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.
Restaurants are reinventing themselves in this way, knowing that eating outdoors is healthier for resisting transmission of the coronavirus. Might Seattle reinvent itself broadly as an outdoors city, despite the mild and rainy winters?
Mort Kondracke
Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum, a nonprofit membership library in the Pike Place Market, is launching a digital series of live discussions...
"What troubled me about the whole convention center business/financial model was its self-feeding locomotion. Once a city begins to compete in the big leagues (not unlike sports) it has to buy into a whole multi-decade commitment. And the bar keeps getting raised."
How we can tame this beast, and (if it comes to this) what might be a better use of the convention center 3, now one-third built and facing a serious financing problem?
The big political question is whether the new progressive majority on the Seattle City Council can adjust to the new economic realities and find the coherence to actually get something done.
Old institutions in Seattle never die, they just fade and fade. So hats off to the Port for agreeing to "delay" its misbegotten plans for a giant new cruise ship terminal in south Downtown. And while we're at it...
And what would a city-state of Seattle look like? It would be a progressive bloc, quite unified in its politics, particularly over the environment, social justice (attention Amazon!), and climate issues. It would be diverse, welcoming to migrants, globally open.
Ultimately, the advocates ran out of time, the complicated house of cards toppled, and the first appearance of the coronavirus crisis distracted everybody.
It was a moment of emergence for the the region, though it may not have momentum. I count at least four areas where these new leaders have impressively stepped up, often leading the nation in pandemic responses.
Start with realizing that the big bridge is going to be out of service for probably 5-10 more years, so West Seattle is effectively marooned. How about making the best of it by developing it as an independent city, with more jobs, affordable housing, lots of Capitol Hill-style shops and cafes and cultural vibe?
Restaurants are reinventing themselves in this way, knowing that eating outdoors is healthier for resisting transmission of the coronavirus. Might Seattle reinvent itself broadly as an outdoors city, despite the mild and rainy winters?
Until very recently the King County suburbs were the state’s main battleground. Now the swing districts are in Pierce, Mason, Clark, Cowlitz, Skagit, Island, and Whatcom counties. There are ZERO competitive partisan races in King County this year.
The wearing and non-wearing of masks serves as a convenient statement in this rural county. Wearing one in town I definitely felt like I was signaling my tribal identity, which seems crazy, but there it is."
