You might think of me as a privileged high paid tech worker driving prices up. Actually I come from a working class family in southern europe. I'd spare you the details but I spent all my live slowly crawling up my way to where I am. Nearing 40 my life savings are 5 figures, and I have never owned any property or anything of value. Had I been born in the US I would be held as a paragon of the American dream and social mobility.
So now I move and start in a new country all over again. We live in a visa that would kick us out of the country if I lost my job, and it will take years to achieve any kind of stability. We have to pay a good chunk of our inflated tech income to pay for rent.
I know complaining as a tech worker is playing the world smallest violin. I recognize and appreciate my privilege. But we aren't exactly the winners here. The winners are landlords and investment funds.
Blaming highly paid immigrants misses the point and just serves to tear us further apart. Instead we should look at the systems that have caused a systematic shortage of housing.
I've moved all over too. When I didn't like a place I figured out what was next went for it. I didn't complain about it on an unrelated comment thread on Hackernews. You moved to Seattle and are complaining about the rain! This is my home you're talking about, and you're talking about it like a review of a restaurant on Tripadvisor.
However, if you do want to discover the beauty of this place and make it your home I suggest you take your family out hiking. https://www.wta.org/go-outside/map - I promise you will find something here that will change your life forever if you give it a chance.
If only they did with their lives exactly as I told them to
So, it may not be polite to point it out, but it's not inaccurate to say that the problem is in fact people like the OP.
What we're talking about is the negative reaction from other Seattlites to highly paid newcomers who complain about the weather and high prices.
This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people fighting change or growth at all costs.
> This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people fighting change or growth at all costs.
There are NIMBY elements here, but the city hasn't been shying away from development. It's a completely different story up here than compared to San Francisco. Take a look at the city skyline from 2010 to 2020 -- it's completely different.
But there hasn't just been development in the downtown core. In 2017, the city council approved major upzoning changes in 27 neighborhoods across the city. It was passed unanimously. Lots of single-family housing zoning went away and tons of construction has followed, but it can't keep pace with new arrivals.
In areas where single-family housing still exists, the city changed zoning laws to allow backyard ADUs. The number of backyard cottages exploded and many of them are being rented out.
Is the situation perfect? Absolutely not -- housing prices are still sky high. But it's a vastly different situation than the one you've dismissively alluded to.
What I'm really talking about what I say "geographically constrained" is the elasticity of housing supply. Cities like Seattle, SF and NYC have less elastic housing supply in part because of their current land utilization and geographic constraints hemming in new development. That's a pretty well understood phenomenon.
You: "stop talking shit and just leave"
???
When Seattlites hear newcomers, particularly highly paid software engineers, moaning and groaning about the weather and high prices, there is very little sympathy to be had.