on their behalf and they lose out every time.
The problem is that there is no winning move. There is basically no more land to expand to so the only way to deal with the influx of people and businesses is to stack people up on the land that's already there. And that changes the character of the city. Everyone loses but that doesn't stop th
"Counterculture" (Score:2)
"Counterculture"? Is that something that runs counter to your culture? Why would you want to keep that?
By definition, that which is preserved and fostered, or "cultured", IS "culture".
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Somebody has to run all those Starbucks...
With a $15 minimum wage, that'll just give those tech companies more business as they automate away all the low-end employees.
Sausage fest (Score:2)
iirc Seattle has the highest male to female ratio in the country. Maybe some single women will move there once they realise how heavily the economics lean in their favour, until then I think I'll give it a miss, thanks.
Opinions: Many problems in Seattle and Portland (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Opinions: Many problems in Seattle and Portland (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing with bags is that you can replant a forest. You can't replant an oil well.
Plastic production and recycling isn't exactly "pollution free" either.
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Citation needed, especially with hybrids and electric cars on the road these days. Make sure your source considers the emissions that result from induced demand when the road is widened. Good luck!
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-1 Stupid. The percentage of hybrids and EVs out of the car fleet is still very, very small.
Re:Opinions: Many problems in Seattle and Portland (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not have reusable bags? Most of the planet does stuff like that. We all used to do that before plastic or paper bags existed. I've never even had to buy reusable grocery bags because I get them sent to me by charities, they're given out at events, you can even use your swag bag from conferences. Its very easy.
Who will... (Score:2, Insightful)
Clean the office buildings at night
Work at shops and restaurants
Take care of your child
Police your city
This list can go on and on. People above can't afford to live the same city they work because of housing prices. I once asked a night janitor, who had his two sons with him at work that day, where he lived. He told me he lived more than an hour out of the city. I don't have any solutions but this isn't a good thing. Think about something catastrophic accident happening in the city and more than half the em
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People above can't afford to live the same city they work because of housing prices. I once asked a night janitor, who had his two sons with him at work that day, where he lived. He told me he lived more than an hour out of the city. I don't have any solutions but this isn't a good thing.
Was recently looking at a potential job in the area.
The job looked great. Then I started looking for a home within 15 minutes of the workplace. Nothing family sized (4+ bedroom) shows up on Zillow for anything less than $800,000. Many homes comparable to my $200K current residence were selling for well over a million dollars. Zooming out a bit, finding family homes even remotely affordable (under $300K) would require a full hour commute.
I went on to the next job listing, in a more reasonable cost city.
San Francisco prices are so high... (Score:4, Informative)
...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 [americanmo...iation.org] since renters could tie them up in court for years when they tried to sell the property).
* California's general hostility to development [battleswarmblog.com].
And now San Francisco has said they'll try to limit price increases by restricting supply [calwatchdog.com]. 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 [salon.com]?
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'Working people' haven't lived in SF for _decades_. Rich and a few poor hos for the rich.
The current complaints are from trust fund kids who's trusts are no longer big enough to keep them in SF.
same path (Score:2)
"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."
Where the linked article points to Seattle's mayor pleading for more regulated housing economy ("25% affordable"), it doesn't seem that different.
The other aspect of focus on transportation seems sound.
It probably won't matter (Score:2)
Do the hard (and right thing) (Score:3)
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Build subways, railways, etc.
The number one tool of the developers pushing gentrification. The first Sound Transit light rail project cleaned the poor black people out of Rainier Valley. The next extension will push the hipsters out of the University District and Ravenna neighborhoods. Then it's northward, clearing the working class folks out of Northgate.
Meanwhile, King County Metro bus service is being eliminated where it parallels the rail lines. We don't want any stinkin' bus riding hobos in our shiny new neighborhoods.
Don't cry for me Seattle (Score:5, Insightful)
How many whines about too many tech jobs ruining Seattle [slashdot.org] for the workin' man do we need to see?
Every town without a tech boom wishes they had your problems.
Portland.. (Score:2)
Portland isn't a tech hub. Washington county to the West of Portland, across the West hills is.
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Waaaay off topic here so that mod option is clearly appropriate....but regarding your sig: "why not try an all meat diet?". Because it would be a disaster of epic proportions (if we all did it).
The average American eats 270lbs of meat/year (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visualizing-a-nation-of-meat-eaters). The 2 guys in the study ate 800g meat/day (1.7lbs). Thats 620 lbs/year or a 230% increase. They were adult males so the average consumption would probably be a bit lower but sp
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Trying reading the paper. It's very interesting. It's also interesting how I lost 50lbs and my cholesterol numbers were fixed and my dental health improved while on such a diet. To further test it, I tried going back to a traditional Western diet and the weight came back, the cholesterol numbers went back and my dental health deteriorated. So I'm going back to the diet. By meat I actually meant animal products .. meat, fish, egg, dairy, coffee with very little plant matter.
I fucking hate loud websites (Score:2)
I have figure out why there is loud classical music coming through my headphones, interfering with what I was listening to. And it's a stupid commercial on the NYT site. I was lucky enough to guess the on one of the first tabs I closed, but jeeze. Fucking annoying!
As a Seattleite... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
It's too late (Score:2)
It lost it in the 90's. Now Portland has been destroyed. Austin and Colorado are gone as well. Boston, San Jose and area also were lost long ago. We don't know if it is airborne, blood borne, or due to some weird radiation a space probe returned.
We just don't know.
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It lost it in the 90's. Now Portland has been destroyed. Austin and Colorado are gone as well. Boston, San Jose and area also were lost long ago.
So what's left?
Police (Score:2)
Well if Seattle wants to be San Fran... (Score:2)
1) Raising the Minimum Wage (Raises the cost of everything including taxes).
2) Stupid projects like the light rail (Must be funded with more taxes, is already a huge multi-billion dollar boondoggle)
3) Talking about Rent control and anti-gentrification (Nothing like preventing new development to limit supply and thus raise costs).
Best way to lose soul is to drive out source (Score:2)
Where does Seattle think the "soul" of a city comes from?
It comes somewhat from architecture, though that is just shape.
The main area where the soul of a place is from, lies in the businesses that are located there - and I'm specifically talking about the smaller local shops that provide maximum "flavor" to an area.
Those are EXACTLY the places driven to close by a minimum wage hike. They can no longer afford to pay workers, many of whom might have been teens - why should TEENS get $20/hour? They don't nee
More like $650k (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
losing its soul in the same way (Score:3)
Sounds to me like Seattle is following in San Francisco's footsteps, with "preservationists and local politics" doing pretty much the same things they did in San Francisco.
I just wish they'd stop blaming the "tech boom" or software developers for their failed policies.
Re:Don't worry, rasing the minimum wage will kill (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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No, it means it can afford it a couple years sooner.
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It's a bad thing if all you are qualified to do is flip burgers.
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Why would you imagine a corporation "hoards" money? Corporations mostly spend any money they get on growth growth growth GROWTH AT ANY COST. During downturns the smarter companies may keep a little back to help survive, and buy up the ones who don't, but that beats random hire-then-layoff.
Minimum-wage employees almost always work in low-margin businesses, so when wages go up either prices go up, the business goes under, or the business automates. When prices go up, that's usually a very regressive tax, g
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Re:Don't worry, rasing the minimum wage will kill (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Don't worry, rasing the minimum wage will kill (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Don't worry, rasing the minimum wage will kill (Score:4, Informative)
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."
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I didn't say that, I place the blame on his state's government.
I do wonder which state this is though. Because I'd like to make sure I avoid ever moving there.
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FYI, we went with Ambetter, $151 a month for my wife and I and it covers quite a lot. You might want to see if it's suitable for you.
I had a heart procedure in April and the bill was $85,000...I ended up having to pay about $4K of that and medications (after a $400 cap) are at no cost, no limit. I blew through $400 of meds in about 2 or 3 months so overall I'm happy with it.
Could it be better? Hell yes; I'd have preferred single payer, but after not being insured for ~10 years due to the cost, I really can'
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Personally I think we traded one
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Let's not forget that Obama's party had 100% control of congress for nearly two years when he took office. They could have had ANYTHING they wanted and All the republicans could do is stand yelling on the capital steps and stomp their feet hoping the press would cover it. So what did the party in power do? Not all that much, except for Obamacare, which they sold on a series of lies... Is it no wonder that they've steadily lost seats in the house and senate and Obama's second election win was with a thin
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My republican co workers assured me that Obamacare would cause our company to go under because healthcare costs would skyrocket. They're actually saving close to 200 dollars per employee.
Oh, so you haven't got your rate increase for 2016 yet then.... I just got mine and it's pretty shocking this year... I think my premiums have gone up nearly $300 over the last three years for my family, ostensibly due to the ACA, and my deductibles and out of pocket went up too. I also hear that a number of areas are seeing 20% rate hikes on the Federal exchanges this time around. So if you really are saving money, you work in a rare place, or everybody got cut back to part time..
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The problem is that the effects of ObamaCare vary greatly from state-to-state, because a lot of things are state-dependent still, and a lot of its success depended on the states increasing their Medicaid rolls. So people in one state may find that overall, it improved things significantly, while in another state the opposite is true, because of the way the state government handled things.
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Re:My brother had his car stolen there two weeks a (Score:5, Funny)
On the plus side, I got a new car two weeks ago.
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Re:My brother had his car stolen there two weeks a (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
????
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Actually it is simple.
1. The majority of the tech press is in SF. The best product on the web or the app store does not always win. It is the one that people know about. You come up with a cool app in Twin Falls, ID and you will be hard pressed get any buzz.
2. A lot of the venture capital people are in SF.
3. If your startup in SF goes belly up you can walk down the street and find a new job.
4. SF, Seattle, and Austin are seen as being cool tech centers.
Frankly it is probably the reason that Slashdot never b
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The hippies, gays, artists and black people have been replaced by 23-year-old white male Amazon workers who roam the streets in packs, swilling Jagermeister and assaulting any drag queens they spot.
You say that like it's a bad thing.