Danny Wesneat has a mixed record on writing about growth in Seattle. His most recent column, “Seattle’s latest growth industry: bemoaning what’s been lost,” has the following paragraph:

But I do wonder: When we’ve taken to memorializing even the loss of our grocery stores, maybe the pace of change has pushed us to some sort of emotional limit?

 

I think Westneat buried the lede or at least the most important question. As I discussed at Forbes last week, Seattle’s liberal progressive freak out about the election of Donal Trump begs the question: what are you really upset about Seattle?

On Black Friday I ran into a fellow Capitol Hill resident who is an opponent on growth issues. We get along personally and often joke and tease each other about our differing points of view and the ones we share (eg the City is largely annoyed an unresponsive and deaf to criticism from both of us).

Each of us kind of had a hard time understanding how Seattle’s Mayor would make a big show of how Seattle would stand up to Trump, while at the same time using prisoners to sweep homeless encampments. The Mayor and the City Council trip over themselves to wrap themselves in progressive ideology while at the same time promoting policies that limit housing growth and production and crack down on local refugees living in encampments while calling the city a sanctuary.

Knute Berger at Crosscut even wrote a self-congratulatory post about how people terrorized by Donald Trump could come to Seattle. That’s funny if it wasn’t so sad. They’ll have a tough time given the fact that our city’s leaders continue to indulge in rhetoric while enacting policies that ensure housing will just get more expensive and, for those who are homeless, create a hostile environment.

So has Seattle reached its emotional limit? Not yet I guess. Instead Seattle is like a tired child having a meltdown in the grocery store when he can’t get what he wants. Seattle is engaged in a slow motion breakdown, complete with rages and tantrums about growth and change, ugly buildings and tech workers and weepy, nostalgic interludes about one business or another closing down. Perhaps the kicking and screaming and self-pity will burn itself out. But it hasn’t shown signs of abating yet.

Meanwhile, some of us will continue to hold on to the bright side of change (see Bryan Kirschner’s post about prosperity) and urging members of the media to do the same. When you’re all done having your fit, and you dry your eyes, we’ll be here waiting with ideas about how we can increase the production of housing of all kinds, in all parts of the city, for all levels of income including leveraging the progress homeless people have made with encampments. Until then, here’s a box of kleenex.