There's no shame in leaving a place. Just as people will move TO Seattle (and people will bitch endlessly about it), people will move AWAY FROM Seattle (see comments to see how people will react). Yeah it makes no sense. People move places. They move away from places.
As an aside, the cost of living in so many places in this country is forcing people to live on the streets, but everyone in this country will pretend that will never be them (until it is) and will complain endlessly about the horrible unhoused and blame them for all of the problems of every place they are (instead of the corporations who pay no taxes, don't pay wages high enough for people to exist, landlords who believe they have a god given right to raise the rents by double digits annually, cities that don't have enough housing - let alone affordable housing - to house their populations, etc.)
Surprisingly, no commenters have yet placed the blame on the uber-rich passive-income plutocratic elites who are plundering the profits and not sharing the spoils, all while shaping the laws to make legal what they did and making it illegal to be poor. I'm not saying that, but someone should.
You don’t get to live in a place just because you want to live there and you think you should, even if you have already lived there for many years. Times change, places change, cities change. As this very headline post notes, there are now far more places with liberal attitudes towards diversity than just a few coastal cities. That’s great, and so persons who used to have no choice but to reside in those few coastal cities can move elsewhere. As an American, you have a big country, go take advantage of that. Good luck, and I hope you find a great place that works for you.
Nice things are expensive. Seven years ago Seattle was already very, very expensive. That information was available to anyone looking for a new place to live. I'm not sure what you expected to change after you got here. Did you think prices would go down?
Overcrowding contributes to the problem. Anyone who moves away is doing us all a favor. This rant is not the insult you think it is.
IA seems to be the progressive equivalent to Seattle is dying. I get Seattle is expensive but there are places cheaper to live nearby (I’d still rather live in Burien than anywhere in the Midwest). Safe travels.
Taking up space like the techies.
The irony that you used that technology to write and read this is not lost. Everyone loves to hate on those who create and keep running the stuff you use CONSTANTLY
The dirty little secret about Seattle's "progressivism" is that it's all talk and performative; it's all mutual headnodding and backpatting and insufferable self-congratulation (which pretty much characterize the mostly ineffectual progressive political movement in the United States). Many local and state pols (mostly "Democrats," DINOs) talk the talk, but when it gets down to it they walk the money walk. Seattle epitomizes Reaganism in some ways - one way is the most regressive tax structure in the country. That's progressive? The economic injustice around here is gagging.
Ah. Yes. The smallest unit of Democracies called cities are exclusively for the wealthiest and for the profit entities.
NOT the people that live and work in them.
Some how that formula makes sense. They owe nothing to citizens at all.
See, according to the SLOG Dipshit Brigade, citizens of a city simultaneously have no right to have a government that will improve the living standards for the largest swath of its citizens —BUT— that same government simply must magically erase all unsightly social problems like poverty and addiction from tainting their sight lines in the most superficial manner possible through jail or exile.
But cities simply cannot actually provide a livable functioning community. No. That’s not what government is FOR. Apparently.
Jesus. This fucking cesspool of dipshits deserves exactly what it is getting. What fucking monsters you all are. Everyday my decision to leave your stupid country gets better and better.
In the 80's when I was starting out and younger I struggled as well. Two jobs and still broke. Not saying things aren't expensive but I imagine you will be complaining about the cost of things your whole life. I have no matter where I have lived. Isn't the city. Its life and greed is everywhere.
@26: Yes, the Kwon family’s main problem now is “… unsightly social problems like poverty and addiction … tainting their sight lines in the most superficial manner possible…” because SPD didn’t even have the resources to identify Cordell Goosby as one of the very many violent crazy ex-cons constantly wandering throughout Seattle, let alone the ability to quickly extradite him back to Indiana for trial on his pending assault charge there. So everyone in the Kwon family will now just have to live with horribly tainted sight lines (Ok, not all of them will…)
Glad to read all of your extensive prancing and preening over the great moral superiority wrought by your exquisite compassion has carried you far, far away.
@26
awesome Comment
perfessor Schrubbery
the Idea of a Government
by and FOR We the People's
been memory-holed from the
Populaces' conscience by a vast
Reich Wing Conspiracy hell-bent on
seizing as Much of the Pie as they can
stuff into their Mansions and Portfolios
leaving the rest of US to Gawk at their
'good Fortune' & cunning man-
ipulations & anyone pointing
that out's gotta be named
blamed & shamed for
ALL of the USOFA's
probs ever since
I guess Gettys-
burg or so.
@32 provides a reminder of something Boomers need to get driven into their skulls: Every generation since yours has had diminished buying power and a higher cost of living, accounting for inflation. If you had a hard time in the 1980s, you probably wouldn't even survive the 2020s.
@39 not a boomer but a gen z. Doing fine in the 20's thank you. But what needs to be driven in to your newb skull is it started way before and will continue. But like I said and also should be driven in to your tender skull is that greed is the cause. So we agree as you would have noticed in my comment...right?
@40: Because killing the messenger is exactly the same thing as invalidating the message, right? (Just ask @42.)
Spend a lot of time daydreaming about the deaths of your fellow human beings, do you, dear? Is having others die the only way you can envision creating a better world? Too bad you were born too late for the great totalitarian regimes of the last century; they really knew how to put persons like yourself to work. Harnessing your grudges, appealing to your worst jealousies, empowering you with weapons — you really missed out!
@42: Warm, wet vapor is not silver, dear; no matter how chokingly large the methane content.
Seattle has ALWAYS been expensive. No news there. Talk to anyone who was just getting started in any decade and the formula is always the same - double or triple up with roommates or a partner, work full time/OT/side hustles, cut costs & live close to the bone.
That’s the story of everyone’s youth. The difference now is fewer rentals. Housing is much harder to come by. City policy that results in less housing - policies that tell builders to fuck off and build housing somewhere else, or landlords to stop renting and just sell - i.e. rent control - only make things worse.
Congratulations on making it past the 3 year mark. That’s unofficially where Seattleites decide maybe you’re committed to sticking around and we can actually invest time & energy into friendship. You gave it a good shot. Good luck in the Midwest.
I don't know why people are so defensive about this person's experience in Seattle. My theory is because we live in an age of extreme narcissism fueled by social media. People have become too stupid to empathize with other people because what does that have to do with me? A lot of these comments make me stupid just thinking about them and you can't argue with stupid.
@57: SPD knew he had mental issues. Thanks to defund, SPD didn’t have the resources to run down every last one of the many crazies who wander the streets of Seattle. This has been explained to you many times now, and you still cannot understand it. That is your problem, not anyone else’s.
To make an analogy, we know you’re a racist when it comes to Asians, especially older Asians. (https://www.thestranger.com/slog-pm/2022/11/10/78719947/slog-pm-stay-away-from-link-trains-this-weekend-joe-kent-makes-considerable-gains-on-marie-gluesenkamp-perez-the-gop-now-hates-trump-for-ev/comments/24) That’s different from knowing if you are an imminent danger to anyone other than yourself.
There's always someone who gets scared and wants to pull their pants up and run home to granny in Omaha or Willoughby. Visit San Francisco and tell me what you see--probably the same thing or worse. Seattle is a popular city and you will see a fair amount of poop on the streets. Consider the high prices and stoned leadership to be the price you pay for such a beautiful location, prosperous economy and temperate climate. One commenter mentioned living in a neighboring city, that way you can visit for the big tourney or whatever and then get the heck out of Dodge, so to speak.
@56: “I don't know why people are so defensive about this person's experience in Seattle.”
I’m actually surprised this person lasted this long. Seattle started going to hell seven years ago, and I left after the first five years of continual decline. Another two years would have been disastrous. And I’m a professional, married to a professional, and had lived in Seattle since 1991. I can’t even imagine what allowed this person, a relatively recent arrival living solo, to stick it out for this long.
I want to wish you the best in your move. As a 75 year old long time Tacoma resident I’ve enjoyed visiting the city since my parents took the family to the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962.
I go to visit friends, good restaurants, coffee shops, oldies concerts, record stores and vintage vinyl shows.
Even Tacoma is expensive but not as much as Seattle and not that far. With public transportation options hopefully getting better in the future it should help too getting there and back.
Maybe someday if your circumstances change you may return to this beautiful area.
@49- exactly. Minimum wage here didn’t break four bucks an hour until 1990. When I graduated from college in the 80s, everyone was working a couple of jobs, and sharing apartments or houses. That’s the way it’s always been. And you’re right, the difference is there are fewer rentals now. But even the ones that there are now, don’t cost five times what they cost in the 1980s. Our minimum wage, on the other hand is now just about five times what it was then.
Well, this has been an interesting comment section. Looks like we are all struggling a little - regardless of our opinion, origin, job, status, or location. What a beautiful mess.
Regarding the cost of life in Seattle: look at a map. We are the last outpost. Everything we consume comes from somewhere else and takes lots of energy to get here.
Are we having fun yet?
@66: “…would protest another group of parasites rather than protesting the fact that rich people don’t pay enough in taxes.”
This has been a contentious issue in Seattle since last Summer, and you still can’t even get the reason for the protests right. Here, let’s have a woman of Asian ancestry explain to you her community’s opposition, the community you so grandiosely claimed to understand:
“It was approved by the King County Council in partnership with Seattle and the King County Regional Homeless Authority. For a complex that opens this fall, these decisions were made without any meaningful community outreach or engagement. This follows a long history of policies that have been forced on the CID, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This is systemic racism. […] The fact that the community did not know about this complex is another example of the government’s disregard and disrespect for the neighborhood.“
It wasn’t the homeless megaplex itself, it was Seattle and King County siting it directly adjacent to the CID, but without any community input from the CID. Worse yet, as Woo also described, the city and county falsely claimed to have performed community outreach, but in reality, had contacted only a few persons, not all of them from the CID.
We now return you to your usual racist ignorance, always in evidence.
@67: Many residents of Seattle would love to live in your version of their city. You know, the one where crazy persons wandering around downtown are such a rare sight, the well-staffed Seattle Police Department can run background checks on each and every last one of them. (Better yet, the Stranger somehow doesn’t call the police racist poor-haters for so doing.)
I, too, would love to live there, but unlike you apparently, I’ve actually set foot in downtown Seattle at least once over the past five years. Encampments everywhere, random thefts and assaults, and defund driving the number of police officers to thirty-year lows, have produced an environment where random daylight murder has become an expected event. Everyone who pushed for allowing encampments and defunding the police gets to own this actual modern Seattle. Good luck getting anyone to believe your victim-blaming lies to the contrary.
@tensorna: I understand what you are saying, I pick and choose from pleasant memories of a senior citizen coupled with selective, mostly safe visits now. I hope it gets better.
Bye Felicia
There's no shame in leaving a place. Just as people will move TO Seattle (and people will bitch endlessly about it), people will move AWAY FROM Seattle (see comments to see how people will react). Yeah it makes no sense. People move places. They move away from places.
As an aside, the cost of living in so many places in this country is forcing people to live on the streets, but everyone in this country will pretend that will never be them (until it is) and will complain endlessly about the horrible unhoused and blame them for all of the problems of every place they are (instead of the corporations who pay no taxes, don't pay wages high enough for people to exist, landlords who believe they have a god given right to raise the rents by double digits annually, cities that don't have enough housing - let alone affordable housing - to house their populations, etc.)
Surprisingly, no commenters have yet placed the blame on the uber-rich passive-income plutocratic elites who are plundering the profits and not sharing the spoils, all while shaping the laws to make legal what they did and making it illegal to be poor. I'm not saying that, but someone should.
You don’t get to live in a place just because you want to live there and you think you should, even if you have already lived there for many years. Times change, places change, cities change. As this very headline post notes, there are now far more places with liberal attitudes towards diversity than just a few coastal cities. That’s great, and so persons who used to have no choice but to reside in those few coastal cities can move elsewhere. As an American, you have a big country, go take advantage of that. Good luck, and I hope you find a great place that works for you.
Our loss is Cleveland's gain.
Pittsburgh's nice. And PA could use your vote.
Goodbye dear. Be sure not to write.
Nice things are expensive. Seven years ago Seattle was already very, very expensive. That information was available to anyone looking for a new place to live. I'm not sure what you expected to change after you got here. Did you think prices would go down?
Overcrowding contributes to the problem. Anyone who moves away is doing us all a favor. This rant is not the insult you think it is.
IA seems to be the progressive equivalent to Seattle is dying. I get Seattle is expensive but there are places cheaper to live nearby (I’d still rather live in Burien than anywhere in the Midwest). Safe travels.
@8 is that the same thing as late stage capitalism?
Bye Felicia!
Taking up space like the techies.
The irony that you used that technology to write and read this is not lost. Everyone loves to hate on those who create and keep running the stuff you use CONSTANTLY
We moved to Olympia. It's the best.
Let me summarize.
Seattle is expensive because it offers a lot of high paying jobs.
I can't offer a solution to this, so I'm leaving.
The dirty little secret about Seattle's "progressivism" is that it's all talk and performative; it's all mutual headnodding and backpatting and insufferable self-congratulation (which pretty much characterize the mostly ineffectual progressive political movement in the United States). Many local and state pols (mostly "Democrats," DINOs) talk the talk, but when it gets down to it they walk the money walk. Seattle epitomizes Reaganism in some ways - one way is the most regressive tax structure in the country. That's progressive? The economic injustice around here is gagging.
Seattle is Dying?
Ah. Yes. The smallest unit of Democracies called cities are exclusively for the wealthiest and for the profit entities.
NOT the people that live and work in them.
Some how that formula makes sense. They owe nothing to citizens at all.
See, according to the SLOG Dipshit Brigade, citizens of a city simultaneously have no right to have a government that will improve the living standards for the largest swath of its citizens —BUT— that same government simply must magically erase all unsightly social problems like poverty and addiction from tainting their sight lines in the most superficial manner possible through jail or exile.
But cities simply cannot actually provide a livable functioning community. No. That’s not what government is FOR. Apparently.
Jesus. This fucking cesspool of dipshits deserves exactly what it is getting. What fucking monsters you all are. Everyday my decision to leave your stupid country gets better and better.
I wouldn't Worry --
once there's ONE multi-
Trillionaire and ten Billion
homeless it'll soon sort itself
till then Invest in the
Tenting & Used RV
Industries & don't
look for handouts
from the Very
Comfortable
they're Busy trying
to sleep on their
Mountains of
Monies
& shopping
for Yachts.
nah.
it's just
Moral Failures
Darwinism & all
them damn Socialists
attempting to Steal from
our poor Unbridled
Capitalists Every-
thing what ain't
Bolted down
if Only
we had
More Po-po
& maybe Morality
Police* things wouldn't
look so fucking Dire. ya know?
*why not
Contract Out
our street-schweeping
to the Lowest Bidder? Bezos
or is it Musky's almost Finished with
their fully-Automated Streets Sweeper™
Guaranteed! to leave our roadways
as Pristine as the day they
were first paved.
but Where
will they Put
all those folks
sans Domiciles
you may inquire
not to Worry! be-
ing Billionaires they've
got a nearly-Foolproof Plan.
In the 80's when I was starting out and younger I struggled as well. Two jobs and still broke. Not saying things aren't expensive but I imagine you will be complaining about the cost of things your whole life. I have no matter where I have lived. Isn't the city. Its life and greed is everywhere.
Wow, these comments are VERY very Seattle!
Good luck to you. Moving is never easy.
@26: Yes, the Kwon family’s main problem now is “… unsightly social problems like poverty and addiction … tainting their sight lines in the most superficial manner possible…” because SPD didn’t even have the resources to identify Cordell Goosby as one of the very many violent crazy ex-cons constantly wandering throughout Seattle, let alone the ability to quickly extradite him back to Indiana for trial on his pending assault charge there. So everyone in the Kwon family will now just have to live with horribly tainted sight lines (Ok, not all of them will…)
Glad to read all of your extensive prancing and preening over the great moral superiority wrought by your exquisite compassion has carried you far, far away.
@26
awesome Comment
perfessor Schrubbery
the Idea of a Government
by and FOR We the People's
been memory-holed from the
Populaces' conscience by a vast
Reich Wing Conspiracy hell-bent on
seizing as Much of the Pie as they can
stuff into their Mansions and Portfolios
leaving the rest of US to Gawk at their
'good Fortune' & cunning man-
ipulations & anyone pointing
that out's gotta be named
blamed & shamed for
ALL of the USOFA's
probs ever since
I guess Gettys-
burg or so.
A transplant is moving back to where they came from??? Quick everybody, let's keep it up and force the rest of them back to their home states!
@32 provides a reminder of something Boomers need to get driven into their skulls: Every generation since yours has had diminished buying power and a higher cost of living, accounting for inflation. If you had a hard time in the 1980s, you probably wouldn't even survive the 2020s.
@40 a
silver dollar
for your sentiments.
@39 not a boomer but a gen z. Doing fine in the 20's thank you. But what needs to be driven in to your newb skull is it started way before and will continue. But like I said and also should be driven in to your tender skull is that greed is the cause. So we agree as you would have noticed in my comment...right?
@39 *gen x
@40: Because killing the messenger is exactly the same thing as invalidating the message, right? (Just ask @42.)
Spend a lot of time daydreaming about the deaths of your fellow human beings, do you, dear? Is having others die the only way you can envision creating a better world? Too bad you were born too late for the great totalitarian regimes of the last century; they really knew how to put persons like yourself to work. Harnessing your grudges, appealing to your worst jealousies, empowering you with weapons — you really missed out!
@42: Warm, wet vapor is not silver, dear; no matter how chokingly large the methane content.
Seattle has ALWAYS been expensive. No news there. Talk to anyone who was just getting started in any decade and the formula is always the same - double or triple up with roommates or a partner, work full time/OT/side hustles, cut costs & live close to the bone.
That’s the story of everyone’s youth. The difference now is fewer rentals. Housing is much harder to come by. City policy that results in less housing - policies that tell builders to fuck off and build housing somewhere else, or landlords to stop renting and just sell - i.e. rent control - only make things worse.
Congratulations on making it past the 3 year mark. That’s unofficially where Seattleites decide maybe you’re committed to sticking around and we can actually invest time & energy into friendship. You gave it a good shot. Good luck in the Midwest.
@36:
Yes, Prof.
Banishment’s
Awesome refusal
To mention a dead Asian
Woman meets with your happy
Approval.
Because allowing crazy felons to
Wander Seattle’s streets is
Opposed only for purely
Aesthetic reasons
By persons you
Both really
Hate.
@40 -- & solid
Gold Doubloon
@50 ad Vomitas:
being Lectured
by you on Empathy
& Compassion? Priceless.
nice little stab
at stacking
btw.
you've Almost
promise.
@51: As any glance at your comments instantly reveals, you do not shit gold. (No matter how many times you say you do.)
@52:
“being Lectured
by you on Empathy
& Compassion? Priceless.”
Eina Kwon’s just a dead Asian woman. Nothing for you or Prof. Failure to care about, obviously.
“nice little stab
at stacking”
It takes very little talent.
"Eina Kwon’s just
a dead Asian woman.
Nothing for you or Prof.
Failure to care about, obviously."
where were we
something about
straw men and dead
Asian women apparently... *
*speaking of Strawmen
& your "dead Asian women" (RIP?):
oh and Failure!
that's a Biggie
too. apparently
"What’s it like,
to fail so miserably
at a task you witlessly
appointed to yourself?"
tensorna on June 23, 2023 at 8:41 PM Report this
if you'e not Too
Busy give it a stab?
[with your rapier-like whit?]
[get it?]
I don't know why people are so defensive about this person's experience in Seattle. My theory is because we live in an age of extreme narcissism fueled by social media. People have become too stupid to empathize with other people because what does that have to do with me? A lot of these comments make me stupid just thinking about them and you can't argue with stupid.
@57: SPD knew he had mental issues. Thanks to defund, SPD didn’t have the resources to run down every last one of the many crazies who wander the streets of Seattle. This has been explained to you many times now, and you still cannot understand it. That is your problem, not anyone else’s.
To make an analogy, we know you’re a racist when it comes to Asians, especially older Asians. (https://www.thestranger.com/slog-pm/2022/11/10/78719947/slog-pm-stay-away-from-link-trains-this-weekend-joe-kent-makes-considerable-gains-on-marie-gluesenkamp-perez-the-gop-now-hates-trump-for-ev/comments/24) That’s different from knowing if you are an imminent danger to anyone other than yourself.
There's always someone who gets scared and wants to pull their pants up and run home to granny in Omaha or Willoughby. Visit San Francisco and tell me what you see--probably the same thing or worse. Seattle is a popular city and you will see a fair amount of poop on the streets. Consider the high prices and stoned leadership to be the price you pay for such a beautiful location, prosperous economy and temperate climate. One commenter mentioned living in a neighboring city, that way you can visit for the big tourney or whatever and then get the heck out of Dodge, so to speak.
@60 -- & when you're
Under the Bridge
it'll be Official
@56: “I don't know why people are so defensive about this person's experience in Seattle.”
I’m actually surprised this person lasted this long. Seattle started going to hell seven years ago, and I left after the first five years of continual decline. Another two years would have been disastrous. And I’m a professional, married to a professional, and had lived in Seattle since 1991. I can’t even imagine what allowed this person, a relatively recent arrival living solo, to stick it out for this long.
I want to wish you the best in your move. As a 75 year old long time Tacoma resident I’ve enjoyed visiting the city since my parents took the family to the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962.
I go to visit friends, good restaurants, coffee shops, oldies concerts, record stores and vintage vinyl shows.
Even Tacoma is expensive but not as much as Seattle and not that far. With public transportation options hopefully getting better in the future it should help too getting there and back.
Maybe someday if your circumstances change you may return to this beautiful area.
@49- exactly. Minimum wage here didn’t break four bucks an hour until 1990. When I graduated from college in the 80s, everyone was working a couple of jobs, and sharing apartments or houses. That’s the way it’s always been. And you’re right, the difference is there are fewer rentals now. But even the ones that there are now, don’t cost five times what they cost in the 1980s. Our minimum wage, on the other hand is now just about five times what it was then.
Well, this has been an interesting comment section. Looks like we are all struggling a little - regardless of our opinion, origin, job, status, or location. What a beautiful mess.
Regarding the cost of life in Seattle: look at a map. We are the last outpost. Everything we consume comes from somewhere else and takes lots of energy to get here.
Are we having fun yet?
@66: “…would protest another group of parasites rather than protesting the fact that rich people don’t pay enough in taxes.”
This has been a contentious issue in Seattle since last Summer, and you still can’t even get the reason for the protests right. Here, let’s have a woman of Asian ancestry explain to you her community’s opposition, the community you so grandiosely claimed to understand:
“It was approved by the King County Council in partnership with Seattle and the King County Regional Homeless Authority. For a complex that opens this fall, these decisions were made without any meaningful community outreach or engagement. This follows a long history of policies that have been forced on the CID, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This is systemic racism. […] The fact that the community did not know about this complex is another example of the government’s disregard and disrespect for the neighborhood.“
(https://iexaminer.org/opinion-systemic-racism-in-lack-of-community-outreach-for-chinatown-id-shelter-expansion/)
It wasn’t the homeless megaplex itself, it was Seattle and King County siting it directly adjacent to the CID, but without any community input from the CID. Worse yet, as Woo also described, the city and county falsely claimed to have performed community outreach, but in reality, had contacted only a few persons, not all of them from the CID.
We now return you to your usual racist ignorance, always in evidence.
Reminds me of when I was a little kid there was a billboard just south of Seattle “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights”
Our coping skills are weak.
@67: Many residents of Seattle would love to live in your version of their city. You know, the one where crazy persons wandering around downtown are such a rare sight, the well-staffed Seattle Police Department can run background checks on each and every last one of them. (Better yet, the Stranger somehow doesn’t call the police racist poor-haters for so doing.)
I, too, would love to live there, but unlike you apparently, I’ve actually set foot in downtown Seattle at least once over the past five years. Encampments everywhere, random thefts and assaults, and defund driving the number of police officers to thirty-year lows, have produced an environment where random daylight murder has become an expected event. Everyone who pushed for allowing encampments and defunding the police gets to own this actual modern Seattle. Good luck getting anyone to believe your victim-blaming lies to the contrary.
@tensorna: I understand what you are saying, I pick and choose from pleasant memories of a senior citizen coupled with selective, mostly safe visits now. I hope it gets better.