My column “Who Killed Lesser Seattle?” (Jan. 19) generated a good deal of response, more than our letters section could handle, so this week I open my column to readers—with a little Mossback commentary, of course.
As predicted, these include the density lovers—people who think crowding is good. As you might expect, many of these are folks who have moved here from somewhere else, like really crowded East Coast cities.
Brian Dougherty of Seattle delights in confessing to murder: “Who killed Lesser Seattle? We killed Lesser Seattle—the newcomers—those of us who arrived from exotic and frightening places like Boston, Philadelphia, Amsterdam, and, yes, even the dreaded Manhattan. You say ‘we’re building rail before fixing the roads’ as if that were a sin. I say it’s a salvation and one of the reasons that Seattle continues to beckon for more urban- oriented lefties.”
He goes on to whine about all the stuff Seattle doesn’t have. “The old Seattle gave us a city without mass transit, without walkable and dense neighborhoods, without 24-hour destinations. . . . “
I’m left wondering: If Boston, Philly, and New York are so freakin’ marvelous, why the hell don’t people stay there? Why come here for urban grit? And does this city really have a shortage of urban-oriented lefties? Why not go to Spokane or Salt Lake where you can do some good?
Paul Steinhacker of Seattle rips Mossback for “clouded, contradictory thinking common to much of the ordained political thought in Seattle.” He warns, “Either a city or a person that stays in the same place does so at its own peril. Things that stay in the same place by nature rust and stagnate. . . . ” Or grow lots of moss. I’ll try not to take it personally.
He goes on: “Some of the Seattle neighborhood business districts are suffering from a withering malaise due to lack of increased density which would bring more life.” Yeah, and more crime, poverty, claustrophobia, and don’t forget urban-oriented lefties. What causes malaise again?
Look, density is neither good nor evil. Nor is it a panacea. Steinhacker suggests it’s good for retail businesses; another reader says inner-city growth works by “densifying the inner core and protecting the farmlands and forests.” Which is nice in theory but is not happening in fact. There is simply too much developable land in the region for Seattle to be an effective density sponge. And to drive urban density by giving developers and billionaires tax incentives and public subsidies—or by selling off public assets like Seattle Center property, as Mayor Greg Nickels is proposing—is neither fair nor sustainable. Worse, it won’t stop sprawl.
Dan Perreten of Seattle pulls no punches with Mossback’s obtuseness. “I am tempted to dismiss Knute Berger’s extravagantly operatic pity party. . . . After all, only a fit of (one hopes temporary) pathological narcissism would cause someone to offer up such lamentations for the alleged hellhole that Seattle has become at the same time that literally millions of people around the Indian Ocean are living in an actual hellhole. Indeed, I am tempted to ask Berger if he’s ever set foot outside his beloved Pacific Northwest and experienced the way the vast majority of humans on this planet live.” He goes on, “Seattle remains one of the world’s most pleasant places. Heck, these days I’m grateful to be living any place with working plumbing, and anyone who isn’t ought to keep their sorry, spoiled, bourgeois mouth shut.”
OK, Mossback will stipulate to being a privileged white male, and that my plumbing (personal and household) works most of the time. The tsunami unleashed horrible human misery, and even normal conditions in much of the world are dreadful. I am grateful every day that I live in this extraordinary place. But I have left the stump a time or two or three. And when I came back from trips to Hong Kong, Japan, and India, I kissed the ground like a POW because I was so grateful Seattle actually had room to breathe and wasn’t clogged with a teeming, suffocating mass of humanity. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to keep it that way.
OK, now comments from a few Lessers who were abundant in their praise. Michael Godfried of West Seattle notes the city’s inner conflict. “Our region has two competing desires: (1) to be an economic superpower and (2) to preserve the unique and beautiful heritage that we like to view out the windows of our Humvees.” I agree. We have to ask ourselves: When is enough enough?
Charles Ragen of Seattle says, “We have civic attention deficit dysfunction. We need to be cured with the rule ‘no building without an endowment for operation and maintenance.'” What radical ideas: pay as you go, finish what you start. The barons of Greater Seattle would stroke out if we held them to that standard.
Another correspondent, a Seattle city employee who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, writes, “The last three paragraphs of [your] editorial are a brilliant summation of how rich guys have corrupted our civic souls, and how our political prostitutes have become available to them at every opportunity.” Forget Aurora Avenue, Chief Kerlikowske. Send the vice squad to City Hall!
Lastly, Tom and Stella Nilsen of Seattle write, “Amen. A million amens.”
I’m glad to know that Lesser Seattleites out there are praying for our city.
