I've been in Seattle for three years now, and I'm moving out of state in a month. Why?
first, they're doing everything wrong. (Here's an article that explains what most towns in America get wrong: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/)
- South Lake Union could have been rebuilt with narrow European-style streets (https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217). but instead they left all of their old regulations in place, which meant that they ended up building it for cars instead of people.
- all of the activated alley projects have failed. the one in Chinatown failed because most of the street died from a museum they put in. another one in the university district only has a single coffee shop in it
- Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle
- spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state.
- the city just put in an income tax on high earners. one of the things that helped me choose Washington state was the fact that there is no state income tax currently. the city's attempt to impose one bothers me because although I don't earn enough presently to have to pay into it, all they have to do is tweak the brackets to get me later on in the future.
- the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers.
- a massive 9.0 or greater earthquake is an eventuality. there are a large number of old buildings in Pioneer square that will not survive this earthquake without being retrofitted with base isolation technology. this is an extremely expensive undertaking, and absolutely NOTHING is happening on that front. at the same time, the city is increasing spending on handouts for the poor, on bailing out failed bikeshare companies (that happen to be politically connected to the city council...), etc. they shouldn't be providing these handouts or spending millions on bailing out their friends. instead, they should be cutting back spending and certain regulations (again, see https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) so that people can rebuild Pioneer Square and save it from the coming catastrophe.
- taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there.
- they should be selling off surface street lanes to streetcar startups so that we have better ways of getting around, and not taking 25 years to do it (Ballard won't get a train running to it for another 25 years, according to the latest ST3 plan). spending billions on digging tunnels as they do now, on projects that will not be completed for decades, is a waste. the Boring Company can do in a week what Seattle can do in a year.
- I attended a city council meeting last year. Sawant ran it like a socialist political rally - it wasn't a place where opposing views were at all welcome. she lusts for ever more power.
first, they're doing everything wrong. (Here's an article that explains what most towns in America get wrong: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/)
- South Lake Union could have been rebuilt with narrow European-style streets (https://twitter.com/SteveDombek/status/593997707481481217). but instead they left all of their old regulations in place, which meant that they ended up building it for cars instead of people.
- all of the activated alley projects have failed. the one in Chinatown failed because most of the street died from a museum they put in. another one in the university district only has a single coffee shop in it
- Tokyo offers people nice 1BR apartments for roughly $900-1000 a month, because they are pro-development. that same apartment costs me $2k a month in Seattle
- spending by the city of Seattle has doubled over the last few years, but the population did not double. this means that taxes will eventually be raised to fill the gap. I'm not my brother's keeper, so I'm moving to another low-tax state.
- the city just put in an income tax on high earners. one of the things that helped me choose Washington state was the fact that there is no state income tax currently. the city's attempt to impose one bothers me because although I don't earn enough presently to have to pay into it, all they have to do is tweak the brackets to get me later on in the future.
- the city has done next to nothing to remove restrictions on the heights of new buildings downtown. it also has made it nearly impossible to do mixed-use arrangements inside towers.
- a massive 9.0 or greater earthquake is an eventuality. there are a large number of old buildings in Pioneer square that will not survive this earthquake without being retrofitted with base isolation technology. this is an extremely expensive undertaking, and absolutely NOTHING is happening on that front. at the same time, the city is increasing spending on handouts for the poor, on bailing out failed bikeshare companies (that happen to be politically connected to the city council...), etc. they shouldn't be providing these handouts or spending millions on bailing out their friends. instead, they should be cutting back spending and certain regulations (again, see https://granolashotgun.com/2017/11/13/mind-the-gap-2/) so that people can rebuild Pioneer Square and save it from the coming catastrophe.
- taxes on ridesharing? why?! if you want to get rid of cars, as I do, hurting ridesharing won't get you there.
- they should be selling off surface street lanes to streetcar startups so that we have better ways of getting around, and not taking 25 years to do it (Ballard won't get a train running to it for another 25 years, according to the latest ST3 plan). spending billions on digging tunnels as they do now, on projects that will not be completed for decades, is a waste. the Boring Company can do in a week what Seattle can do in a year.
- I attended a city council meeting last year. Sawant ran it like a socialist political rally - it wasn't a place where opposing views were at all welcome. she lusts for ever more power.