Posted on 12/26/2018 5:48:56 PM PST by EdnaMode
Seattle does not want to become San Francisco, a fate that has come to refer exclusively to the city’s worst traits: its $5,000-a-month rents, its homeless encampments and the ever-present dissonance between those two.
As San Francisco’s troubles have grown more vivid, so too has its status as other cities’ worst nightmare. In Portland, Oakland and Sacramento, residents and pundits have voiced dread at becoming The Next San Francisco, where the middle class is disappearing.
San Francisco is worried, too — about becoming Manhattan. That fear has lurked for decades behind every new proposed skyscraper. And now cranes are erecting them all over downtown. The new Salesforce Tower sits at the center of the construction zone, 1,070 feet tall and butting into every vista in the city.
Surely there is nothing left to fear in New York, a place that already has tall buildings and high rents. But the pending arrival of Amazon in Long Island City, as Vice recently put it, has some residents on edge about “becoming Seattle on steroids.” The specter captures the particular mix of high housing costs, tall buildings and tech bros.
Our deepest anxieties about the future of where we live are embodied in other cities — in Portlandification, Brooklynification, Manhattanization. The comparison is seldom a compliment. You don’t want to become Manhattan (too dense), Portland (too twee), Boston (too expensive), Seattle (too tech-y), Houston (too sprawling), Los Angeles (too congested), Las Vegas (too speculative), Chicago (too indebted).
San Francisco has come to stand for the most specific set of horrors. It is the place where extreme poverty and tech wealth occupy the same block, while the schoolteachers and fire fighters all live two hours away.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The biggest building in the town nearest me was torn down when the grain elevator closed
Lol.
I live in the Seattle area and don’t want to go there anymore.
Nor Hartford Ct
Nor Portland Me
Nor Chicago IL
Nor Springfield MA
and the beat goes on...
I live in the Seattle area and don’t want to go there anymore.”
I live north of Seattle and generally have to drive there about twice a week.
Traffic is horrible, there are homeless camps everywhere. I just drive to the office building parking lot and go in to whatever business. I never have feet on sidewalk anymore.
San Fransicko? Let it slide into the Pacific.
It is all too too sad one party rule allowed these places to go too too bad many once called home. Minneapolis BTW has just prohibited the construction of single dwelling units will soon be listed too.
Their present day so-called successes are nothing more than the fruits of what they have vanquished, the American middle class.
Their coalition and their plan will fail.
Giuliani is one of the greatest men who ever lived for what he did in NYC
Funny they forgot Portland and more than a few other states have cities as and areas as bad or worse but hey what the hell, why ruin a rant.
The most ridiculous thing was that campsite built right by the Space Needle and the city council was just out in space over it. People had to walk out in the street to get around it.
I used to love going to The Ram and live around the U-Dist but no more. I make the extra drive from SEATAC to my folks’ home on the Peninsula when I’m in town.
Yes but DeBlasio is unwinding it.
Try moving up here to Skagit County. Life is good up here.
I drive south daily since I own a semi, but late at night when I-5 is empty.
Portland, the most atheist city in the US, is followed by Seattle and San Francisco, tied for second place.
Or Portland.
I don’t want to visit Seattle either. The blocks and blocks of homeless encampments, The blocks of traffic unable to move through the city, the high restaurant prices and the retail market moving out, why would anyone want to go there?
All cities become sewers because of like erals.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.