The growing pains of an ever-expanding Seattle (Vancouver, Sammamish: sale, refinance)

[theegooch]

Hopefully the infrastructure gets the chance to catch up with the population/business growth. I'm coming to Seattle from Colorado, it took several infrastructure upgrades to get traffic under control as there came waves of people from California and Texas , and I don''t know where the latest wave is coming from, but new Apartments complexes and housing developments are going up everywhere.

Their answer was to greatly expand the light rail(train ) and bus services. It's helping but they are building out so fast quality is sacrificed. Its normal for a train to just not show up, or to have system problem or mechanical problems that makes passenger late to their destination.

If it's any consolation, I was born in Tacoma, so this could be considered a return home after some World Traveling.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by theegooch

Hopefully the infrastructure gets the chance to catch up with the population/business growth. I'm coming to Seattle from Colorado, it took several infrastructure upgrades to get traffic under control as there came waves of people from California and Texas , and I don''t know where the latest wave is coming from, but new Apartments complexes and housing developments are going up everywhere.

Their answer was to greatly expand the light rail(train ) and bus services. It's helping but they are building out so fast quality is sacrificed. Its normal for a train to just not show up, or to have system problem or mechanical problems that makes passenger late to their destination.

If it's any consolation, I was born in Tacoma, so this could be considered a return home after some World Traveling.

And there is a difference because the Seattle metro is confined between the Cascades, Lake Washington and Puget Sound. Denver has plenty of room for expansion while Seattle simply does not. For the massive amount of growth we are experiencing, a lot of us are less than thrilled, especially by the traffic.

"In other words, an average of 236 people are moving to the Seattle area each day..."

Seattle region's population growing at historic pace, making biggest annual gain in a century - GeekWire

[mhays25]

A portion of the problem sorts itself out. One reason for the apartment boom is people are choosing to avoid commuting entirely. Seattle is much easier for 20-somethings and others who don't drive.

[SaltyDawg]

Tacoma doesn't get you away from traffic, unfortunately. The I-5 stretch between Fife and the Tacoma mall is constantly awful, and it's nearly all people going through, not to, Tacoma. That's a problem.

Realistically, Tacoma is a better piece of land for a city the size of Seattle to have been sited on - it's got the great deep-water port and bay and a much less-pinched landmass. Alas.

I grew up in T-town, and over 40+ years I've heard constant talk of Seattle becoming too "[topic du jour]" and that Tacoma would benefit, but it never happens. It will likely always be a sleepy little sibling that a small subset of Seattle refugees figures out how to make work, and that's fine. Truth is, if you have the money, Seattle is preferable by most measures. If Tacoma had a great school system (it doesn't) or carefree traffic (nope) there'd be hope.

[jertheber]

I grew up in the late forties just a bit north of Lake city, then moved to the city limits by the sixties, and stayed there until 2007. From the late forties to the sixties Seattle was a pretty small place with a certain culture one could only expect in a veritable swamp. Cold, rainy, and a somewhat brutish populace when it came to "outsiders." Alaska was then just a northern neighborhood and the Ballard fishermen were there in Alaska as much as they were home in Seattle. Emmett Watson, the curmudgeonly newsman from Seattle's Post Intelligencer newspaper formed a fictitious club he called KTBO which stood for "keep the bastards out," a reference to Seattle's "outsiders" coming here in the 70's, in droves. He was also known for the "lesser Seattle" group of likewise curmudgeons with native web feet displaying their disgust at the shameless carney barkers of Seattle's Chamber Of Commerce.

Most of us were highly aware of the physical boundaries that we felt would naturally inhibit growth, of course we were wrong and the developers went ahead and began the stacking of humans one on top of the other until the genuine cool city had it's last curtain call, and that extended to the once great PNW. Today Seattle is a place I have little feeling for, not that i'm upset, but the town has changed so dramatically that I simply don't recognize most of it anymore. All cities with the exception of Detroit have survived their inevitable expansion, and to some extent the Northwest has lost a ton of it's charm, but cities are not the stuff of memories, they are totally themselves at the moment we experience them, their past however, is the stuff of memory, mine will always be cherished.

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by SaltyDawg

Tacoma doesn't get you away from traffic, unfortunately. The I-5 stretch between Fife and the Tacoma mall is constantly awful, and it's nearly all people going through, not to, Tacoma. That's a problem.

Realistically, Tacoma is a better piece of land for a city the size of Seattle to have been sited on - it's got the great deep-water port and bay and a much less-pinched landmass. Alas.

I grew up in T-town, and over 40+ years I've heard constant talk of Seattle becoming too "[topic du jour]" and that Tacoma would benefit, but it never happens. It will likely always be a sleepy little sibling that a small subset of Seattle refugees figures out how to make work, and that's fine. Truth is, if you have the money, Seattle is preferable by most measures. If Tacoma had a great school system (it doesn't) or carefree traffic (nope) there'd be hope.

Between the Military and the Pulp kings, Tacoma never had a chance in it's past. It's helter skelter development is a patchwork nightmare of prosperous islands in a sea of poverty. But I was just up there and noted that it looked better than anytime in the past, Pacific avenue's renaissance is quite a feat in itself, and the once combat zone of hilltop is even a changed place. I'd have to say there may be some hope, after all, Seattle has been getting that big city stench wrapped around it and Tacoma isn't that bad of a commute.

[Rombus]

We need a new Emmet Watson to continue the legacy of "Lesser Seattle". Only this time we need to realize that the old reprobate was right and to much growth has and will continue to ruin this beautiful city.

Watson's Lesser Seattle campaign—slogan: "Keep the bastards out"—served as a blessed antidote to the kind of boosterism that has long dominated this city,

Seattle News and Events | Who Killed Lesser Seattle?

[city23786785]

I Didn't really like when most of my favorite restaurants in the Seattle area started closing because of the minimum wage change. I moved to Seattle almost 18 years ago from Toronto, the city was much better back then than it is now because of all the construction happening around the city.

[Rombus]

Maybe we need to ressurect Lesser Seattle........

https://www.facebook.com/Lesser-Seat...425/?ref=br_rs

[mhays25]

Emmett Watson made money off tourists (via his oyster bar) and seemed to love the publicity he got from Lesser Seattle. But he was probably smart enough to know that the ideas he championed (slow growth) would have made housing prices a lot higher had they been broadly implemented.