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Comment by readthenotes1 | Hacker News Reader

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No, that's the rhetoric. The reality: states like Massachusetts which have passed higher taxes on millionaires haven't seen the predicted exodus of millionaires. Mayor Wilson knows this and isn't taking dire predictions seriously. If you're gonna move, move, but it's not going to be because of that -- it's gonna be something you'd do anyhow.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Washington’s real GDP rose 1.1% to almost $730 billion between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 -- substantially ahead of the overall pace in the US. Anthropic just signed a least for a 113,000-square-foot space in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

Yeah, when I hear about how the tax changes are going to result in a huge exodus of millionaires it's not backed by data. The data shows millionaires actually move LESS than the general population. Places that instituted high taxes didn't see an exodus. It turns out if you have a great city with great physical and social infrastructure, people want to be there. Seattle is building both. The physical infrastructure is better now then when I moved there 10 years ago. I just took a train to Bellevue from downtown Seattle for a couple bucks. Waterfront looks amazing and beautiful now. City is really clean.

The cross-lake rail is just amazing. I commuted to Bellevue up until my retirement recently and I really liked it the couple of times I took it.

I don't want to pretend Seattle's perfect. It is very difficult to build new housing here thanks to well-meaning regulatory reform; as someone else noted, you used to be able to build fairly small apartments and that's not legal now. It'd also help a ton if the liberal centrist business-oriented cohort and the progressive wing could figure out how to work together without all the finger pointing. But it's an excellent city.

If they can help figure out how to make turning office space into apartments attractive that will solve the vacancy problem and help keep housing costs at bay.

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