I want to make this short. There is no need to make more noise about the matter than is necessary. And you will see why. To begin with, Seattle now has a new right and an old right. Council Member Bob Kettle presents us with an example of the former. Not only does he want more cops, he recently made it clear he wants to keep cars in Pike Place Market. As The Urbanist explained, Kettle wants to “exclude funding for the Pike Place Event Street” from “the next transportation levy.” This would basically remove any change (in any direction—pro-car or anti-car) from the table. The result? What already exists (pro-car Pike Place Market) continues as is. Because there is no rational reason to permit cars into the pedestrian-dense street, a street filled with tourists, we must conclude that Kettle’s pro-car action is no deeper than the kick one sees when a stimulus is applied to the leg of a dead frog.
Let’s now turn to the Post Alley article, “Is Seattle Growing Too Fast, and Can We Do Anything About That?” It’s by David Brewster, one of the most recognizable figures of Seattle’s old right.
David Brewster (sorry, wrong link), who sees himself as the voice of reason (and reason not in the sense of common sense—that’s Brandi Kruse’s racket—but in the enlightened, civil spirit sense), is not the deep thinker he imagines himself to be and believes the public sees him as. One only has to read his most recent post to see the plainness of this fact. There is nothing in it guided by a concept (or theory—I prefer the former because it doesn’t refer to eyesight). As a consequence, its reasoning is much like a pinball being bumped from one irritation to the next: Seattle is getting swamped by people from California; Seattle’s metropolitan area is now, horror of horrors, “wall-to-wall urbanized”; Seattle needs to clear the clogs in its highways; Seattle needs to export its surplus population to the suburbs; and Ballard, poor old Ballard, no longer has enough sunlight because it’s overcrowded.
This is the old right, for sure. And the older it gets, more to the right it moves.
Let’s take a look this passage:
Seattle’s developer-driven politics has exploited our competitive advantage by making construction of housing and office towers comparatively easier. Seattle, for instance, has put up thousands of new residential units, so far with little effect on housing prices.
What the hell is “competitive advantage”? Is he drawing this expression, which conceptually means nothing, from economics? Is it like David Ricardo’s “comparative advantage“? Or something like it? And if so, Brewster has yet to properly grasp (begreifen) the essence of the concept, which appeared not long after another concept he uses without knowing it, Malthusianism (this regards his population thinking). Both concepts ran out of gas long, long ago. For example, what comparative advantage did Japan have after its transition to a market-determined society? The South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang has made this point again and again. Economic development along capitalist lines does not require, as its point of departure, a comparative advantage. Also, as the geographer Danny Dorling pointed out years ago: the problem is not population growth but a society’s carbon footprint. Kenyans can add another 50 million to their population and still not come close to the amount of carbon that’s liberated to maintain the socially engineered practices of Americans. So, what in the world is Brewster going on about?
To make matters worse, his lack of concept-thinking is accompanied by a complete lack of historical development structured by a market society. He claims that building houses under market conditions has “little effect on housing prices.” But the historical record shows that affordable housing has never been provided by the market. Only the state can supply this public good. And it can do, so far, in only two ways: in the form of social housing or, in the case of the US, state-backed longterm loans (from this we get the suburbs). So, his conclusion of the housing crisis is nothing but a bucket with more holes than bucket.
And what about this:
There is, to be sure, a smarter way to deal with transit: more east-west bus lines in Seattle, automated shuttles, on-demand cars and vans in most neighborhoods, fixing highway choke points, congestion pricing for freeways and downtown. But that would mean taking on the Sound Transit political juggernaut, and the agency (with 77 positions in communications alone) is unlikely to budge.
Does Brewster even watch TV or something of the kind? Maybe the Sweet Sixteen games? What you will find all over are ads for SUVs and massive pickup trucks. It’s wall-to-wall social engineering. It’s there every day. To call Sound Transit a “political juggernaut” because it has “77 positions in communications” is nothing but stunning.
In 2022, Ford alone (meaning, not including other US, Japanese, Korean, Swedish automakers) spent nearly $1.5 billion on ads. You have never seen an ad for real-world (meaning, empirically proved benefits) public transportation during the Super Bowl. None. They do not even appear during Seahawks or Mariners games. All we get from Sound Transit in this sector (professional sports) are ads on the web promoting transit to the games. And yet Brewster somehow sees 77 people working in the social engineering department at Sound Transit as ultra-powerful. Seventy-seven. Less than a hundred. I wonder if Brewster can even count (or imagine) the number of people who made just this ad for Ford?
Cars in Pike Place Market = the new “right????” Nevermind that cars been there all along, even during Seattle’s progressive policymaker peak (2015-2023, #neverforget lefty council). I think trying to drive through a pedestrian thoroughfare is a dumb idea, but this does not register on the left/right ideology. Seems like a non-partisan issue in search of political spin.
when people are here from flyover states, we fire up the stake bed and drive the pike loop, over to the moore, and around capital, like it’s cruise night on van nuys blvd circa 72.
nothing says seattle like getting stuck in a cloud of patchouli and dank in the middle of the street.
What does a “social engineering” department do at Sound Transit and why does it need 77 people to do it? This sounds like a right wing plot to turn the public against transit. And if it’s real, the public should never vote for a transit levy again.
Everyone wants Seattle to have the same walkability as NYC (where I’m from). Still, you forget that there is NO WAY TO GET ANYWHERE in a decent amount of time without a ton of walking except a few chosen places around the city with halfway decent public RAPID transportation. You have to provide the rapid transit FIRST, and then walkability happens, not the other way around. And I’m not talking about stupid buses. I’m talking trains that move quickly, have express routes, and a transit map that meshes over the city in a way that is actually helpful to most residents.
And no, we don’t want to ride bikes in the frakking cold and rain.
justme1 dear, “social engineering” is just charlestalk for a communications department. They coordinate advertising, handle PR and public meetings, sell ad space on the fleet, etc.
But Our Dear Charles does have something of a point: Madison Ave has been telling us for more than a century that our self-worth and freedoms are tied to the car we drive. There’s no transit agency or city government that can compete with that.
As for the cars in Pike Place issue: it’s been debated for decades, yet the market continues to thrive. Leave it be.
Big Transpo’s
engineered US
into a dead end
street: first, they
they came for our
Trolleys and trains
& sold us Sexy back
seats & enough Free
Will to choke a horse
whilst we sit in
luxury condos on
Wheels waiting for
everyone Else to get
the Fuck home to catch
the Next Episode of true
crime solving Po-po catching
Everthing but those selling to Us
our imminent demise at their hands
Global Warming
aka Catastrophic
Climactic DISASTER?
not
their
Problem:
Drill, bitches.
fucking DRILL.
I don’t always agree with Charles Mudede but sometimes you just need to give a standing ovation.
This is one.
I’m sure more east – west bus lines would be convenient, except for the fact that a large interstate bisects the city and there’s only but so many crossing points for road-based buses to even take. Sound Transit developed a plan that prioritized commuters, but doesn’t really solve many problems inside the city itself and they haven’t even been able to get the lowest hanging fruit right without finding someway to screw it up or blowing the budget (building basically one long line, utilizing a pre-existing bridge, even installing floor tiles).
i have been known to drive down stewart and through the market to get to western. only a crazy person would try that on a saturday afternoon in july. pike place is already closed at pike st. to private vehicles on many weekend days, and most of the time on weekdays it’s NBD to dodge the cars. the market still needs emergency and delivery vehicle access.
btw, the new “people street” pike between 1st & 2nd is just awful. 1 vehicle lane, but it’s blocked off by concrete planters? why was it built, then? the entire block is coated in pigeon shit because the city refuses to stop the crazy fuck that feeds them. um, health dept?
@5 Sure, PPM is an amazing place as it is (except the awful gum wall). But haven’t you ever imagined how much more amazing it would be without the constant parade of auto traffic? People could then LEGALLY walk in the roadway, which they technically aren’t supposed to do now.
@9 Again with the “emergency and delivery vehicle access” canard. Sigh. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is suggesting that essential vehicles be banned. But somehow this absurd talking point never dies.
@10 “The market is blocked off during peak hours.” No, it is not.
@11: often it is closed off – holidays, weekends in the summer. not up where stewart comes down, but at the main entrance at pike.
PP ain’t that broke – vehicle/pedestrian accidents are rarer than hen’s teeth there.
@12 The main problem with allowing a continual stream of non-essential traffic in the market is that it forces people to constantly be on alert if they choose to avoid the often-jammed sidewalk and walk in the road area, which puts a severe damper on their ability to just enjoy the surroundings. Add to that the fumes emitted by slow-moving, often idled vehicles and you have a compelling argument against cars even if there were zero accidents. I’ve never understood why they’re allowed.
Demanding that people can’t drive down the streets at Pike’s is some privileged ideological elitism that favors only inner-city people who are quickly becoming the wealthiest in the area.