David Brewster, a founding member of Post Alley, has a long career in publishing, having founded Seattle Weekly, Sasquatch Books, and Crosscut.com. His civic ventures have been Town Hall Seattle and FolioSeattle.
Obvious factors: a glut of restaurants, too much easy money, nervous lenders who pull the plug too soon, soaring rental rates, unsafe downtown streets, shortage of quality chefs.
When cities invest in the visitor market (hotels, convention centers, festivals) they are ordinarily playing a final, desperate card in economic development.
The Trump-led change in the law made tax filing easier for many middle-income filers, but it also suddenly eliminated a major incentive to give to charity.
Seattle, which has the resources and institutions to help the poor, is pushing these residents outward, thanks to high costs of housing. They move to tax-starved and taxpayer-hostile districts that can't or won't fund these services.
The whole story makes it clear what a huge lift the public option will be in Congress, or in individual states, and the extremely long odds for Medicare-for-all.
The Democrats running the House impeachment hearings are shrewdly playing the patriotism card, hoping that a patriotism narrative will displace the partisanship story the Republicans hope to...
What if we were to lid the downtown I-5? Or put all its traffic into new tunnels to the east? Or get rid of it entirely? Big visions, but also big questions.
A decade ago the orchestra was badly broken. After ten years of huge progress the SSO is playing better than it ever has and is a model of reinvention. And now another crossroads.
Is it wise to put the whole case in this one Ukraine basket? This scandal seems to have moved that meter only marginally. Trump's earlier potential crimes and misdemeanors, if less serious, may be easier to understand.
The rapid hiring by Amazon explains a good deal of the Millennial bulge. At the other end of the age spectrum, few older people migrate to a place like King County, and some older people will migrate out to warmer, quieter, less expensive places.
In dynamic West Coast cities, attracting young people from around the country does not seem to be a problem. Whether they choose to stay and build their lives in these cities is another question, and is tied closely to the price of housing and the lengths of commutes.
