God this ‘debate’ is so tiring. Downtown Seattle is not as bad as some cities for sure and still ‘ok’ but it is a shithole compared to 10-15 -20 years ago . Arguing about which side is the bigger drama Queen is boring.

@1 is not from here, it was much much worse then

cognitive dissonance-correcting glasses
oughtta be Required Safety Wear
for the Entire Electorate
BEFORE Voting

or commenting here.

Good thing I don't need 'em!

[sounds like the same guy on the DVD
'Children of Men' with his most ex-
cellent commentary on the Fil-lum]

@1: Amen
@2: No, it wasn't. I've been in Seattle since the late 70's. No comparison. You are wrong. Repeat, you are wrong.

If everything is so great now, then it seems like we don’t need to tax Amazon, or high-income earners, or get rid of single-family zoning, or spend any more money on homelessness, or enact any climate initiatives.

Thanks, Chuck! I assume you and your Slog buddies will support the status quo candidates in all future city elections.

@2 downtown is not currently worse than 20 years ago. It was a sleepy dump in places then and it is now a tragic slow burn dumpster fire now.

I am not old enough to know what it was like 40 years ago but I have heard it was as bad then as it is today but in a different way.

@1 is correct. It has more sketchy parts now than in the past 20 to 30 years but is still not as sketchy as even the sketchiest portions of our other west coast cities like Portland, Sacramento, Oakland, SF and LA.

Downtown is also ok, other than a couple blocks along 3rd it’s fine or great.

They are even more correct that it is tired and stupid to argue about any of this.

If you don’t like how things are there is not a lot you can do about it as an individual, but what you can do does not include arguing with strangers on The Stranger about any of it.

Zizek's "forced to be free" argument is an interesting one to consider. The revelatory spectacles were found by John Nada in an abandoned church. I can think of no better example of the deleterious consequences of forcing freedom on people than the decline of religion as a dynamic social force in modern US America. I can already hear the vanguard retort, "but our freedom is true freedom, so we are justified in forcing it on the masses". Good luck with that, we will no doubt be rummaging through your abandoned closets looking for the remnants of your truth someday.

Shit, I meant to say downtown is NOW much worse than.

Also for the it’s so terrible crowd who claim it was local politics that make it worse are also FOS. Most of the visible shit kicked up with the pandemic and other global and national issues.

The main local driver of visible homelessness was clearing out the Jungle. So many of the feckless bums have been here for years, just hidden.

@10 if you think it’s bad that as people are no longer forced by their parents to believe lies about a magical force that must be pleased or there will be consequences even if it has led to decreased social cohesion then you are missing the point.

It seems your point is we should force our kids to believe bullshit so that somehow it will create a more dynamic social force all so that we can guard our closets against bums?

I don’t think you are as bright as you seem to think you are.

@12 please re-read my comment, I think you have misunderstood me. My point is that once upon a time churches claimed to have a truth so powerful and liberatory that converts should be made "by force". Zizek (if you are familiar with his writing beyond this YouTube clip) routinely suggests making converts to socialism (read - "freedom") by force. I am arguing that no matter how good the soup is if you force people to eat it, they will get sick. I'd prefer if you engaged my arguments without insulting me, thank you. I make no claims on superior intelligence.

In the 70's, downtown was amazing: Lots of big stores (including the World's Largest Penney's!), What is now Westlake Park was a huge monorail station, and First Avenue was a wonderland of sketchy bars and porno theatres.

In the 80's, the construction of the transit tunnel was a major disruption. The monorail station went away, and lots of new construction came in, replacing a lot of the funkiness. But it was still a pretty interesting place.

In the early 90's, Frederick & Nelson, I Magnin, and Klopenstein's all closed within a few years of each other, and Macy's began their systematic destruction of the Bon Marche. Downtown was a little tired and a little seedy, but soon Nordstrom moved into F&N, and things started looking up.

But downtown was never that bad, and it's not all that bad now.

@14: I wish it just was the funky and seedy as we had to deal with.

But what you never saw, and you'd by lying if you said you did, were tents of homeless lining the sidewalks. Yes, that also defines "bad" in my book. There was also violent crime back then, but fewer overt random attacks like recently with a baseball bat on the back of a woman's head or tossing a woman down the stairs, and then again to go all the way to the bottom.

Nor was the fire department putting out fires in encampments, or entire parks taken over like by the courthouse. Nor a whole block where fencers were selling their stolen goods. Narcotics weren't as addictive in the 70's and 80's as they are now. It was just smack and crack, and fentanyl had yet to come on the scene.

I'm perplexed why you and Tim insist on spinning it differently, it's not like your progressive card would be blemished.

*and Will

Oh Raindrop, how you do prattle on. I was just commenting on the conditions downtown, not the widespread problem of homelessness, which seems much worse in other parts of the city.

City Hall Park has been a disgrace for decades, but I blame that on the concentration of social services in the area - where there's a lot of poor, desperate and/or addicted people, there will be a lot of people who will prey on them.

In my opinion, the missions and other "ministries" in Pioneer Square and the ID need to give up all that lucrative real estate and be scattered throughout the region, so that we can get some tax-generating economic activity in the area around the courthouse. Turn the Frye and Morrison back into hotels, and let McMenamins take over Lou Graham's old brothel. (After building modern and appropriate housing for the people who inhabit those buildings).

As I often say, the problem of the homeless is a national problem that the cities are bearing the brunt of. But even out by Grand Coulee - which is the essence of the "middle of nowhere" - there are homeless people.

I call bullshit on many parts of this article. I think everyone understands there are plenty of systemic issues that cause homelessness and crime. But ol Chuck Mudede seems to think that these systemic issues absolve these wretches of wrongdoing. At some point one does choose to smoke Fentanyl or peddle stolen goods, or peddle stolen goods so they can buy Fentanyl. There are plenty of individuals who have had trauma in their lives or have been screwed by the system or had shitty home lives. Many of those folks choose to better themselves by working a job they don't love, or by being a good neighbor, or by simply choosing not to use illegal narcotics and devolve into a life of petty criminality. It's these folks who shouldn't have to deal with assholes smoking fentanyl on their doorstep.

There's no reason why the city can't work on fixing the long term problems of homelessness and addiction while also dealing with the short term problem of dealing with the criminal class in this city who have escaped consequences for their actions for far too long.

There WAS a sequel to "escape from ny" called "escape from l.a."
must be another boozy stream of drunkness from Chuckie