2008-2018: Seattle’s Transformative Decade

Between 2008 and 2017, Seattle added more than 100,000 people. For a Sun Belt metropolis, this is an average pace. For Seattle, with fewer than 84 square miles, the growth was staggering.

Comparisons can be found only in the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century. In the former, Seattle almost doubled in population. Between 1900 and 1910, it grew from about 80,600, to more than 237,000.

The past decade also saw Seattle and the Puget Sound region solidify its place as one of the most economically potent spots in North America, with headquarters of two of the five Big Tech giants and a varied set of other assets. A diverse world city facing Asia for the Asian Century.

To be sure, not everyone is happy about it. This transformative period also saw housing grow more expensive, and traffic increase. The number of people panhandling on city streets or living in makeshift camps also increased. Collegial “Seattle nice” politics was replaced by a hard-left City Council where crowds of “activists” sometimes shout down other-thinking people who try to speak. A scandal forced out the mayor.

Longtime resident Connie De Roy says, “I have lived in Seattle for 63 years and have renounced this city as the home of my heart, even though I still live here. It’s a different place. I loved the Seattle I grew up in. It was a fun and special place back then.”

By most measures, it still is — this is one reason people keep moving here. But it’s much changed from 10 years ago. (...)

For such a fortunate place, the city overflows with new crises: the housing affordability crisis, inequality crisis, drug-abuse crisis, police-brutality crisis and homeless crisis.

All these are concerns, but the overuse of “crisis” makes it difficult to evaluate the severity of each, the national context, its particular effect in Seattle and constructive measures available. Or even to get our bearings.

The overheated environment is a direct result of a revolution in city politics. We’ve come a long way from stolid Mayor Greg Nickels, a center-liberal council and the famously slow “Seattle process.”

The decade saw a hard-left swing on City Council, backed by protests and large contingents of activists attending municipal meetings. A Socialist Alternative candidate, Kshama Sawant, was elected in 2013. Outrage became a dominant theme.

How this came about should intrigue historians and political scientists for decades. (...)

Decades of arbitrary measurements. Yet the 10 years from 2008 to 2018 transformed Seattle and the nation. One question is how much they set a trajectory for the future, too. (...)

Even if Democrats gain the gerrymandered Congress this year and Trump loses the White House in 2020, precious time has been lost in combating human-caused climate change. Seattle weather is already turned screwy. Valuable fisheries are at risk. Climate refugees from the Southwest could make the population growth of the past decade look like a trickle.

Do the changes seen over this past turbulent decade give us a preview of what’s to come?

Some are undoubtedly turning points here to stay — a larger, denser city; the primacy of the knowledge economy; and more conflict in politics, among them.

by Jon Talton, Seattle Times |  Read more:

Image: David Miller/The Seattle Times
[ed. The traffic and parking headaches, oy...]