Prostitution is legal in the Netherlands, but it is not allowed everywhere or without a permit. It is illegal to practice sex work at home, in a hotel room or in the street.

Amsterdam confines legal prostitution to specific areas (it is not a free for all)

The level of ignorance of how European countries address things like drugs and prostitution is continually on display by numerous TS writers (folks it isn’t hard to do some research if you’ve never had the opportunity to experience in person)

Conservative City Council? They're far left liberal Democrats.

Charles, the city cannot legalize sex work, only the state can do that, so statements of the form, "...If we lived in a city that didn't, again and again, force sex work into the underworld," are misleading at best, and outright dishonest at worst. It's not the city which "... attracts criminals like Doescher", it's the state's criminalization of sex work.

No one pretends the SOAP area will end illegal sex work. The purpose is to give residents and legal businesses along Aurora a break from the open-air criminal markets they've endured for years. But understanding that would require the Stranger to care about victims of crime, and that it absolutely refuses to do. The end result is poorly-written, misleading or dishonest articles like this one, which contribute nothing positive to any civic dialog about reforming sex work.

The red light district in Amsterdam is regulated and working women are regularly tested for diseases and drugs. The area has shrunk in the past decade, Warmoesstraat once lined with gay bars and sex shoppes is now restaurants and boutiques. Window shopping in the evening is more of a tourist trap with all gawkers and hordes of people turning it into a freak show. It is still a progressive city, but has greatly changed since I lived there back in the 90's. Seattle could never be like Amsterdam, it doesn't have the history, the art or the charm.