Seattle is dying

This is a report done by a local tv station KOMO, on the rapid decline going on in Seattle.


It is a long vid viewed now by millions. You only need to watch a few minutes to understand how horrible it is in Seattle. But it could be any number of cities ;San Francisco LA Baltimore New Orleans etc etc all run by Dems. It is drugs homelessness and the city's refusal to enforce the laws.

If you don't want much of the vid read the comments.

 

I've watched the entire video and much of what is shown is true. Seattle has a significant homeless problem largely exacerbated by a drug using epidemic.

This video is certainly not without bias. The last 20 minutes expose the bias, there is a program from RI the journalist (and likely the station owner) wants adopted. The program starts by enforcing laws.

KOMO is owned by Sinclair. This is how you get a local sports anchor best known for a puff segments like Eric's Liitle Heroes tackling complicated issues. I know Eric Johnson (he's a neighbor). Nice guy but nobody who has spent time with him would consider him a rocket scientist. I do hope there are more deeper analyses so Seattle can fix itself.

 

I'm just glad this post was referring to the city and not to you. Scared me for a second.

 

A drug problem? You mean like drugs that come across the southern border?

 

Hmm, wants to start by enforcing laws, sounds pretty biased alright.

Sorry, didn't watch video, already have a poor opinion about Seattle and certainly San Fran. Too bad because visited Seattle many years ago and had a nice time.

 

This could be any number of cities , maybe Seattle is slightly worse
But Husker do you not think laws should not be enforced?

The examples of repeat even dangerous offenders released les than 24 hours after bring arrested who then go out and commit horrendous crimes like rap and veating jp a 71 y o soman. You call wanting the laws enforcec a bias?
Were all the police who begged for the laws to be enforced biased too?
How much worse could it get?

Interesting that you chose to bash the reporter instead of caling for your city to clean up the situation.
What is wrong with trying something that worked elsewhere?

 

San Fran says go ahead and poop and pee on the streets and it's OK to block the sidewalks with your makeshift home. Man o man.

Reminds me of a line from Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part 1". A guy approaches the King of France (Mel Brooks) and says; "Sire, the peasants are revolting". Brooks replies; "you bet. they stink on ice".

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/san-franciscos-newly-elected-da-pledges-not-to-prosecute-public-urination-other-quality-of-life-crimes

San Francisco's newly elected district attorney has promised not to prosecute public urination and other quality-of-life crimes that have plagued the lucrative Bay Area amid a crippling homelessness crisis affecting urban communities across California.

In response to an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire reported by The San Francisco Chronicle last month, Chesa Boudin said such crimes should not be prosecuted.

"We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes," he said. "Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted. Many of these crimes are still being prosecuted; we have a long way to go to decriminalize poverty and homelessness.”

 

Hmmmmmm. Someone must have told SF, Seattle, etc that Paris was the cultural capital of the West. They figured that in order to be more like Paris, they should have lots of people peeing in the streets and alleys. All the pooping is just one-upping the Parisians.

This sucks for Seattle. It used to be an awesome city. I spent some time there in 96 and 98. At that point in time, I thought it was the greatest city ever. For youth culture, music, etc., it was the best place in that era. The 1990s—the Seattle decade.

Austin has some of these problems, but not to the same degree. The challenge: create a vibrant, cutting-edge, Bohemian youth culture and independent music scene, without a bunch of urine and feces on the streets, and without aggressive panhandlers accosting people.

 

I hope a Bohemian youth culture and independent music can occur without people peeing and pooping on the street.
I see Abbott will create homeless camp on outskirts of Austin with tents potties hand washing stations and food provided by charities. Of course the mayor and other Dems say this isn't enough.
Maybe the Gov of Washington should do the same.

 

I made a road trip west about 18 months ago. Grand Canyon, LA, SF, Redwoods, Seattle and then home. Homelessness was a sad deal. I don't have an answer. I don't think a southern border issue has much impact on homelessness in Seattle. Wars in the middle east that are about to graduate high school might have more of an impact.

 

Be honest, you went to the Republik of Kalifornia to feed your "pee" fixation, correct?
I have an answer about how to fix the problems; do everything the exact opposite of what you believe.

 

I went to see the redwoods. I had a window in May for 2 weeks where kids had no school when I had a kid graduating from 8th grade and a college freshmen out of school. Also no summer ball stuff in that time. If you've not done it you should. We drove 5,600 miles in 9 days. Amazing. I don't plan to go to LA again. Too much congestion and not much to see. I'd spend more time in SF and Seattle again for the sight seeing and to just spend some more time there.

I don't claim to have the answers to homelessness. Just not sure addressing the southern border does much for Seattle.

 

Correct on the Southern border's mostly non-impact on homelessness in Seattle.

Root causes:

Mental illness (often severe)
Ridiculously high housing prices
Low to very low wages outside the professional ranks


Root causes of the ridiculously high housing prices:

- Exclusionary zoning laws and codes
- An NIMBY and I got mine sort of attitude buttressing the zoning and codes
- An anti-development, anti-suburban and certainly anti-paving and highway attitude
- Much public land (state and Nat'l forests and parks) immediately surrounding the area that cannot be developed
- Lack of fast ferries / fast water transport that is affordable, reliable, and frequent

 

Of course you’re correct here, addressing the southern border covers issues different than Seattle’s problems.

 

No one that I know of ever said a southern border had anything to do with or would impact Seattle or any cities' homeless problem.

Chop
excellent summation except you forgot to mention drugs

 

Ah, yes, since being poor automatically causes people to piss on the sidewalks. Austin must have far fewer poor and homeless than I thought, since in my entire life here I've seen less sidewalk urination than I did during 5 days in San Francisco almost 20 years ago.

 

I agree that Seattle used to be a great city. I visited a couple of times in the 90s and really enjoyed myself. SF also was a great city as recently as 15 years ago. Now they have both gone to Hell. Austin will too if the liberal politicians get their way.

 

Highlight is mine as the primary root cause which has been driven by the sheer volume of growth of the tech sector in the Seattle area in the last 20-30 years. Amazon is most obvious "villian" but other tech companies like Expedia, Microsoft, Tableau, Redfin, Zillow and many others are based in Seattle area. Silicon Valley stalwarts like Google, Facebook and Adobe have opened large campuses to try to poach from the Seattle tech companies. This says nothing for the boon in other Seattle based companies like T-Mobile, Costco, Starbucks and REI. High paying jobs are plentiful. That's just allows people to afford what is the biggest commodity, a very limited real estate supply.

Why is it limited? We are surrounded by water and mountains that cause natural land barriers to urban sprawl and significant transportation dilemmas, like the Bay area in California. To elucidate the land challenge Seattle rarely gets snow but a downtown Seattle resident can be skiing within 45 minutes (normal traffic) during the winter. Skiing in Snoqualmie pass that gets enough snow to close for avalanche control regularly throughout the Winter. We certainly like our green spaces and have a healthy love of hiking but shifts in national parks would have little impact on our housing situation.

With a super-hot housing market, builders investing in lower income housing vs. higher end housing (and profits) simply isn't housing without government intervention.

 

SH, you are very correct about high real estate being driven by geography and high demand due to the tech industry being centered there.

However, there are also regulatory and zoning issues that drive the cost up further.

 

You left off a primary cause. Addiction.

Additionally, if homes are too expensive, move to a better economy. Just don’t bring along the same politics that got you where you are.

 

California could relocate them to a moderate climate like, say, Austin....

 

Yes, we do have significant zoning challenges within King County but as I stare at 13 cranes in Bellevue and another dozen in Seattle building what amounts to 20-50 story buildings for both office and condo usage I don't think zoning is that much of an issue. Literally, the Seattle Metropolitan area is printing money in the real-estate market and nearly all new building is chasing that money. There is no room for low-income housing aside from those being forced on developers to get approval for higher income housing.

I do wonder why people who can't afford to live in the city don't simply leave. I'm convinced that the "soft hearted" nature promotes them to stay. I've spent the last 4 years working in downtown Seattle and commuting from the suburbs. The sheer volume of discarded clothing, tents and sleeping bags can only be explained by how easy it is to get these items for the homeless populations.

Addiction was mentioned above. Yes, Seattle has addiction problems no different than rural West Virginia. The difference is that the value of housing means that someone has to pay extreme property taxes on "flop houses" in Seattle and the moment that doesn't occur some entrepreneur is swooping in to scoop up the house renovate/rebuild and sell it to some new tech millennial

To put the housing values in context, I purchased a 1-bedroom 666ft condo in 2002 for $135k in a good location minutes from downtown Seattle. Last year I sold it for 300% of my initial purchase price. I sold because the landlord/tenant laws are HUGELY in favor of the tenant. Seattle City Council recently passed a law that would have forbid me from not renting to people with drug convictions. With that, I walked away, selling the condo to a single female newly relocated Amazon employee.

One thing that should be mentioned is that Amazon essentially dominates the downtown corporate real-estate and their employees have a strong desire to live near work. They have an estimated 60k employees working in their myriad of Seattle offices.

 

They are even killing the milk industry
Milk cows better learn to code

 

They already have.

 

Why don’t they go to Norman d’it.

 

Norman is not the temperate climate that Austin is.

 

I know but doesn’t stop me from wishing it. Nashville isn’t what I’d call temperate (though not bad) and they invading there too. Boise too and that’s definitely not temperate.

 

[cuteweatherchick] The forecast for Stormin' Norman today is mostly cloudy with a chance of tornadoes..........[/cuteweatherchick]

 

Trailers are expensive too.