On the plus side, our landlord is doing everything in his power to keep us happy, for the first time.
And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are still going up. The construction boom hasn't mitigated. Seattle isn't doing a good job at chasing money away.
> People are growing tired of the messy streets, needles are tents are spreading as the city ignores the problem.
It's just a handful of streets. It's certainly not endemic to the city. 99.99% of seattle doesn't have that issue. Unfortunately for seattle, that problem is concentrated around the touristy section.
> On the plus side, our landlord is doing everything in his power to keep us happy, for the first time.
Is he lowering the rent?
I don't have skin in the game here, but I noticed this statement, which I think isn't right. You need to consider that commercial construction, skyscrapers no less, take years. From conception to funding to planning to approvals to building, the lag is long.
So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles.
Latency is huge. No one thought up COVID, WFH or even CHAZ when they were standing around plastic models of plastic buildings.
> So long, in fact that some have come up with the (controversial, not saying it's correct) "Skyscraper Index" which argues that historically, peak skyscraper height correlated with the worst economic dips in the economic cycles.
Considering that none of these buildings are very tall, we are fairly safe then.
But I think this slow down will be useful in the long run: Downtown Seattle is currently turning into office space for Amazon without much for anyone else anymore. Especially compared to downtown Portland, which is a much better place to live (more retail and services, better access MAX). The boom was really going in the wrong direction, it would be nice if it could be corrected.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/more-than-1-i...
I wouldn't be surprised if this is how people in South Seattle deal with living in South Seattle, or in downtown (e.g. capital hill), the schools really aren't great there. The schools don't get good until you hit Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard, Wallingford, Green Lake, north of UW (Roosevelt is where all the UW professors send their kids), but then they aren't so great again in north (of 85th) Seattle (not as bad as South Seattle, however). I'm not sure how even the reputation of South Seattle is either; my cousins went to West Seattle high school and they had pretty good experiences.
For SF / SV readers: Ballard is a hip Seattle neighborhood, somewhat like Hayes Valley but also near a beach and bike paths. My house is new construction and walking distance to everything. I paid list price.