But but but...The Stranger promised us that the more density we build rents would come down!?!?!? What happened?? Maybe it's because modern urban density is really nothing more than more neoliberal economic policy?

Did anyone live in the CD before blacks moved in, or was it just acres upon acres of green pasture?

No global warming in North Korea? Good to know.

I grew up in the CD in the 60's and 70's. Lots of big fancy houses that had been broken up into apartments but used to be the homes of fancy rich people. The neighborhood was mostly black. My family is mixed-race, but we kids were hounded at elementary school for being white much more than the few actual, unmistakable white kids were (hey, Leschi Elementary!). When I go back and visit --- my family still lives there --- I can still count on having a moment when I see a white woman out running by herself, without even a vicious-looking dog, and wondering if she's crazy, before I remember that it's not 1977 anymore.

When it came time for high school, my parents decided to have us bused to Roosevelt although Garfield was within walking distance, because Garfield was where you went if you wanted to get stabbed.

I doubt that Allen will be interested in his new space continuing to have a food source for the neighborhood. Even if he does, I don't suppose the Red Apple, being only a pretty good supermarket without the cachet of a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, will survive.

There is a lot I don't miss about the neighborhood --- if 14th and Yesler was "hooker central," then 19th and Yesler was... "hooker suburb"? --- but I hope that the good things don't get thrown out with the bad.

I'm really curious to see if Charles wants to rethink his earlier comments about iPhone security given recent news. Of course, that would require him to do some actual research ont he topic rather than just pulling something out of his ass, but stopped watches and all that.

@ 1, Supply still isn't keeping up with demand, and it can take three to five years to design, permit, and build an apartment building. Most of the projects currently proposed or under construction won't be ready for occupancy until 2018--2020, by which time we'll be balls-deep in the next recession/depression, but even then it may not be enough with so many newcomers moving into the area.

You have to look back to the 1880s to find a time when more people were pouring into cities, which is especially ironic since supposedly the internet was going to allow us all to work from anywhere.

Young people may be less eager to get control of cars partially because they can have sex without it.

The Stranger makes me laugh again. Trying to tell Paul Allen How to build a building right. I think he knows what he's doing. The neighborhood has changed. The CD is NOT the CD of 50 years ago. It has a new generational and racial make up. They own the neighborhood now. It is theirs, no denying that.

Business are coming in to cater to the new owners of the CD. New developments are coming in to cater to the new majority in the CD. The traditional businesses that are there need to adapt to the new customer base. Or, see their income fall as their traditional customer base is priced out. Or just moves away. The new majority doesn't have to "Support Local" if those local businesses don't cater to their needs.

Time changes everything, so does money.

When we build a street overpass over a freeway, why do we build it for a parking lane on each side? That's got to be the world's most expensive parking spots.

In the picture on this article, but I always see this downtown and wonder why.

One man buys one block and suddenly he controls the whole neighborhood. This clearly out of touch over the top hyperbole should hopefully teach The Stranger that Charles should be kept away from the morning news.

Paul Allen Has Bought and Plans to "Redevelop" the Promenade 23 Shopping Center on 23rd and Jackson...

Where is Mix-A-Lot going to pick up his posse when he's looking for some action now?

#1, a few weeks ago Charles advocated neoliberalism over socialism. Neoliberal economic policy, the key problem, has been embraced by self declared Marxists in this state. We can't expect The Stranger to care about the 99% anymore.

VULCAN bought the block, not "Paul Allen". Do you think he does all the experiments at his Brain Institute as well?

Alaska Climatologist Brian Brettschneider sounds like the Cliff Mass of Alaska. The question is, who is paying them?

#16 I certainly don't think Vulcan buys large pieces of property in the US's 12th largest city without Allen's direct and explicit consent.

Cato, didn't you get this memo? Building a shit ton on luxury housing will surely produce an abundance of middle and low income housing through the magic of "filtering." Even Ron Sims recently tweeted a shoutout at filtering in response to this article in WaPo by the usually brilliant Emily Badger:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk…

This idea is elaborated at great length in a study by some wonky California legislative analysts posted here...

http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finan…

Sadly, though developers salivate at the opportunity to double San Francisco's population in order to generate filtering on steroids, more reality based analysis posted here...

http://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/d…

...here...

https://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/s…

...here...

http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan…

...and here...

http://www.psrc.org/assets/9539/GTCStrat…

...show that gentrification and displacement are actual things, especially in "neighborhoods in transition," code language for level these MF neighborhoods and make a shit ton of $$$$$, which is pretty much Paul Allen's MO. Hell, the guy can't even be bothered to support the local arts scene anymore, because it doesn't pencil in the same way as his new thrill, the "Seattle Biennalel" (a.k.a. Art Fair). When he's done with the CD he'll move on to other hoods that are ripe for the plucking, e.g., Ranier Beach, and after that he'll build an artificial lake in Washington for other uber rich porkers like himself.

For a white kid who played CAYA ball next to Garfield it was not the Black's neighborhood. I may have been one of two white kids on the team but it wasn't a black team, it was a team. It was, and is, a Seattle neighborhood. The racial undertone you suggest is part of the problem with the racial debate. We all live together. Diversity is a good thing that should be celebrated. The CD is more diverse now then ever and people should celebrate their heritage and past, but embrace Seattle and the people in their community.

@20 Unfortunately, thanks to Seattle's redlining history, we do NOT all live together; and thanks to the parents who sued SPS and SCOTUS, our schools are RESEGREGATED and our children do NOT get to go to school together, so they can't learn, play, and work together. Gentrification and the loss of living wage jobs and small stores and businesses are pushing the red line further and further out, drastically reducing diversity in race and wealth. When children grow up segregated, they learn to look at those who don't look like them as THE OTHER. This is how the ignorance and bigotry that feed discrimination grow. This is how the Mitt Romney type can perpetuate those canards about how the poor are poor because they are parasites who just want handouts, and justify getting rich by killing jobs, cutting wages and evading taxes. This is how cops learn to fear those with black and brown skin, and why juries refuse to convict cops who kill unarmed black, brown, and Native American people.

Brown v. Board of Education is dead.
https://www.propublica.org/article/segre…

Sorry, part of my post got cut off. I just wanted to add that the Pro Publica article on what happened to the school in Alabama is now happening to Seattle Public Schools. Take a look at the North end schools like Ballard and Roosevelt and the Central/South end schools like Cleveland and Rainier Beach, and compare Seattle neighborhoods and schools of today to those of the 1990's.

Why is the deceased Mountlake Terrace woman referred to as "mom" and "mother?" If a man of similar age who had children was found dead, would the headline read "Mountlake Terrace Dad?" The linked articles make no reference to the woman's children, although they do mention her place of work. Perhaps she could be referred to as "Cancer Research Center Employee."

My argument is that diversity isn't black and white and Seattle is growingly more diverse. One cant ague that Seattle is less diverse because it is less black and white. These neighborhoods are more diverse. You brought up a lot of different issue in your post. Many that don't have to do with gentrification. When SPS got rid of the bussing system you will find that gentrification makes the schools more diverse. The issues with some schools being better than others is a totally different issue. As for the Mot Rodney types comment I have never heard him say that the poor are poor because they want handouts or that they are parasites. Gentrification isn't caused by living wage jobs going away, it is caused by higher paying jobs and people moving in to areas. My entire family lives in the city but I can't afford to live near them. Sure I would love to live near them but I don't blame richer people for raising the cost of living in Seattle. I just work hard and live as close to them as possible. No one has the right to live wherever they want. Cities change. If it wasn't for all of the wealth in Seattle a lot of the middle class that can't afford to live in Seattle wouldn't have the jobs that brought them to the area.

If you find yourself wanting to type a reply that somehow sugarcoats or justifies the displacement of human beings from the places they call home, you should instead go eat shards of broken glass until you can't anymore.

Economics and housing markets are pretend things that exist as an emergent property of collective human decision making. People--developers, employers, city and state officials--are CAUSING people to have to move away from places they've loved and put their souls into. We do not live in a good, just world where everyone gets what they work for. We, as a community and a city and a planet, have to decide that we want to participate in a culture of compassion and altruism. Does it make as much money? No. But who cares if you're the guy who dies on top of the biggest pile of money? The decision makers of this civilization are leaving behind a legacy of mundane evil that will pollute this world until our children's children die, suffering, from whatever justified apocalypse ends us.

@25 so how did you end up in Seattle? My family moved her in the 80's. My parents bought a house and they had a family. So now that my parents had kids and they don't want to live in the same house they went out and bought houses too. This story is true for millions in the Seattle area. So how does this keep your house no matter what mentality work? We don't want the value of our homes to go up? We don't want anyone new to move in into the Seattle area? We magically want to keep the city the way it was in one single point in time? Ask the people in Detroit what happens to their houses when no one else wants to move to their city. What happens when your house doesn't appreciate. you buy it for $100,000 and it stays that way for ever? No one else is allowed to want to buy your neighbors houses either driving up the cost of property? This utopia idea that everyone is equal and we all deserve the same things is absolute BS.

Let me blow your socialist living ideas out of the water. Two identical houses on a block have two families that move in. Both families have the exact same job that pays the exact same thing. One family in their spare time work on the house and improve it while the other family does nothing to their house. The family that fixed up their house sells it and buys a new house that cost the same as the old one, but now they have a new car too. Family one keeps fixing up houses and selling them until they have a bigger house and fancy cars. Family two now has the same old house that now needs improvements. It was the choices that changed these two families lives.