They didn't even put Hardwick's on the candidate list as a must-see attraction?

Was the expectation that 400 random people would share identical values and beliefs?

Since when does a city have to be or mean anything? It's a place where people live; maybe you were born or were raised here. Maybe you took a job and moved here. For someone it's home sweet home but it's pointless to use a city as a personal identifier other than the location of where you live. The fact that you live in Seattle doesn't make you any better or worse than someone who doesn't live here. If you feel that way then you are a snob.

All of the responses are directly related to income and wealth inequality. People are grateful that our area is doing incredibly well compared to the rest of the country, however most also feel left behind and totally screwed.

Stupid questions get stupid answers. Seattle is, as it has ALWAYS been, about making money as quickly as possible as easily as possible for people who desperately desire to be rich regardless of the social or environmental cost. Seattle is always willing to bend over if it means quick cash.

I don’t find this contradictory at all. All the answers are correct views of the lived experience of people. Is it fair? No. Are we changing things in better ways? Yes. Are anti-growth housing luddites making it too expensive right now? Yes.

The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area

Seattle hasn't had an at-large sense of community for a long time. There are neighborhoods that do, but a lot of places where people just happen to live next to or on top of each other and otherwise don't care about who or what they're around outside of their immediate personal experience. The new-house-new-car-new-uniwheel people aren't helping.

By relying on one economic sector, technology (Boeing has been making itself incrementally irrelevant year by year), Seattle has already set itself up to become Detroit. It's delusional if it doesn't believe Amazon's HQ2 isn't a wake-up call and reminder that tech companies can relocate to and prosper anywhere in the world. Amazon's success created a city in which I bet it's no longer economically advantageous for it to continue to operate. Unlike the old manufacturing sector, tech firms like Amazon are not tied to a location because of their physical manufacturing plants. I bet Amazon's next move is to sell off the property it built and start renting it back, claiming that's makes more sense financially. That will be one step closer to the exit door.

@9, I agree with your critique that Seattle, and, by extension, Olympia has been needlessly putting all their eggs in the basket of high tech for its economic prosperity rather than actively trying to diversify the economy. But I suspect we could avoid Detroit as long as Microsoft and its smaller to medium sized offshoots don't follow suit.

#10 But an Amazon departure would still be economically devastating if it were to happen. Microsoft et al simply couldn't pick up all the slack immediately.

It's perfectly obvious that while Seattle is a place to live, it wants to be your Big Brother.

Why is it at all a surprise that MoPOP comes out ahead of the library? You can spend a couple of hours, or more, at MoPOP looking at the exhibits. Once you gawk at the library's architecture for a couple of minutes, all that's left is to go inside and count how many vagrants are either passed out, gorked out of their minds, or watching fisting porn on the free computers.

@1
EFF TEE DOUBLE-YOU!!!