I'm not sure the data backs up your assertion -- in fact, it looks to me like Seattle's crime rate is roughly steady -- and bad -- over the last 20 years.
from 1999-2018 (most recent I can find a chart for), Violent crime ebbed and flowed but ended essentially where it started: 680/100k residents, almost double the US average. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/wa/seat.... I believe this uses FBI numbers.
I note that the Axios article says 2025 is on track to be a big drop; I have no idea what crime seasonality is, so I'd take that news story with a grain of salt until the year is out. Either way I just don't think Seattle's crime rates are "way less of a concern" over the last 40 years. Well, people may have become acclimated or stopped caring. But the rates are high, and don't look to have changed that much.
Seattle had the highest burglary rate in the nation of any large city as recently as 2023 (1201 per 100k residents!). https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state...
from 1999-2018 (most recent I can find a chart for), Violent crime ebbed and flowed but ended essentially where it started: 680/100k residents, almost double the US average. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/wa/seat.... I believe this uses FBI numbers.
Seattle Police report 5394 violent crimes in 2024, with 755k residents that's ~700 violent crimes per 100k, or roughly where it was in both 1999 and in 2018. https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/04/28/crime-drops-2...
I note that the Axios article says 2025 is on track to be a big drop; I have no idea what crime seasonality is, so I'd take that news story with a grain of salt until the year is out. Either way I just don't think Seattle's crime rates are "way less of a concern" over the last 40 years. Well, people may have become acclimated or stopped caring. But the rates are high, and don't look to have changed that much.