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I think it's a fair deal so long as you can't escape to Utah/Idaho/Colorado when you realize the dystopia you've created isn't the kind of place you want to raise a family.
The entire city is so poorly run they just have no answers, and nobody can do anything about it. Pick something. Build more housing, do a basic income. Something, anything. But they can't. And their politics just let it keep getting worse and worse.
This isn’t even remotely close to true.
> You can't browse around outside Westlake Center without being bombarded and accosted by aggressive panhandlers. Even the iconic Pike Place Market was overrun with druggies.
I live on Pike Street. There’s homeless, but it’s not “overrun” and for the year+half I’ve lived here I haven’t been “accosted by aggressive panhandlers”. These are areas with constant foot traffic.
Yes 3rd & Pike is bad, but it’s improved since then. Late at night it’s not the best—but it’s never been.
If this is truly your experience, I urge you to visit again. Seattle is a large and beautiful city with a lot to offer.
See, this is wild to me. Seattle has a long-time notorious problem with Tent Cities and even now it's just completely normal. I remember The Jungle under I-5 at Beacon Hill was a big problem. I'm sure it still is.
The larger problem with "The Jungle" is that nobody can agree on what it means, and where it is. I used to live on Beacon Hill, and the way journalists used the phrase was all over the place. Incidents anywhere from the I-90/I-5 interchange to the camps under I-5 all the way south to Georgetown, to the camps up in the woods in the East Duwamish greenbelt were all called "The Jungle".
Seattle's problems are not "normal". And they should not be normalized by thinking this is just how it is. It is not that way in other places.
It sounds like your last visit was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeless encampment conditions in downtown Seattle and throughout the city have much improved since then. Today, visible homelessness is effectively the same as it was back in ~2005.
Explain to me how “the entire downtown area is just homeless tents”. By all means bring some proof of Pike Place being “overrun with druggies”. Get real.
My lived experience is that I could walk the length of Pike from Bellevue Ave towards the waterfront and see two-three tents at most. Homeless yes, but encampments? “Overrun”? “Tent city”?
It’s so easy to make hyperbolic statements and a pain to prove them wrong. I can see how you get away with spouting this nonsense—and people believe it.
Let me know if anyone wants a YouTube video or something, I’ll be glad to take a fun evening stroll and prove you wrong.
That street view was filmed taken two months ago, when it was still warm and nice out, so tent activity would've been at its peak.
I wish I had seen your post earlier because I literally walked that stretch of road earlier this evening -- a couple friends of mine from out of town are going to the Patti Smith show at the Paramount tonight and we had drinks nearby. No tents in sight though we did encounter someone walking around with a blanket wrapped around their head. But still, one probable homeless drug addict is hardly "overrun".
It's really not as you describe... I agree things were getting worse in ~2019 and then became way worse during the pandemic, but it's much different now.
In the interest of saving myself an hour of time uploading a video, I’ll attest that yes—that street view is as “average day on Pike” as it gets.
To be clear, there are homeless who walk around the area… and Capitol Hill isn’t exactly the nicest area these days. 3rd and Pike isn’t nice. But Seattle in 2025 isn’t real-life World War Z.
Parent commenter should visit sometime.