Seattleite here, If the city would build for density and take some steps to address the speculation and foreign asset arbitrage going on in the housing market, then this debate would be moot and we'd be back to brooding and awkwardly avoiding human contact as we so desperately want to.
While it's hard to quantify the impacts of speculation and foreign investment, the raw statistics of population growth demonstrate that we'd be having a huge problem in the city even without those factors:
Per the U.S. Census American Community Survey, Seattle has added 56,410 housing units between 2007 - 2016. In that same period, we've added no less than 142,252 people. The growth in population has simply outstripped the housing supply, and until supply catches up, we're in for a ride...
Every single big, forgotten, rust-belt city underwent similar growth periods and somehow figured it out. This isn't an unprecedented or technically difficult problem to solve.
Take a look a Detroit's population boom at the beginning of the last century:
And you think 21st-century Seattle can't absorb 142,252 people?
How did Detroit do it? They built vast tracts of densely-situated multi-story apartment buildings. Did that change the character of those neighborhoods? Obviously. So what?
Although twenty-something tech workers may almost always live alone (or want to), this isn't true of people in general. If all 142k people were members of 3-person nuclear family hosueholds, for example, 56k units would be more than sufficient.
I think it's insane to claim that any level of housing production is sufficient until rental prices approach maintenance costs, but it's important to remember that a 1:1 person:household ratio only applies if we're talking about adults who are not in intimate relationships.
I was shopping for a new house in the Seattle area and randomly some people started talking to me (from the Southwest). This never happened to me before. I was kind of weirded out. I said, "so you guys MUST NOT BE FROM HERE." They are like, "no way. We are from the Mid West!"
We invited each other to back yard barbecues within a month.
Have you ever been to West Seattle? It's mostly natives and you get a much more open neighborly vibe. However, it isn't very techie and much more blue collar/other professional.
Maybe what makes it more neighborly is the blue collar or non tech people in the mix.
Maybe it’s us the techies who are the weirdos. But techies who are natives are “REALLY weird.” I guess they just like to keep to themselves and be anti-social?
Fellow techies who are natives: what’s up with that?
Depends on what you mean by native? Most of us are transplants, even those of us who went to high school and university in the area. All the natives I know aren't in tech.
Is it not building for density? I've lived in the same spot near capitol hill for 5 years and there are new high-rise and mid-rise condo buildings in every single direction. It's been nuts! They built like crazy.
All the construction is concentrated into a few small pockets. So inside one of those pockets, it feels like a lot. But the majority of Seattle's land is still single-family detached residential only. This is a zoning map, you'll see that the "highrise" and "midrise" pockets are very small:
And those developments have been concentrated in a few areas barely zoned for such. The vast majority of the city is zoned for single family buildings not townhouses/low-rises/mid-rises nevermind NYC-style high-rise apt buildings the city and the young so desperately need.
