I know I'm not writing any obituaries for Seattle socialism just yet. I believe that we progressives need to be just as vigilant against the racialized regressive socialism of Kshama Sawant and Nkkita Oliver as we are against the racialized crony capitalism of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon.
I am breathing a sigh of relief, however, that Seattle voters overwhelmingly rejected Jon Grant--that we were smart enough to see past the liberal facade he tried to place over his reactionary positions on housing.
@1 Do you get this worked up about the fact that the US Congress is overrepresented by white men, or is it just Hispanics and wimmin who get your panties in a knot?
DSA had a big night across the country, and SA may have elected someone to the Minneapolis City Council. The left is still a force in Seattle but in 2017 it was a divided and unprepared force that didn't have a clear issue agenda that motivated voters. But Durkan will be much more conservative than Murray, and much more closely aligned with corporate power, which bodes well for left organizing in this city.
Neither Durkan nor Mosqueda have a viable strategy to preserve presently affordable housing while building enough to satisfy future demand.
Without taxes on business, our only real funding option is property taxes.
Without rent control type interventions, presently affordable housing will be "renovated" and pushed out of median income range.
Upzones will undoubtedly lead to a short-term decrease in affordable units as affordable lots will be the first bought and redeveloped. We are also potentially creating a longer-term shortage of worker housing if we are only mandating 2-5% affordable units in new construction while also allowing all currently affordable apartments to be turned into "luxury" units.
In the long run increased construction might catch up to housing demand and prices may fall, but as we all know "in the long run we are all dead". And Durkan and Mosqueda didn't run on the platform of making Seattle welcoming to middle-income people in 2030, they made a lot a promises about what they were going to do right now.
We will see how well Labor holds its power in Seattle when union wage workers are increasingly booted from the city limits by the property tax increases and zoning changes enacted by Mosqueda and Durkan.
Let's put "You must stand with labor" in the context of Sawant receiving the backing of MLK Labor Council, SEIU 775, and lots of other unions in 2015 before backstabbing and shade-throwing them at every turn, including her unforgivable endorsement of Jill Stein in 2016.
Let's talk about Sawant excoriating her Council colleagues with long-winded sound bite speeches for their pro-growth bills before voting with them 92% of the time.
Of course DSA and SA aren't going anywhere, but maybe have a rethink about non-stop confrontation if the primary goal is to be a credible political force with electoral wins. But then, the primary goal seems to be the fight itself, doesn't it.
As best as I can count a grand total of 8 DSA-backed candidates won offices across the country last night, mostly at the municipal level, hardly what a reasonable person would count as any sort of statistically relevant "big night", even taking into consideration Carter's upset victory in the VA House of Delegates race. I can't come up with a total number of offices up for election in this cycle, but a safe guess would be in the low six figures (there being roughly 511,000 total elected offices in the country). So, even being extremely generous those 8 seats represent a literally insignificant fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage point. Get back to us when the DSA can generate numbers on the left side of the decimal point, and then maybe you'll have something to crow about.
@6 I believe you have violated the terms of use. This is in particularly bad taste given the article several months ago complaining about harassment in the comments section
"You agree not to use The Stranger's website to: (A) publish content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, or reflective of racial or ethnic bias;"
It may have been a new troll, but it was a doofus comment that was also on other threads saying that the city council is "overrepresented" by "Hispanics" now that Gonzales and Mosqueda are in.
Thanks :>)
Reminds me of the Notorious RBG's answer to a question of how many women should be on the Supreme Court...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg dropped a truth bomb during a discussion at Georgetown University earlier this week.
The 81-year-old Supreme Court justice, who has attained somewhat of a cult following for her stance on gender equality, told a gathering of law students Wednesday that people often ask her when she thinks there will be enough women on the court.
“And my answer is when there are nine,” she said, as if the question even needed to be asked.
Maybe for starters forcing landlords to fix innumerable problems that amount to health and safety violations BEFORE they can charge people $2,000 a month to live in unheated rat-and-roach infested hovels with peeling paint, exposed wiring, and backed-up-plumbing?
The police union is a white supremacist arm of the imperialist labor aristocracy and to say that police labor is the same (in the way it is to be treated, even if it's supposedly for strategic reasons) as any other entity identifying as Labor is an indication that Mosqueda is an opportunist. She as much as admits this and even celebrates it. At least Grant, for all of his problems and weaknesses as a socialist candidate, had sense enough to treat the police union with the scrutiny it deserves. We can't let the police continue to shirk accountability by hiding in the labor movement when it's convenient for them.
@8 Yes, I do. There are too many straight white cis-gendered men in Congress. Frankly there are too many of the aforementioned in many legislative bodies. I'll say it again, and hope this doesn't get deleted. I think representative bodies should reflect their constituents. And right now the Seattle City Council doesn't reflect Seattle.
@32 finally someone said it. Big labor in seattle is obviously pursuing their own interests of not having public negotiations (I wonder why they dont want their negotiations public??) While labor is looking out for themselves and by extension the police unions, they are saying they dont care about the marginalized and would rather protect murderers in the police department. Where was the coverage of that issue in the campaign, The Stranger? I feel sorry for Mosqueda, as she will forever have to answer to her community why she didnt do what she could to provide accountability over a police force that harasses and kills her community members
@16 Upzones will undoubtedly lead to a short-term decrease in affordable units as affordable lots will be the first bought and redeveloped.
Not necessarily. It depends on which places are upzoned. In the past, the city has often upzoned areas that are already zoned for apartments. This is politically easy, since you don't fuck with the single family areas. So old, small apartment buildings get replaced with big ones and houses (some which are operating as apartments) get replaced as well. This doesn't happen as often as displacement caused by simply raising rents, but it does happen.
But if you change single family zones, you pretty much guarantee you won't have displacement. Right now it is hard as hell to build a basement apartment or backyard cottage (technically called ADUs and DADUs). You can't rent out both, for example, and we are one of the few cities that prevents that. But if you change the zoning rules and make it easier, then there is no reason why a landlord wouldn't go ahead and build both. Continue to rent out the house (or buy a house when the old owners sell) and then add units.
If the city makes a more dramatic change -- such as having the entire city be LR1 -- then you might see some displacement. Small, old houses that are being rented out could be replaced by apartments. But for the most part, those folks are likely to get displaced either way. Either the owner builds a big house, or an apartment.
As far as rent control is concerned, the problem is that it doesn't work. At best a handful of long time residents keep their low rents, but move and you are out of luck. On the other hand, liberalizing development -- i e. having less restrictive zoning -- does work. It is just rare, if not unheard of in this country (but common and fairly effective in other countries). It is no panacea -- you still need to publicly fund housing -- but market rates go down, which helps those who don't qualify (or don't want to wait) for public housing, and makes the money we spend on public housing go a lot further.
Then the Council will do a better job, which is what we want.
I am breathing a sigh of relief, however, that Seattle voters overwhelmingly rejected Jon Grant--that we were smart enough to see past the liberal facade he tried to place over his reactionary positions on housing.
In the spirit of your comment: fuck off - it's their sandbox, they can do what they like.
Okay, fuck you.
Without taxes on business, our only real funding option is property taxes.
Without rent control type interventions, presently affordable housing will be "renovated" and pushed out of median income range.
Upzones will undoubtedly lead to a short-term decrease in affordable units as affordable lots will be the first bought and redeveloped. We are also potentially creating a longer-term shortage of worker housing if we are only mandating 2-5% affordable units in new construction while also allowing all currently affordable apartments to be turned into "luxury" units.
In the long run increased construction might catch up to housing demand and prices may fall, but as we all know "in the long run we are all dead". And Durkan and Mosqueda didn't run on the platform of making Seattle welcoming to middle-income people in 2030, they made a lot a promises about what they were going to do right now.
We will see how well Labor holds its power in Seattle when union wage workers are increasingly booted from the city limits by the property tax increases and zoning changes enacted by Mosqueda and Durkan.
Let's talk about Sawant excoriating her Council colleagues with long-winded sound bite speeches for their pro-growth bills before voting with them 92% of the time.
Of course DSA and SA aren't going anywhere, but maybe have a rethink about non-stop confrontation if the primary goal is to be a credible political force with electoral wins. But then, the primary goal seems to be the fight itself, doesn't it.
As best as I can count a grand total of 8 DSA-backed candidates won offices across the country last night, mostly at the municipal level, hardly what a reasonable person would count as any sort of statistically relevant "big night", even taking into consideration Carter's upset victory in the VA House of Delegates race. I can't come up with a total number of offices up for election in this cycle, but a safe guess would be in the low six figures (there being roughly 511,000 total elected offices in the country). So, even being extremely generous those 8 seats represent a literally insignificant fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage point. Get back to us when the DSA can generate numbers on the left side of the decimal point, and then maybe you'll have something to crow about.
@15:
Fuck off, MRA troll.
Get used to it.
"You agree not to use The Stranger's website to: (A) publish content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, or reflective of racial or ethnic bias;"
(I missed what @1 & 15 posted, but with all the strong responses, now I'm kinda curious.. but, ah, nevermind.)
But given the classy response of stranger writer stevenhsieh apparently i was wrong.
However our job is to comfort the oppressed and make the upper class uncomfortable.
It may have been a new troll, but it was a doofus comment that was also on other threads saying that the city council is "overrepresented" by "Hispanics" now that Gonzales and Mosqueda are in.
Reminds me of the Notorious RBG's answer to a question of how many women should be on the Supreme Court...
Maybe for starters forcing landlords to fix innumerable problems that amount to health and safety violations BEFORE they can charge people $2,000 a month to live in unheated rat-and-roach infested hovels with peeling paint, exposed wiring, and backed-up-plumbing?
@8 Yes, I do. There are too many straight white cis-gendered men in Congress. Frankly there are too many of the aforementioned in many legislative bodies. I'll say it again, and hope this doesn't get deleted. I think representative bodies should reflect their constituents. And right now the Seattle City Council doesn't reflect Seattle.
Not necessarily. It depends on which places are upzoned. In the past, the city has often upzoned areas that are already zoned for apartments. This is politically easy, since you don't fuck with the single family areas. So old, small apartment buildings get replaced with big ones and houses (some which are operating as apartments) get replaced as well. This doesn't happen as often as displacement caused by simply raising rents, but it does happen.
But if you change single family zones, you pretty much guarantee you won't have displacement. Right now it is hard as hell to build a basement apartment or backyard cottage (technically called ADUs and DADUs). You can't rent out both, for example, and we are one of the few cities that prevents that. But if you change the zoning rules and make it easier, then there is no reason why a landlord wouldn't go ahead and build both. Continue to rent out the house (or buy a house when the old owners sell) and then add units.
If the city makes a more dramatic change -- such as having the entire city be LR1 -- then you might see some displacement. Small, old houses that are being rented out could be replaced by apartments. But for the most part, those folks are likely to get displaced either way. Either the owner builds a big house, or an apartment.
As far as rent control is concerned, the problem is that it doesn't work. At best a handful of long time residents keep their low rents, but move and you are out of luck. On the other hand, liberalizing development -- i e. having less restrictive zoning -- does work. It is just rare, if not unheard of in this country (but common and fairly effective in other countries). It is no panacea -- you still need to publicly fund housing -- but market rates go down, which helps those who don't qualify (or don't want to wait) for public housing, and makes the money we spend on public housing go a lot further.