Kemper Freeman Jr. is a textbook example of why the US needs to return to the Eisenhower tax rates. I'm sick and tired of self-important trust fund babies using their hoarded cash to attempt to dictate public policy.

A developer in favor of sprawl-friendly transportation options? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!

Freeman has the idea of cars tied up with the idea of "freedom". He fetishizes them. Have you ever noticed how roomy the parking stalls are at Bellevue Square compared to other garages?

He was raised seeped in car culture, in mall culture, and in suburban culture. Like many old people, he doesn't like new ideas and he's evidentially not a fan of Democracy (neither am I for that matter, but why get worked up over a public works project?)

Look at the stuff he builds: it's not flashy or Donald Trumpish, it's very high end, very well-constructed, and very NW bland. It's the sort of thing people with money buy when they have no taste, which is a good, dependable market, but certainly not innovative.

He has seen the eastside go from a collection of solidly middle-class subdivisions with a few wealthy enclaves, to a place that imagined itself as a "lifestyle" for the affluent, to a growing metropolitan area in it's own right, but I don't think he gets the last iteration.

When he goes it will be interesting to see what the heirs do with his beloved downtown Bellevue. Will they continue down his profitable but controlling path, or will they take the money and run? Will they embrace the new Bellevue, or will it always be an imaginary setting for "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous"?

Few rich have any love for anything that benefits the general welfare and quality of life for our communities. "The root of all evil is the love of money" should be their motto. They are islands of selfishness.

America’s population density is falling

In the US as a whole, population-weighted population density fell by 16 people per square mile between 2000 and 2010, while in metropolitan areas it fell by an enormous 405 people per square mile.

What could be going on? The best answer, I think, comes from David Schleicher, a George Mason professor who’s an expert on the political economy of urban areas.

…

These rich and powerful have two important effects on urban density. Firstly, they decrease density just by moving to the city: they do that by dint of the fact that they live in larger homes with smaller families.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/20…

When you walk through the [Southcenter] mall, the way the customer dresses just to shop there — the light blue and pink hair curlers, the shoes that flop, flop, flop along — it's a completely different customer.

-- Kemper Freeman, racist and classist asshole

Kemper Freeman is a prime example of why some insects eat their own young.

The guy sounds like he's slipping into Howard Hughes territory.

One thing my dad said to me once has stuck with me as one of his most lucid observations. Just as the very poor can't get mental health care, the very wealthy also don't get it because they can surround themselves with yes men - leeches who care nothing about the welfare of the person to whom they attach - because he can't face the truth.

Now, I exaggerate a bit when I suggest this kind of denial is a mental illness on par with what Hughes suffered. But the phenomenon is the same otherwise - a rich old asshole who only wants to hear what he believes isn't much different from a rich but mentally ill individual who doesn't recognize his illness.

#6

Well, he owns a competing mall, so he would say that.

As someone who frequently goes to Southcenter, I find the people there are dressed much better than an average selection of people in downtown Seattle and maybe even Bellevue, as in Southcenter they tend to wear clothing from the current decade.

@3: I appreciate the large slot sizes - less chance for scraping someone else's car. That's why to go to Bellevue Square often.

i forgot how paranoid he was about alternative transportation advocates and "the left". i think he really believes people dedicate their careers with sound transit just to fuck up the american economy.

and a 30-year transition off fossil fuel? to pull that off, you have to start doing stuff in the 1st year (like build light rail), not wait till year 29.

Maybe he opposes light rail for the obvious reasons. It's always astronomically expensive (prevailing wage my ass, nobody should earn profession level wages for menial labor and in the private market they don't) even excluding the inevitable 25% or more "cost overruns". It changes commuter behavior very little, most people preferring the comfort and convenience of their car. Those who do ride these public boondoggles do so at enormous subsidy from other taxpayers. Yep. Good enough reasons to oppose for me.

I don't get where the black-or-white worldview comes from. So he believes Sound Transit isn't following the rules so rather than work to fix it (and as a man with influence and power he surely could) he admits he wants to destroy it.

What if his precious mall was found in violation of some building codes? Could we argue that we could tear the whole stinking thing down rather than correct the violation?

@12 your comment re 'prevailing wages' shows in a wonderful nutshell just how ignorant and backward you are about how real people do real work.

You clearly have never operated anything harder than a stapler. And how un christian of you too, to think that others don't deserve fair pay for their work.

Someone here asks you if you confess to your pastor just how often you post here, how unchristian your postings are, and how ugly and insulting you can be.

How about it, SB- talked to your pastor about SLOG lately?

Reading the interview with Freeman the overriding sense I get from him is he's not the evil asshole I once though, he's a new type of delusional asshole I never imagined.

What I got from that was computers are BS. Well, I certainly agree with that. Advertising is brainwashing- can't argue.

Mr. Freeman is a boating enthusiast (RIP Mitch Hedberg) who believes size doesn't matter (unless it's land miles of new highway or square feet of new retail space coming online.)

I'll bet great-grandad was a Taurus. But, I'm an Aquarius so I really don't get along with Virgos and usually can't comprehend Libras.

@12 I agree that a street hooker on Aurora should not make the wages of a professional sex-worker (but, the convenience and comfort of transacting business in your personal vehicle is hard to ignore.)

@1 High fucking five! Hell, I'd settle for Nixon era rates.

did Eli ever follow up with ST on Freeman's ridership numbers?

@ 12, you enjoy being wrong, don't you? That's the only thing I can conclude from your participation here on Slog. If it was just a big con, you would have tired out long ago.

A while ago, I was told that Freeman's real estate empire was built on land his dad obtained by taking over the properties of Japanese American orchard growers who were interned during WWII. Can anyone confirm this for me?

@21:

http://books.google.com/books?id=0krO6Rp…

@8: Kemper's version of the Spruce Goose has skis!

#12, maintaining all the streets your asshole-carrying vehicle destroys every time it rolls over them, plus the expenses if all the traffic accidents, air pollution, groundwater pollution, traffic fatalities, traffic signals, wars for oil, road cleaning equipment snd the like far outstrips the money put into public transportation.

You are ignorant, stupid, selfish, gullible, and a blight on humanity. You are a bad person and you should feel bad.

So how much did Freeman pay the Seattle Times to publish advertisements masquerading as articles when he opened his Bravern shopping center. I swear the Blethen Family Newsletter had a daily article on that topic for nearly a month after the place opened.