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I have lived in Seattle since 2009, first working at Microsoft and now working remotely for a Bay Area company. For people who aren't familiar with the Seattle area, it is cleaved into 2 parts:

1) The city of Seattle or the "west side". This area is increasingly dominated by Amazon, local startups and engineering offices for Bay Area companies like Facebook and Google.

2) The cities to the east of Lake Washington (Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland) or the "east side". This is the domain of Microsoft, Expedia, Concur and a smaller set of startups.

Most of the intense change has occurred in Seattle and specifically in the South Lake Union area where Amazon is located. Yes, there has been change and growth elsewhere, but nothing that I would consider alarming.

I'm personally optimistic that Seattle will find a balance between growth and continuing to have an enviable culture and cost of living.

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I think Capitol Hill is the most glaring change to me in the past 5 years. One of the neatest and most unique neighborhoods in the city, in a way iconic to how Seattle was seen is now filled with brand new condos and multi-use buildings. For god sakes there have been gay-hate crimes on Broadway.

Yes, tons of new development has happened in SLU, but that area wasn't much of an established neighborhood to live in before, so it doesn't bother me as much.

Seattle is quickly losing any remaining "grit" and that as someone who has always called it home that is seriously depressing. I'm in the Central District which to some degree feels more like a Capitol Hill (except with black people!) but I imagine it is only a matter of time before the condos invade here as well.

I still have yet to have anyone explain to my why "grit" is a desirable trait in a neighborhood. I can understand wanting diversity, unique cultures, but that absolutely does not conflict with a general quality of life increase.

I think it's less 'grit', and more getting annoyed that absolutely EVERYTHING is brand new. I like new stuff, but places in Seattle have signs like 'Est. 2010', and that makes them 'old', which would be absurd anywhere on the east coast or in the midwest.

I live next to Cal Anderson, fwiw.

You can think of "grit" as meaning mixed wealth. It's desirable because people are more likely to use their wealth pro-socially, rather than buy a new BMW every other year, if they don't live in an enclave isolated from the economic struggles of the rest of society.

Grit is something I used to like about Seattle. This was a city of lumberjacks and fishermen and dock workers.

It seems to me that the fact that Capitol Hill was the unique, Bohemian, and affordable neighborhood that it was in your memories was just an accident of the 20th century. It's: * Right next to downtown * Has great views and * Has very easy access to a major road, I-5.

Why on earth wouldn't having credentials like that make it prime property, even if a certain retailer didn't exist?

But from 1950 - 1990, nobody wanted to live in a city, they wanted to drive in from their suburbs. So cities became refuges for the interesting and weird, while the rest of America had their half-acre.

That trend is reverting now, and the real value of property in major cities is being reevaluated, and at something closer to what it probably should be.

Also, I really liked this Wonkblog[1], not just for highlighting the differences in densities in world urban areas, but also because he talks about the mentality of "Well, I've moved here now, but the development can stop now!"

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/06/th...

> * Right next to downtown * Has great views and * Has very easy access to a major road, I-5.

> Why on earth wouldn't having credentials like that make it prime property, even if a certain retailer didn't exist?

Crappy transit (49 is your only bus route for many parts of the hill and is slow and only runs on Broadyway; 10/11/43 serve very specific areas); I wouldn't call the I-5 access great (the intersection at Denny is frequently really slow and backed up because people run lights and block the intersection).

Bus routes can be fixed, that's a months-years problem. I'm sure the city will adjust at some point, probably before 2018, to give Capitol Hill really amazing service.

I was exaggerating a bit... but the highway basically runs right beside the length of the neighborhood. It's pretty convenient to get on, even if Denny is totally packed.

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I don't actually disagree that it is a wonder Capitol Hill was unchanged for so long, but that doesn't mean we can't bemoan the fact that that era has largely ended.

I know that in general this is a trite topic and your quote about "no more development" is a valid one, but so is the opposite.

There's another funny quote, apparently from Yogi Berra, which is roughly: "Oh that restaurant, nobody goes there anymore, it is too crowded." And I think that kind of touches on the same thing.

Some people picked Seattle / Capitol Hill for the characteristics it had (apart from proximity to downtown), and it is only natural for us to bemoan that it isn't that anymore. Maybe that is just a fundamental truth, that with growth you will lose some "flavor", but perhaps it is also worth trying to see if city planning can help a city grow so that it doesn't.

That's the point. Of course things change, but maybe appropriate planning and policies can make it so that we don't lose what was so great about these neighborhoods in the first place.

For those unfamiliar with Seattle, SLU is adjacent to Capitol Hill. So, some Amazon employees inevitably live in Cap Hill, which is for some reason a desirable place to live (lots of night life activities, crappy transit options).

Cap Hill used to be a gay / artist / low income district of Seattle but is increasingly wealthy tech workers. I don't see this as a bad thing but obviously some people do.

Cap Hill used to be a gay / artist / low income district of Seattle but is increasingly wealthy tech workers. I don't see this as a bad thing but obviously some people do.

I think this comparison misses the point. The think the main complain with the change is just that, change. Capitol Hill used to feel much more eclectic and diverse. Today, personally, I don't feel that sentiment.

FWIW, I've lived in the neighborhood for ~7 years.

I'll echo this, and I've lived in the neighborhood for 23 days shy of 10 years.

While the changes to Capitol Hill alarm me as well (having lived there for 25 years), there have always been gay hate crimes on Capitol Hill.

Good description but I would categorize it as "Seattle" vs "East Side", when people say "West Side" I tend to think of West Seattle down through Burien.

It's worth pointing out that Google has offices in both Seattle and Kirkland - and I believe that the Kirkland office is larger, and is coming to be as important to Kirkland as Amazon is to Seattle (obviously Kirkland is much smaller than Seattle).

East side also has a big Google presence in Kirkland. The Google office in Fremont is small in comparison.

There are also north (Bothell-Everett) and south (Renton-Tacoma) sides to consider, which are also changing rapidly. Everytime I go back (I grew up there), I'm shocked by some change. The Amazon one was huge (hey, Apple is at South Lake also now!).

The alarming concern is that by creating 70k new jobs in the South Lake Union, that's roughly 70k units of housing near SLU that are going to primarily higher earning white tech workers. This is raising rent in all of the central city (including many historically considered neighborhoods of color) and pushing lower-earners further and further away from their jobs, their churches, and their communities. Yes, eventually the latter two will move with them, but to separate these communities is painful and their labor is still needed in the inner city.

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