Comments

1
you ain't lying...
2
"Some of us completely uprooted our lives, quit our jobs, packed all our things, and moved thousands of miles away from our families and friends, basically starting over". Yeah? Me too!

SO WHAT! GO AWAY, HAYSEED.
3
These "nyah nyah nyah - sour grapes!" ANONs are very tired and trump-like.
4
Well, IA sure fits in here with the sniveling self-righteous locals, so there is that.
5
If you have no empathy or comprehension for how the influx of people from elsewhere has completely shifted this city and its character, Anon, then I don't really know what to say to help you understand. I'm sincerely glad you like it here, and I personally don't think that EVERY person that has come from another land has soiled or sullied Seattle. But I also think that you are simplifying things immensely; the artistic landscape of the city has been watered down and destroyed, the ability of us 'old-timers' to live here has been compromised due to insanely constant rising costs of living here, and the physical character of the city has been mowed over for new new newness virtually everywhere. It is difficult to be a part of this much intense change. Your lack of compassion seems to add to negative feelings that born-and-bred Seattlites have toward your ilk rather than help in any way. And that is why I would like to invite you to kindly fuck yourself and go back where you came from. We don't need more gentrification from the likes of you. If you want to live in community with people who have stronger and deeper ties to our city, you should probably lighten up a bit. Or at least get the balls to say such things to people's faces rather than whine in an anonymous column.
6
You're right. I do deserve an award. Pony up, asswipe.
7
The Seattle Freeze was designed to blow off transplants who have entitlement issues about space and friendship. In the final analysis, we weren't big enough assholes.
8
Don't worry, The Big One won't discriminate.
9
@Anon - Here, here, well said. I've lived all over the country and nowhere have I heard locals whining about newcomers more than in Seattle, which is weird considering just how much prosperity they've managed to achieve here.

@5 - If you can't handle all the change and prosperity that's migrated to Seattle over the years, why are you still here? I know, family and friends, right? But guess what, cities change constantly, even older cities like New York. Change goes with the territory, whether locals approve or not. And how do you know that Anon hasn't also had this conversation with locals face to face? Maybe this is a reaction to such a conversation, ever consider that?

Look, I understand, I really do, I grew up in a small farming town in New England and it's changed so much a lot of it is just about unrecognizable now. It is what it is. It's still where I grew up, even if I no longer know most of the people living there now or whether or not I personally approve of the changes that moved in with them.
10
@6 - Bite me. Just a local response I learned from a native and perfect for times when it's not possible to flip someone off..
11
any posters here bitching about influx who are NOT either Suquamish or Duwamish may now enjoy a tasty treat of STFU.
Cities and areas change. Deal.
12
More whiny transplants with nothing more to complain about something like the natives. Next they’ll be complaining that “Indigenous People’s” are just so whiny because they were born here too. Sounds like a millennial to me-
13
@IA and PNW native haters: Um....no, as a Seattle native I don't "need" an award. I've since lived around Puget Sound, though. The idea of change being so nano-second rapid anymore is what I find troublesome, however, what with the current building boom. As RickFromTexas aptly pointed out, the rich are only getting richer; the poor even poorer and more distraught. There's more news of homelessness every day. Seattle just seems so unrecognizable to me, anymore, with so many single family neighborhoods gone. With rents skyrocketing I certainly couldn't afford to move back to Seattle anytime soon unless I had a sustainable enough job. What are the majority of current Seattleites---natives or recently settled--doing about managing affordability, traffic, and the cost of living?
14
This isn't prosperity.Calling Seattle's economy healthy or prosperous is like complimenting a baby on it's beautiful head and ignoring the black and rotten feet. "If you can't handle the prosperity" is perhaps one of the dopiest lines I've read in light the ongoing displacement of working class Seattlites.
15
Dear transplanter OP, it's so not about you as an individual. I'm sorry that you feel like you have a scarlet "T" on your chest right now, but do you really have scarlet "T" on your chest right now? I can assure you no one cares you're a transplant. Most big cities are full of people who weren't born in that city. But yeah, people who have been here a long time are concerned about stuff, like not being able to live where they grew up and where their families are, or not being able to afford housing they've always been able to afford, etc. Unless you're a sorceror who is actually causing all of this, you could probably step down from the cross and just go about your way, or maybe even join the conversation in a constructive way. Or you could write an anonymous letter to The Stranger that helps no one.
16
#4, and #14, I love you!
As a born and raised, I would also like to invite Anonymous to fuck themselves, and then promptly return to whatever place they came from. To assume that us natives have no accomplishments of our own shows your lack of thought on the subject. Do I really need to pop off the list of successful folks from Seattle? C'mon, think!! One more nugget of information for you, we are successful and we didn't have to flee our past to make that happen.
You are bringing down our "cool factor", either catch up, or shut up.
17
#5 and #14, I love you!
As a born and raised, I would also like to invite Anonymous to fuck themselves, and then promptly return to whatever place they came from. To assume that us natives have no accomplishments of our own shows your lack of thought on the subject. Do I really need to pop off the list of successful folks from Seattle? C'mon, think!! One more nugget of information for you, we are successful and we didn't have to flee our past to make that happen.
You are bringing down our "cool factor", either catch up, or shut up.
18
Transplants complaining about the locals is akin to the locals complaining about the transplants. How does the hypocrisy not burn your tongue?

@13 Auntie Grizelda: Man, I don't even know about everyone else. Personally, I bought a small place when they were still affordable and I'm hanging on for dear life by renting it out and living someplace cheaper.
19
You would be complaining too if you couldn't afford to live in the neighborhood you grew up in, where your parents grew up, where you went to high school. Unlike you, some people have a deep connection to a place and to be forced to live somewhere else feels very personal. Whenever I go to capitol hill I think "who are these people? I miss the B&O!!!!" Native and proud!
20
@16, @17, @18 & @19: As a Seattle-born Northwest baby, I can sure relate. Native and proud, too!
@19 ACat: I didn't grow up in Seattle (our family moved north to Skagit County when I turned 5), but I do share your pain regarding the loss of beloved landmarks (I miss Frederick & Nelson, and Trader Vic's SO much, but at least have fond memories), charming old neighborhoods and hangouts, and what exists now is clearly unaffordable anymore to so many. The city of Seattle has changed so drastically---and not entirely for the better. What I hate hearing the most are useless Band-aid comments like 'Just move to Kent!' as if that solves everything.
21
How about....

....a 9.5 magnitude earthquake that completely destroys the antiquated infrastructure of Seattle that was never meant to support the demand currently put on it. If I-5 was busted in 5 or 6 places between Tacoma and Everett, Sea-Tac completely shut down, transportation of goods and services at a standstill, all utilities busted ....know who would rise from the ashes? The natives. The transplants would be outta here in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd settle for a good volcanic eruption.
22
I moved to Seattle as a teenager in the 90s to escape an abusive family and a home town that would not accept me. The influx of new people has been so hard. I work at a low paying service job where if I’m lucky I’m treated like a quaint commodity b/c most of the time you treat us like trash. I’ve had to move so many times which in itself is financially taxing so I can never save up to leave. And my story is not unusual. 4 people in my community have committed suicide in the past couple of years. I take solace in knowing that your disgust and hatred towards people like me stems from the fact that you took something that didn’t belong to you, and maybe you’ll re-think the word ‘love’
23
Why don't you fucks try to make Nebraska cool? go away.
24
@22) I moved to seattle in my 20s, in the 90s. I had a makeshift plan. I established a home base and job (in the dreaded service industry) within days of arrival. But I was not done. I sought out career information and further educated myself. I acquired skills desirable for gainful employment (tattoos are not qualifications). I started a career that did not depend on tips, minimum wage, or begging friends for money after playing my records at their parties. We (spouse and I) took ourselves out of the minimum wage spiral here because WE WANTED TO AND WE HAD TO, and we were just hayseeds blowing in like anyone else. These fucking wussies crying about moving here and being poor because of it don't deserve an iota of your sympathy time.
25
LW, you moved to a city in the middle of one of the very largest housing crises in the country. It's hard to move, but it's harder to be priced out of your own home. The good news for you is that the ire will die down once the only people left to complain are those from earlier waves of gentrification. The bad news is that telling people a sad story about how difficult it is to be a gentrifier will always come across as tone-deaf, at best. However well-meaning you were when you fell in love with the idea of Seattle and a better life in a cool city, your presence actively makes life difficult for the people who originally helped make it that way.

Not every local is some civic-minded martyr suffering on behalf of the displaced, not by a long shot, but "some people complain about me" is not likely to win sympathy, from locals or otherwise. Excepting the rich, everyone in town has a story as hard or harder than yours.
26
Perhaps hayseeds should see a warning sign before entering the I90 tunnel:


* Housing in Seattle is scarce and expensive, and HAS BEEN SINCE THE 1990s.



* Great economy here IF YOU HAVE ANY WORTHWHILE SKILLS TO OFFER A GREAT ECONOMY.



* You do not get special consideration for being "christian".



* Seattle is already way over its quota of tattoo-artists / body-piercers / performance artists.



* Your acoustic guitar will only get you $30 at a pawn shop. It is not the key to your success here.


27
@21 kalakala: I hear you (as a PNW native, I truly believe in 'Je suis, je reste'), but be careful about what you wish for, however. The entire Puget Sound region and Cascadia Fault line---extending from Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada to Northern California has been about 320 years overdue for The Big One. If Mount Baker or Mount Rainier erupts and / or Mount St. Helens blows again 38 years later, we can all kiss our asses goodbye.
28

PREVIEW
I might have taken your point seriously if you didn't throw in that casual "you,too" that is just seething condescension. Don't break your wrist patting yourself on the back for having a decent job and being able to afford living in one of the more expensive housing markets in the country. I am proud of the growth and recognition my hometown gotten in recent years and have accepted that cities do not exist in a static bubble but the reason the locals hate you is because you are tone deaf to the issues that come with the population boom and the watering down of arts and culture into another commodity of the hip and fashionable. All I want from the transplants is to become a part of this ever growing community of free thinkers and liberal weirdos instead of treating us like a backwater quaint cheaper San Francisco full of frigid introverts who don't like you and don't appreciate what they have. You moved here because you liked it, right??? Then put down your cross and help make it a better place for everyone that isn't you. If that's too hard, then you are more than welcome to piss off back to whatever place you decided wasn't good enough for your standard of living anymore. Maybe when you have kids and the next wave of transplants price you out of house and home, then they can feel entitled to complain about it too! When that day comes, I hope you find this article again and choke your sense of entitlement.
29
Leave then if you are so affronted and BTW, stop talking about yourself, it's boring.
30
Then actually assimilate and support our city in the way the us poor locals do so we all don't lose the things we like about here, dipscrew.
31
Hey Bougie POS, welcome to Seattle. We're so glad you're hear! Thanks for pricing us all out and not giving two fucks. We can't wait to throw you your very own Freeze Parade! You'll be on the head float; you can wear a crown. you can be the Princess. Do you feel appreciated enough now?? OMG Thank GOD. So much winning. You're welcome!
32
Lol- glad you're "here"
33

PS: FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!!!

34
Go back home and bless your family and friends with your presence again. Don't stay on our account! Love you lots!
35
PPS: And Fuck all of you who moved here "in your 20s in the 90s;" you started this. And you didn't teach your kids any manners, and they drive just as terribly as you did when you moved here.
36
I was born and raised in the Seattle 'burbs ... saw the writing on the wall. Left at the beginning of the 1980s, before the natives were *seriously* whining about the influx of assholery ... well, Emmett Watson was already whining about the invading hordes ... but not enough Seattlelites were listening.

37
those who move here from God knows where, think they are adding something worth while to the city when in fact Seattle has been uprooted by these new comers thinking just because they added a bunch of Seahawks stuff on the ass of their cars that they are now part of the club. The club being those lifers or long timers who have watched the culture and personality of Seattle go right down the shitter for the past roughly, 8 years.
38
We Seattleites don't hate you newcomers we are just frustrated that as you and your friends have taken over our city. It has caused us so called natives to deal with an astronomical amount of gentrification and ridiculous housing prices. So yes thank you instead of buying a home here in the city of Seattle which I love I have had to move my native ass south to Kent where it is affordable! Cheers:)
39
Cascadia is dead! Long live New Cascadia!
40
@38. No, we hate 'em. Stop trying to be fake nice.
41
@37 8 YEARS?? Welcome to the party, newb. Thanks for your thoughts.
42
People move - typically to places where jobs are available and where they can afford to live. No amount of complaining will ever change that. Gentrification, white privilege, and capitalism will always create a hostile environment where the people who were there before other people will typically be harmed in one way or another (including having to leave). Until people care more about people than money and profit and giving corporations everything they want FOR NO FUCKING REASON AT ALL, no amount of complaining will change anything. Oh Amazon's taken over the entire city, has record profits, just received billions of dollars via the Republican tax scam, AND raised their Prime rates - all with a stock price approaching $2000/share? Gee, who is responsible for that mess? Oh right, no one wants to do anything about putting a stop to unrestrained capitalism, but please continue to bitch and moan and complain like you've done for decades now because that's been so very effective at stopping the destruction of your city.

No amount of complaining about it will every do a damn thing. Seattlelites were bitching about people moving to Seattle when I moved there in 2002, when vacancy on Capitol HIll was 35% and landlords were LITERALLY BEGGING AND PAYING PEOPLE TO MOVE IN. People in the PNW complain and complain and complain and complain ad infinitum about people there (Seattle and Portland are the worst) yet they never want to ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING PROACTIVE. Why take action when you can be a passive aggressive whiny bitch?

Things that would actually help are discussed in this source: http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/919 (and so many other sources of concrete ideas and actions that could be taken)

People can either take action or bitch and moan and complain and do nothing else. The people in the PNW have made it pretty clear they prefer doing nothing that requires concrete action. The constant complaining by everyone will never change anything.
43
@38 & @42: Back in '97 my rent for a Ballard one-bedroom + garage space for my car = $560.00 / mo. way back THEN, plus phone & utilities---twenty-one years ago. Good lord, I don't think I could even afford to live in Kent, much less a cardboard box in King County.
Aren't there community action groups working to better preserve the historic Seattle neighborhoods, (such as Fremont, Wallingford, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, et al) and advocating for affordability? What is Mayor Jenny Durkan doing? NYC-sizing Seattle with high rises is hideously irresponsible in city planning and zoning. There is already a dearth of parking downtown; I-5's a parking lot, and Metro is currently standing room only. Commutes anywhere sound absolutely horrible.
44
I was born here. I don't hate anyone who moved here recently. In fact I think it is great. My job has been secure for 25 years, so I do not need to rely on the tech boom. If it fails, I won't be losing my home. Speaking of homes. My $175000 home is worth $595000. (And it is in terrible shape and small). I rent out 2 rooms and base the rent on which newly made taxes I am willing or not willing to pay. Rent is so hard to come by in this neighborhood, I can basically ask what I want and still be 30% lower than median price. Thank you all. I basically live in Seattle for free. I everything fails, I will sell to someone who just moved here and thinks my dump is gold. If you think I don't deserve the money, don't offer me anything. I already have 2 people per month pounding on my door asking to buy it. Maybe I should ask my roommates what it is worth. I ain't payin a cent to be here. As far as complaints about me? Who effin cares. Before polical correctness held our language hostage, I was insulted on a daily basis. Now you have to pretend to be civil to me even though I don't deserve it. What a great place. When your friends come to visit and they see a city full of angry people, because of ugly apartments, high price of living and long waits for the bus, invite me over. I will show you pictures of places that I have been to that were torn down 5-10 years ago. It will only cost beer. Since I have good job, better than yours, and rommates pay my way, beer is all I would ask. By the way, I did not cause the FREEZE. When I am in public, on a bus, in line for food or walking, I always say hi. I am not on my smartphone wasting away on Facebook or Twitter. If you truly want to make a small positive difference, leave the phone off once in a while. Just be careful who you hate. It is likely you will be on trial when you can no longer stay here and criticize the newbies. And it will happen.
Posted by Moldy Oldie.
45
@7 You are the best! My $.02 is if your new to the city and hate on people that live in this state that don't live in King Co you are part of the problem. All locals have family in the sticks and love them for who they are. If you never go further south that the airport, east of West Seattle or west of Bellevue you really dont know shit about being a Washingtonian and are wasting space. Cheers!
46
Go read "How to Kill a City" by Peter Moskowitz. D-bags like ANON are the ones that are driving prices up, killing community, killing culture and making Seattle fucking boring (unless you really like pretentious foods like $16 dollar pho and avacado toast). On the plus side, the City Council doesn't give a shit. They want more assholes like ANON to come in and give more capital to the city so they can hand one group of people clean needles, hand the police Narcan, hand out everyday folks kits to clean up the needles and hand their cronies 6 figure jobs to do nothing.
47

@44: What a sad, long-winded commentary all for free beer.

48

I see the benefit of these changes don't get me wrong. My home will gain so much equity in such a small amount time because you non Seattlites are moving south doesn't take away the bitterness I feel of being pretty much forcefully pushed out of the city I grew up in. My income along with almost everyone I know my age(who grew up here) does not suffice in the Seattle market:( Still I have met some wonderful people from out of town an that makes this place refreshing and exciting. That being said win/loss..

49

I had the humbling honor of being anointed by Emmett Watson himself. I'm a life long, card carrying KBO agent.

If you don't know the name or the acronym, I hope the earthquake that @27 describes swallows you whole. I had to get out of Seattle to a little slice of heaven nestled at the foot of the Cascades about 100 miles away. Why? Because of what we call in our little town, "The Citidiots". The Seattle I grew up in ROCKED. No one knew we were here. The fuckers on the east coast thought we were all indians in igloos "up here". We played in the woods, fished for salmon, and waited for the hydros in the summer. No fucking gridlock, no waiting in a line for every damn thing, and we learned how to shoot a gun and use a chainsaw from our Dads. Only an idiot needed a helmet to ride a bicycle, are you kiddin' me? If someone was murdered in Seattle it was front page news but still, we never locked our doors.

In the summer, Mom kicked our asses out of the house after breakfast and told us not to come back until dinner. When I got my drivers license, I could make it from Woodinville to downtown Seattle in 20 minutes. I learned how to shoot, gut and butcher a deer when I was 13. And if I felt "bullied", I popped the fucker right between the eyes and that was that. If I ran home and cried to my Dad about a "bully", what I'd get from him made the bully look like a puss. We stood on our own two feet. Still do. Always will. And so do our sons.

You wingnuts pouring in here cry about every single thing under the sun. You seem to feel you're owed a living, a nice place to live, and a big juicy slice of the "Great American Dream" without lifting a finger for it and when you have to you whine about how much everything costs here. $15 an hour to work at McDonalds????? Listen numbnuts, fast food ISN'T A CAREER CHOICE.

I'll never understand how we got to be the liberal mecca of the whole damn universe, but we did.

It scares the hell out of me to think of what Seattle will become 100 years from now. What a damn shame. Western Washington just 50 years ago was spectacular beyond words. Look what's happened in just half a century. It just goes to show when you shove too many human beings into one place, nothing good ever comes from it. Perhaps the LW would be happier in Wyoming.

50

@49 kalakala: Amen!

51

I was raised here. Or should I say the city raised me. no, no.. I refuse any award.

I left Portland when I was 17 and moved here in 1983-ish..I remained for 10 years. ahh the memories, The Comet everyday after work, The invasion of Chris, Eddy, and Kurt, and of course Dicks. I then, for no good reason, moved to NW Montana for 4 years, Kihei Maui for 8 years and the Nevada desert for 1 year. I am back. Why?.. I can walk to my Dr. walk the dogs to the Vet. My drive from Beacon hill to work is 15 minutes and I appreciate the mild weather..

Seattle is just like any where else.. You love it, or you hate it. You deal with the shit end of the deal, or you dont and leave,, And yeah, I do complain about the invasion of Texans, Californians, and as well as the Colorado Subaru club because I witnessed the before and after and not the evolution...staggering really.

52

When the Seattle City Council invited the world's organized crime syndicates to money launder their illegal funds in the Seattle housing market, we all lost. Yet all these new people kennels in Ballard sit mostly empty during a so-called housing shortage. If the point of real estate development is to stash your cash, does it even matter if anybody lives there? #probablynot

53

I was born here, lived abroad and came back. Yet my social network is mostly expats with a few school friends aside. The provincialism here reminds me of the Japanese attitude toward foreigners - that's not a compliment.

54

Wanna be a new dick? Okay. Just know that some of us aren't so nice. I have lived here a long time but I grew up in the mountains. You ever spew your bullshit to my face and I will beat you into the ground.

55

Look at it this way: most of the recent transplants will all move when the next recession hits. Remember kids, you can never claim to be a local Seattleite until you've been through one recession without leaving town: preferably two though.

56

Nice Seattle politics doesn't stand a chance against the likes of Jeff Besos and his fulfillment prisons, esp by J. Durkan who sold herself and the city for a 350,000 campaign donation.
If the endgame is he takes his biz elsewhere, I say "good riddance, asshole,and thanks for the fancy spherical parks for the homeless."

57

What I don't get is why some people who, for whatever reason, pull up stakes and move somewhere else seem to automatically take the position that because they've come to YOUR town, suddenly YOU don't have any right to be there, if you don't meet whatever arbitrary standard (usually, but not exclusively income-based) they've set to grant themselves privilege at your expense. I mean, in many cases they themselves probably came from places NO ONE would want to go to, which is often why they left in the first place. Maybe they assume everyone else thinks their hometown is just as shitty as they thought their's was, and that they're just as eager to get out of it as they were, and they're simply confused and disoriented to realize they've come to a place where the people who were born and raised or have lived here for most of their lives DON'T want to leave, and strangely don't fall all over themselves praising every newcomer who immediately starts telling them they don't "deserve to be here".

58

@49:

The problem being of course, that 90% of the people here - or in the entire city for that matter have no idea who Emmett Watson was or what the letters KBO even mean. I guess people with no sense of history simply can't understand why those who DO have that might get upset when they attempt to eradicate it as if it never existed in the first place.

59

Nice to see I was not the first to mention that esteemed sage Emmett Watson. Too bad his Lesser Seattle movement was not more successful.

60

Some of us are still proud Lesser Seattleites, at least for a few more months until we're forced out by rising costs.

61

Hot Tip: "Because I love it so much" is the single lamest way to explain your presence in Seattle.

62

There's a lot of 'tude here coming from the group of people responsible for Starbucks and Windows ME.

63

I was not born in Seattle, nor did I grow up here, but I was a frequent visitor here beginning in the mid-70's (when I was what is now called a tween) and moved here in 1987 (at the tender age of 22), so I feel that I am somewhere in-between the attitudes expressed here: I miss the "old" (for me) Seattle, and I have some misgivings about the current Seattle, but I know that times change, neighborhoods change and cities change.

In just eight years I will be eligible for retirement and - Deity Willing - we will be able to sell Chez Vel-DuRay and trot off to California or Arizona to live out the rest of our days in a mobile home, never again having to listen to a Seattleite - be they newly arrived or born-and-raised - whine at me about how dreadful the city is.

64

Emmett Watson had it right. Lesser Seattle. Jealous just a little bit?

65

Has anyone here seen the movie Man Bites Dog?

66

11/El Dedo: any posters here bitching about influx who are NOT either Suquamish or Duwamish...

I come from a little-known Pacific Northwest tribe, Theamish. We hunt salmon from a horse and buggy.

68

Imagine how stupid and plain you have to be to think that living in a specific geographic area makes you better, or gives you some kind of special status.

It must be sad to have so little in your life, so little to be proud of.

69

Anyone expecting any city to remain static over decades is straight-up willfully ignorant. That's not the way the world works and it's not the way the modern world has ever worked.

Do yourself a favor, learn to be flexible, cos life is a series of curveballs. You can choose to get out of the way of them, or you can stand there and take 'em in the nose. Your choice.

70

@63: A double wide with a a carport awning. Trailers have a special place in my heart.

71

@68 and 69

We can recognize that change happens and learn to roll with the punches. But when it happens in a way that is detrimental to us and causes hardship during that transition we have a right to feel upset.

And when those responsible for those changes and hardships call us "stupid", "plain" or "willfully ignorant" than you'll have to excuse us for being downright pissed.

So to be clear, if y'all expect us to smile through this upsetting transition than I believe YOU are the stupid/ignorant parties. Though apparently not stupid enough to say this to any of us in real life or unanonymously.

72

In my experience the people who whine the most about the current state of affairs are folks who weren't born here, but have lived here for a decade or two. They really miss the Seattle they experienced when they moved here. Those that were actually born here (especially those "of a certain age") know damn well the city has constantly been in flux. We would also have to be idiotic to want to go back to those days.

If nothing else, the food sucked. OK, there was decent food in the International District, but in most neighborhoods, it sucked. You want good Thai food? You need people from Thailand. I loved the Scandinavian style of old Ballard, but when the best meal of the day is breakfast, the food sucked.

Oh, and there really was nothing in the way of nightlife. Sure, you could walk around Pioneer Square (and get your ass kicked) but in terms of lots of people wandering around, going from place to place (in peace) reveling in the latest band, or just that cute person on the other side of the bar -- it really wasn't shit.

Transit sucked too. At least traffic was better -- but that meant everyone drove. Not exactly an urban paradise.

Discovery Park was a military compound ... I could go on, you get the idea.

Everyone has their own idea of when Seattle hit "the sweet spot". Just enough diversity to make this provincial town somewhat interesting, but not so much that traffic slowed the buses down. Yeah, whatever. It is a city. It changes. Some things get better, some things get worse. Smoke a joint and just deal with it. Hey .. did I tell you about when you could get busted for even having a joint around here ...

73

I'll never understand how we got to be the liberal mecca of the whole damn universe, but we did.

It is simple, simpleton: University of Washington (one of the greatest universities on the planet). Give this little burg some fucking credit. Lots of really smart people decided to settle here (instead of in Boston, Oxford, or the Bay Area). Then those really smart people embraced liberalism (because they are smart). Fucking obvious dude.

Next up -- why are there so many really smart agricultural scientists in Eastern Washington?

74

@71 >> But when it happens in a way that is detrimental to us and causes hardship during that transition we have a right to feel upset.

Of course you do. If your rent has gone up, it sucks. If you are faced with sky high rent, and can't even afford a condo in White Center, then of course you have a right to be pissed. Fuck Microsoft and fuck Amazon. Fuck the fucking zoning laws that can't address the growth. We get that -- join the club.

But if you are whining about traffic, or too many apartments, or that the "old Seattle" (whatever the fuck that was) is gone, then just grow up. Things are way worse in most parts of the world. I'm sorry if income stratification hit you upside your head in this tiny little corner of America -- but that shit has been going on for years. Your complaints (other than the rent being too fucking high) ain't shit compared to what most of the human inhabitants are putting up with these days. As my mom used to say, if that is the worst thing in your life, you live a charmed life.

75

Jeez, you Seattle natives complaining about people moving in sound an awful lot like Trump-supporters complaining about immigrants.....sure you want to emulate that?

76

If you support, say, Lesser Seattle, you must support Brexit and Trump's wall, amirite.

Cuz ideologically, they're identical.

77

@71: Sorry Seattle did not freeze in time from the moment you stepped within city limits. Must be so hard for you to have to adapt to change, something no other human has ever been saddled with.

You are just so, so special. Way too special to have to deal with other people moving to YOUR personal, private city.

Oh, and ditch the internet tough guy act. It just makes you look like a pussy who doesn't even understand how the internet works.

78

@72 dwag. Seattle's been having excellent thai food since the mid 80s at the least. I don't know when thai food really caught on in America but I would wager Seattle was ahead of the curve on that one.

@73 liberalism in the west has a LONG tradition unrelated to the presence of a university. Portland doesn't have a major university but is politically very similar. Hmmmm. Short answer: Westward Expansion and the American Individualist Ideal are strongly related.


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