But but but...The Stranger PROMISED us that if we just kept building all of those high priced apartments and condos while destroying every single bit of low priced housing that we'd have affordable housing for all?!?!?

The shoes are a memorial to a woman who was killed crossing the street. They're not an abstract statement. Not sure how they reflect gentrification.

Equilibrium is a good thing - it's a natural state of balance - but in his (dare I say 'pedal to the metal') drive to be poetic, Charles once again simply spews out bad writing.

This is what we get when our society gets structured for the needs of the economy, instead of the economy structured for the needs of society.
Time to start spreading out onto complementary currencies to reduce the constant "GROWTH! bust."-cycle pressures of our positive-interest currencies.

@1-

Do you (or Charles) think those older apartments would have stayed affordable over the last decade as the city added tens of thousands of new jobs? Would not building new housing have stopped the techies from moving to Seattle?

I was priced out of my apartment after 18 years there. I'm now in Oregon, paying less for a huge 2 bedroom than my Seattle studio rented for. Seattle is for rich people now. They can have it.

@5

Maybe. If, over the last twenty years, the city would've removed height caps, parking garage mandates, implemented market controls, invested in more low income housing, and not allowed developers to game the system anyway they wanted.

Instead Seattle half assed everything so we ended up with the worst of both worlds and only property management groups, landlords and investment banks have benefited.

@1, the problem is that 85% of land available to housing is restricted to single family units. And even in areas where high density housing is technically possible to build, home owners associations and local property boards can say "Nope, we don't want to alter the character of our neighborhood."
Want to drive down the price of housing and rental units? Make it so that if a developer can acquire a suitably sized chunk of land with the proper services and infrastructure available the neighborhood cannot veto the development simply because they don't like the idea.

Increased housing density through development IS a long-range strategy at fighting climate change. It's just that nobody uses that as a talking point because people's lizard-brains can't absorb it.

And, fwiw, there are many studies that show that producing housing of ANY type helps the overall affordability in the local housing market. The regulations that prevent enough housing from being built are mostly artificial (zoning, financing, subsidies, investment, federal/state/city policy).

http://www.sightline.org/2016/04/20/how-…

If many or all of these are modified/overturned to allow housing to be built by any means necessary (like the SF anarchists BARF are attempting to do), there is a chance that Seattle can still get out in front of the housing affordability crisis. It's just not likely with this mayor who is constitutionally too timid, cautious and conflict-averse to take on the local single-family zoning power structure...

@6 Portland was not happy to see you arrive. Portland is always lagging Seattle's bad trends by ten years or so, so work hard, or you'll be relocating again to Boise or somewhere.

You think Seattle is a place for Russians and Chinese oligarchs to park hidden billions in real estate like Vancouver, SF, NYC? Interesting.

I don't want to live in a city like San Francisco where every generation is new to the City. I want Seattle to have roots to have people who know what the hydros are, who don't say 'pike's place' and still call it the Puyallup Fair. I don't even care if people move here but dammit move here because you love the city not because its 'hip' or 'expensive'. Don't be a bastard who complains because 'Seattle isn't like ...'. For all the people who love the city but are forced to leave for bullshit reasons: I miss you :(

@2, still a sign. sorry. who can tell the difference between that statement and the whimsical art that's so popular with middle-class americans?

San Francisco has better protections for existing small businesses. That's why there are still dive bars in the Mission.

@6 and 10...moved to OREGON - it was not clear that #6 moved to Portland which will be next...duh, if you want to buy a house there's Cleveland, OH, Lincoln, NE or maybe Portland, ME...which are not exactly on the same caliber of Seattle or Portland in terms of livability nor have the economy. So, yes, move to Oregon and wherever you may - one of the main reasons Seattle is so fucked (as is SF and Vancouver) is because it is so incredible and beautiful.

Charles are you moving or fighting?

I think this argument is invalid. Developers would build more supply BUT FOR the onerous zoning regulations that exist in Seattle & beyond. If Charles' theory is true, then we would expect no changes in developer behavior when zoning laws are relaxed.

If the scary yellow people come in and buy buildings, then the market will respond to build more supply to match demand. We don't let them because tall buildings hurt people's feelings.

@14: People who actually know the area they live in, or people who are willing to do five seconds of research on a topic.

That $385,000 figure is ridiculously low and says nothing about Seattle. That's the Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. The median home price in the city of Seattle is closer to $600,000.

Interest rates have the biggest effect on housing prices.

Wow CM, truly riveting reporting. I had no idea. Maybe next you can opine about how those darn Starbucks are popping up everywhere or those new "a-pod-ments" replacing low-income housing...

(PS WE ALL KNEW THIS IN LIKE 2009 WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS NOW)

I LOVE articles that claim "we're totally fucked!" and "game over!"

Seattle is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. If you can't see that, you just haven't been wearing the right glasses.
Or maybe you need one of those really expensive VR headsets from Google. That way you can still support the tech industry while getting a full-on experience of being "totally fucked".

Interesting data-point. My neighborhood, in south Shoreline, is getting a light rail station in 2023.

More transit = good, right? That's how we deal with rapidly increasing density, right?

Yes, except that the subsequent re-zoning of my neighborhood from single-family to multi-family/mixed commercial is going to spike the fuck out of property values here as developers look to buy up existing real estate and re-develop it into more units.

@22 Now that's disingenuous. It callously ignores the diaspora and displacement of many residents who have made Seattle their home for generations. Which has a negative impact in innumerable ways.

The humans moving here are, demographically, pretty much all homogenous white people with the same sorts of backgrounds. Most are not putting down roots here. Most of the tech demographic, as Silicon Valley is an excellent test case, do not invest themselves in the community either politically or culturally.

Not to mention a one sector economy - run by Libertarian egomaniacs - is neither robust nor healthy. The second there is a contraction at Amazon we will be left with over priced housing stock that will, of course, eventually deflate after the tax base collapses like in the early 1970's. And then, if other markets are any indication, the stock be bought up by property investment groups and the whole cycle will repeat.

Charles is right about one thing. Housing does not behave like other commodities. If left to market forces alone we will be truly fucked.

The US today has roughly the median age of Japan at the time of the bursting of the asset bubble in the early 90s, which has been followed famously by years of economic stagnation and bouts of deflation. There are now abandoned houses in once-inflated suburbs of Tokyo.

The US's demographics aren't as bad as Japan's (the median age increased by roughly a couple decades in the post-War era but Japan is projected to continue to have an aging population, while the median age here is forecast to increase by only a few more years in coming decades) but that doesn't mean the insanity of coastal metro housing prices will necessarily continue. I'm not wholly convinced a reckoning is coming, but I increasingly think it's a substantial possibility.

I do like the idea of saying that neighborhoods can't require buildings to be less than 6 stories. That should be the new minimum maximum height. And neighborhoods should not be able to shoot down new housing just because of the character of their neighborhood. Also, eminent domain for properties owned by foreign landlords. Heck, maybe even out of state landlords. That would be a great source of property for public housing.

No situation is permanent. San Francisco slowly declined in population for 30 years until the 1980s.

@28

Seattle is getting whiter, census finds

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-guy/20…

It's true Seattle has always been pretty white. But it's getting whiter and less diverse in terms of culture and class. It's not just race. Which I regret emphasizing, honestly.

As for unsubstantiated opinions? Which ones? That the tech sector is famously apathetic and self centered? That the tech sector hires from very narrow cultural segments? That guys like Bezos are libertarians who don't give a shit about their communities if it doesn't serve their narrow selfish interests? These are not opinions. I worked in tech for thirty years.

Do you want more cites? Or would you even believe those if I posted them? Somehow I doubt you'd even read them.

Look, I'm glad there are high paying jobs coming into this city. But there has to be proactive balance.

I've made a small fortune off of tech. I'm doing great. I own property. I own commercial property. It's the rest of you that are, in Charles words, about to be fucked.

But I also lived in the Bay Area. I know the mistakes made down there and how dysfunctional of a monoculture the tech sector is. It's happening here and happening fast.

@30 And I think that is part of Charles point. You really can't truly build your way out of housing crisis - at least not by relying on market forces alone. Builders won't build much more than can optimally sell. Unless incentivized by some other extra-market force.

So. Yes. Eventually there will be a economic contraction and, yes, eventually, we'll have an over supply. This is not "building our way to affordable housing." It's boom and bust.

Relying on boom and bust is not only heartless and traumatic for the bulk of the people living here, it's foolish.

@32 - Precisely.

The only constant in Seattle IS change....

STEINBECK travels with charley, 1962

on how Seattle changed:

The tops of hills are shaved off to make level warrens for the rabbits of the present. The highways eight lanes wide cut like glaciers through the uneasy land.... Everywhere frantic growth, a carcinomatous growth. Bulldozers rolled up the green forests and heaped the resulting trash for burning. The torn white lumber from concrete forms was piled beside gray walls. I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

When I drew into one of these gems of comfort and convenience, registered, and was shown to my comfortable room after paying in advance, of course, that was the end of any contact with the management. There were no waiters, no bell boys. The chambermaids crept in and out invisibly. If I wanted ice, there was a machine near the office. I got my own ice, my own papers. Everything was convenient, centrally located, and lonesome. I lived in the utmost luxury. Other guests came and went silently. If one confronted them with "Good evening," they looked a little confused and then responded, "Good evening." It seemed to me that they looked at me for a place to insert a coin."

Here's an even better one from Steinbeck, 1962, about growth in general and Seattle:

And here a generality concerning the growth of American cities, seemingly true of all of them I know. When a city begins to grow and spread outward, from the edges, the center which was once its glory is in a sense abandoned to time. Then the buildings grow dark and a kind of decay sets in; poorer people move in as the rents fall, and small fringe businesses take the place of once flowering establishments. The district is still too good to tear down and too outmoded to be desirable. Besides, all the energy has flowed out to the new developments, to the semi-rural supermarkets, the outdoor movies, new houses with wide laws and stucco schools where children are confirmed in their illiteracy.

The old port with narrow streets and cobbled surfaces, smoke-grimed, goes into a period of desolation inhabited at night by the vague ruins of men, the lotus eaters who struggle daily toward unconsciousness by way of raw alcohol. Nearly every city I know has such a dying mother of violence and despair where at night the brightness of the street lamps is sucked away and policemen walk in pairs. And then one day perhaps the city returns and rips out the sore and builds a monument to its past.

I'm still here. & I'm beautiful.

@35 - That's a great passage.

Someone thinks one day Seattle will be as good a place as San Francisco or Vancouver?

I don't believe it

Stay Frosty.

Everyone chill out. Enough with the doom and gloom. Seattle is a badass place to live. You wouldn't live here if it wasn't, or if it truly was fucked.

First it's Rainier that's gonna fuck us, then a megaquake and Tsunami floods. Everyone west of I-5 are toast. And now increased property values and econmic growth after a recession spells f-u-c-k-e-d?

Chill out. Enjoy the present greatness of Seattle and all the Pacific NW. I hope I can, and also hope to view the future and inevitable change with optimism.

"Become"? Wrong verb tense.

Exactly, @18. Charles, this "ghost shoe" memorial went up after this happened.
http://www.kiro7.com/news/pedestrian-hit…

It's along the same lines as the "ghost bike" memorial. You can dismiss it whimsical white people art if you want to, but please acknowledge the intent. Please edit your piece to reflect the sincerity of the effort and at least give some sort of nod to the fact that someone died in this intersection.

It's also worth noting that El Centro is still plugging away at building the Beloved Community a mere block away from this intersection. There's plenty of art going up on those buildings--all of it intentionally referencing the "Four Amigos" who first helped create El Centro de la Raza. The Station coffeeshop is just around the corner--lots of art (of all kinds) going on there.

There's plenty of fodder for wringing hands about gentrification in Beacon Hill. If you're going to write a "Game Over" piece, find something a little more frivolous.

@40 - Amen. As a longtime area resident I empathize with those of us that liked it better when you could pay $700 for a Cap Hill apartment and there were restaurants that served something besides $17 fucking hamburgers and street parking was plentiful, etc. But for real - name me another major American city that has just about all the perks of city living - arts, music, good food - but is located within an hour or two of just about any outdoor activity you could want - skiing, hiking, boating, etc. You could maybe make an argument for Denver/Portland/Bay Area, but all those places come with downsides too. Vast swaths of this country are barren hellholes compared to Seattle. Yeah, it's getting too expensive to live, but that's mostly the fault of a rich landed gentry of this city that insists on nothing but suburban-style single-family houses in 60% of a booming urban area and voted down needed transit investments decades ago.

bring in more overtly gay/bsdm satanic/occult restaurants, coffee shops and stores to the neighborhoods.

I can't afford to live in Monte Carlo and eat at Restaurante Joël Robuchon. So I don't. I'd like too. But I can't.

You can't afford a condo rental and a $17 hamburger in one of the world's most geographically advantaged, technologically important cities.

So boo hoo for both of us.

Seattle isn't your birthright you spoiled babies. If you wanna' stay here, get off your asses and do something more or better than other people who you're competing with for the same wages and housing.

The "techies" aren't coming in and stealing your city from you. The future has been knocking at the front fucking door of Seattle for 25 years. If you were still studying women's lit-history or film studies with giant student loans that make rent tough to cover, then – yeah – fuckin-aye Darwin.

That property and business owners here struck down schemes for development isn't a conspiracy. It's called democracy. People vote and get some benefit and incur some consequences. If you believe your interests and ideas for our property are more vital then – in fact –  No, we don't need any more teapot dictators in the city. Move. But skip Brooklyn or London, because they will kick your soft coddled ass.

Nobody else "owes" you a Seattle.

So the contention here is that the housing market "does not answer to the basic laws of supply and demand. That kind of thing happens in a system with very different institutional arrangements." That's an interesting hypothesis. Crap institutions very often lead to market failure! So, where's the evidence of this? All I see is a study concerning London's real estate market. And yet in this piece that somehow explains Seattle's unique institutional structure and why increased supply will not resolve the issue? I don't think you understand how institutional analysis works. One cannot simply assert that the issues confronting London's housing market (the Buy to Let phenomenon and a very different approach to mortgage lending) are identical to Seattle. Rather, what you need to do is to clarify the unique set of institutions in Seattle that would prevent increases in supply from altering price levels. That's a rather huge claim - but it is do-able if the data is there to support the contention. What we have here is not that. What we have here is a rather lazy cross-application of a study that is not generalizable. A worse than useless article.

I say we take off and nuke the entire greater Seattle area from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

@14 I tell you who can tell the difference. The people who live on Beacon Hill and have been talking about what to do about the crosswalk there where our longstanding neighbor (who was minority by the way) got killed in the crosswalk. All the families on Beacon Hill want safer pedestrian crossings. There is more that unites us than separates us.

Hate to say it, but the desire for safer crosswalks is a sure sign of gentrificqtion.