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News & ArtsMonday, December 3, 2012
City Seattle Named Third-Smartest City in North America
Posted by Dominic Holden on Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:26 PM
Co.EXIST credits our, uh, "smart governance."
Hmm...
Needless to say, Co.EXIST isn't based in Seattle.
1
Seattle is filled with a lot of people who don't know the difference between thinking they're smart and actually being smart. I've never met a place with so many dumb 'smart' people.
7
#1, you bastard! Never tell smart people something they don't want to hear! How could you be so dumb?
11
It's interesting to dig into the Rutgers survey from which this outfit drew its ranking of Seattle on "smart governance".
Turns out it's nothing to do with how well Seattle may provide what we citizens need, just how well it provides us with internet mechanisms describing what's available and providing lots of ways to reach city hall.
In other words, we're tops for techie paths Seattleites can use to yell at (er, communicate with) city departments.
But how well, or even whether, the city might do anything with what we e-yell to them? Looks like that's outside the scope of the article and the survey it draws from.
Turns out it's nothing to do with how well Seattle may provide what we citizens need, just how well it provides us with internet mechanisms describing what's available and providing lots of ways to reach city hall.
In other words, we're tops for techie paths Seattleites can use to yell at (er, communicate with) city departments.
But how well, or even whether, the city might do anything with what we e-yell to them? Looks like that's outside the scope of the article and the survey it draws from.
13
@11 My favorite path is SDOT's blog. They have a post where you can ask any relevant question and they try to get you an answer. This has to simultaneously reduce frustration, increase involvement, and increase knoledge of how our government functions and why the rules are the way they are. It's an absolute win for citizen-government interaction and probably only costs about one employee's time. I think every department should have this.
17
World class smart! Sustainably smart! With the best mayor and city council a billionaire can rent!
20
It looks okay until you look at it from the inside. From the outside Seattle looks to be smartly governed, but don't ask how that sausage gets made
21
Having recently moved back to the area after five years in Spokane, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Seattle's city government could be a lot, lot worse.
22
Socrates once stated that the only thing he knew for sure was that he knew nothing worth knowing. For this, the Oracle at Dephi declared him the wisest man in the world.
Similarly, the Greater Seattle Area has an abnormally high number of residents possessing college degrees. The single greatest concentration of atheists in America live in the GSA. We elected the first female mayor of a major US city before anyone else did, passed Equal Marriage by referendum before anyone else did, named Seattle's county after Dr King and have elected two female governors. We legalized pot before the rest of the country did. We are famous for music and the arts. We are home to multiple world-class universities and colleges. We are home to research science hubs such as Hutchinson Labs. Our cafe culture (the cafe being the traditional haunt of the intelligentsia) is so rich that every independently owned coffee shop is like a university in miniature, lined with books and host to poetry slams, music, art. and endless conversations. If the Midwest is the Heartland, we are the Brainland (and I guess that makes the South the ass-or at least, Florida can safely be called the cockland).
And yet, we react to claims that our state, and the part along I-5 can be called the Third Smartest on the continent.
Oh Seattle, if only you knew how beautiful you really are. And even if the Seattle Freeze is how you return the feeling, I'm madly in love with you.
Similarly, the Greater Seattle Area has an abnormally high number of residents possessing college degrees. The single greatest concentration of atheists in America live in the GSA. We elected the first female mayor of a major US city before anyone else did, passed Equal Marriage by referendum before anyone else did, named Seattle's county after Dr King and have elected two female governors. We legalized pot before the rest of the country did. We are famous for music and the arts. We are home to multiple world-class universities and colleges. We are home to research science hubs such as Hutchinson Labs. Our cafe culture (the cafe being the traditional haunt of the intelligentsia) is so rich that every independently owned coffee shop is like a university in miniature, lined with books and host to poetry slams, music, art. and endless conversations. If the Midwest is the Heartland, we are the Brainland (and I guess that makes the South the ass-or at least, Florida can safely be called the cockland).
And yet, we react to claims that our state, and the part along I-5 can be called the Third Smartest on the continent.
Oh Seattle, if only you knew how beautiful you really are. And even if the Seattle Freeze is how you return the feeling, I'm madly in love with you.
23
@22 it's also one of the whitest cities on the planet. Helps explain why it's such a nice place doesn't it?
27
"Dominic: I think you may be underestimating how poorly most American cities are governed."
Yup. Seattle is one of a handful of municipalities (including counties) that has a AAA bond rating, for example.
Yup. Seattle is one of a handful of municipalities (including counties) that has a AAA bond rating, for example.
28
Seattle is governed by titans of intellect compared to places like Houston. I know, I live there and am leaving. Imagine if you will, a light rail like that already existed and was torn up to provide an extra lane of freeway (which is now once again a parking lot), people who eschew zoning so subdivisions pop up anywhere, and since there is no overall planning, you get no bridges built over bayous since the subdivision developers want to save money. Even in a city flatter than a pancake, nothing connects. Because of sheer Republican ignorance, taxes are "low" and yet you have massively high property tax, car tax, car inspection fees, house alarm tax, $350 air conditioning bills, $150 water bills, and the police have "revenue enhancement", which involves you and a $200-$400 ticket (depending on your skin color) to teach you that going 10 miles over the speed limit is a bad thing. Oh, and that no central planning thing means no flood control districts so half the city floods every year with or without a hurricane. And all the freeways look like shit thanks to no zoning since every strip mall developer wants to locate his cut-rate strip mall complete with Chick Fil A and Papa John's right along the interstate just in front of the forest of unsightly billboards.
Don't get me started on the lack of sidewalks, the lack of farmers markets, or the massive effort that apparently exists to mow down every tree in existence and replace them with finely manicured corporate saplings ever so cleverly positioned in front of the strip mall at precise intervals to appeal to the same sort of people who have bumper stickers on their cars asking "Where's the Birth Certificate?" and "I (heart) My Carbon Footprint".
Seattle without question has problems in governance, but take a look around sometime guys.
More...
Don't get me started on the lack of sidewalks, the lack of farmers markets, or the massive effort that apparently exists to mow down every tree in existence and replace them with finely manicured corporate saplings ever so cleverly positioned in front of the strip mall at precise intervals to appeal to the same sort of people who have bumper stickers on their cars asking "Where's the Birth Certificate?" and "I (heart) My Carbon Footprint".
Seattle without question has problems in governance, but take a look around sometime guys.
30
AND only Seattle has the S L U T, along with other trolley/streetcars and a monorail that don't connect with each other!
32
I think of Seattle as an eccentric aunt or uncle. Smart, yes. Heart mostly in right place, yes. Has some deep expertise, yes. Interesting but not dangerously so, yes. Strangely nonfunctional regarding certain basics most people do almost automatically.
33
@26 yes, liberal white Seattle stuffed all their non-Asian minorities in one zip code; one they are slowly gentrifying. A few white adventurers head into the Columbia city bakery and suddenly they think they've gone ghetto. Of course none of them send their kids to Rainier valley High School.
Pretty sure the RV is not the heart of Seattle's brains industry either.
Pretty sure the RV is not the heart of Seattle's brains industry either.
34
Gotta love folks who cheerlead Seattle's diversity until you point out to them Bellevue is just as diverse.
37
If we'd had a city-wide monorail system by now, instead of the corrupt politicians, and those half-witted members of the electorate who recently moved here (and that idiot who wrote a movie review at The Stranger and called the only transportation idea not from the developers a "bad idea" --- douchebagger!!!) who believed those uber-rich developers' "transportation" ideas, ancient streetcars, and other equally moronic ideas which don't further transportation in urban or exurban habitats, we'd be NUMBER ONE.
38
I just read another article on Politics and became sick to my stomach again. All I need now is some bone marrow soup to rejuvenate me (with Chinese and Ayurveda herbs).
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