The Emerald City's downward slide
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5/28/2021
I moved to Seattle in 1986 from Chicago, and have lived in Seattle or its suburbs for 35 years. The Pacific Northwest is the most beautiful area in the country, and Seattle has had a booming economy with lots of high paying and family wage jobs. Some of the most brilliant people in the world live here. My family has prospered here, and I would be remiss if I failed to recognize the benefits we have received and the high quality of life we have lived. However, Seattle itself is in the midst of a horrific downward cycle which won't change until the voters of Seattle decide to elect politicians who care about safety, beauty, thriving businesses, and quality of life. Seattle had a homeless problem in 1986, but it has been allowed, actually encouraged, to flourish and spread throughout neighborhoods with incredibly poor and wasteful stewardship by city leaders. Several cities have found ways to assist the homeless population, providing them with services and means to better their lives, while protecting the neighborhoods from detrimental impacts. Seattle, on the other hand, just seems to throw good money after bad into the problem without accomplishing any improvements. Meanwhile, Seattle has allowed its roads and infrastructure to fall apart and the city to become increasingly filthy and squalid. I think it is an embarrassment to have tourists see what Seattle is becoming. Current Seattle leaders have no respect for the police, choosing to demonize and defund them in a the progressives' knee-jerk response to the George Floyd tragedy. Predictably, the police feel unsupported by City Hall and back off from rigorous enforcement of the laws. The crime rate has gone up and Seattle becomes less safe while infrastructure continues to crumble and filth and deterioration accumulates and spreads. The only thing the current leadership seems to know how to do is throw money at the problems without a viable plan. So they enact onerous business taxes to increase revenues on the back of a business community that already feels over-taxed and under-served. Again predictably businesses are moving out, and fed up residents are following them. Seattle is currently locked in a downward cycle that can only be reversed by bringing enlightened leadership into city government. Enlightened leadership means leaders who will use approaches to homelessness that have worked for other cities, who will prioritize and adequately fund the police while enacting needed reforms, who prioritize creating a clean and beautiful city, and who will remember that the business community is their ally, not just their piggy bank. It is a shame that a city with such spectacular resources is being allowed to deteriorate into a third world slum, and the elected leadership has other priorities and doesn't seem to care. The hopeful thing is that Seattle's future is in the voters' hands. We get what we elect.
Gregg | Sammamish, WA