I have no idea what you are talking about.
Figures
I bet you think that was clever.
Why don’t you try saying what you mean instead of talking in innuendos?
I thought it was painfully clear…
Either you celebrate capitalism or you don’t, lamenting that the best areas to live are populated by successful people is kind of like… well “duh”…
I wasn’t lamenting anything. I was just telling it like it is.
Because that’s an exaggeration.
Among the top 100 most populous cities in the US, Seattle ranks 51st in violent crime rate and 13th in property crime rates.
Wichita, Albuquerque, Tulsa, Spokane and several others all have higher property crime rates.
Des Moines, Tulsa, Phoenix, Omaha, Reno, Nashville, Anchorage, Houston, and dozens of other cities have higher violent crime rates.
And this list doesn’t even include the small cities like Springfield, Missouri for example, that have really high crime rates.
Crime exists in Seattle but it’s a pretty safe place, especially considering that crime rates are currently near historic lows all across the US.
Uh oh. You found out our secret.
Liberal Seattle is an economic powerhouse. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, Costco, Nordstrom… As I drove toward downtown for an afternoon appointment I counted 10 cranes (new high rise construction projects) all between University Street and the Space Needle.
You are right, McDonalds and Walmart are not the top employers in Seattle.
Seattle is the most educated big city in the US. 63% of adults over 25 have a college degree here.
There are lots of highly skilled jobs in technology, finance, and manufacturing in this region. And as a result, it’s impossible for a McDonalds employee earning $7.25/hour (the federal minimum wage) to live alongside Amazon coders who make $125K/year.
I’m reading different statistics.
With a crime rate of 61 per one thousand residents, Seattle has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 16. Within Washington, more than 96% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Seattle.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/wa/seattle/crime
The air quality rates pretty poorly as well as traffic. But hey there is Nordstrom’s
The solution proposed in the Seattle is Dying video is to ship homeless folk to McNeil Island for drug and mental health interventions. It’s convenient to make the homeless disappear but it kinda sounds like a violation of their unalienable right to liberty.
Involuntarily?
If you compare Seattle to Hickman, Nebraska (population 2200) and thousands of other similar small towns on NeighborhoodScout, there is no doubt, we have higher crime than the overwhelming majority of those towns…but I’d rather live here than Hickman, Nebraska.
Compared to other large cities our crime rates are pretty average.
You’re right, we have Nordstrom. We also have a median income of over $82K/year and we’ve seen 11% growth in median income over the past 3 years. Seattle is prosperous with a booming economy. So there’s that…
82k in Seattle is great?
Yes.
If police issue a $50 citation for public urination and there are no public restrooms…guess what? Homeless people are going to start racking up fines on the daily. When those fines go unpaid eventually there is jail time. If you criminalize loitering or sitting on the sidewalk, it’s another way to attach fines and eventually jail time to acts that homeless people can’t avoid doing. So yeah, it is pretty easy to lock homeless people up for an involuntary intervention.
I’m no fan of having people sleeping on the streets, but incarcerating them is (IMO) not the answer.
No. 82K is far from great in Seattle. It’s the median. That means that half of us earn more than $82K.
Out of curiosity, where do you live?
You said the solution proposed in the Seattle is Dying video is to ship homeless folk to McNeil Island for drug and mental health interventions.
So you’re saying the solution that the video was proposing was involuntary shipment to McNeil Island?
Why not watch the video you referenced and find out for yourself?
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Yes. That is what I am saying. Did you not watch the video?
The Seattle is Dying video, cites declining numbers of prosecutions. It implies that we should step up our efforts to prosecute the crimes that homeless people may have committed.
It frequently makes the point that police officers do not have, or are not exercising, enough authority. It advocates giving more authority to the state.
Literally one of the folks they interview said that the mayor should give the police the power to arrest people for homelessness. “It’s not legal, living on sidewalks! Why can’t we enforce this law?”
Later on, the video shows tourists saying, “Why doesn’t the city arrest these people [sleeping on the sidewalk] for trespassing? This is a public place. I would be arrested in my town [in Tennessee] if I did that.” I’m not sure if that qualifies as expert opinion, but they didn’t bother to interview actual lawyers on the subject so it will have to do.
These comments are all advocating for arresting homeless people for the crime of being homeless.
Later on the video advocates for intervention in jail–medically assisted treatment.
And finally they suggest McNeil Island is the place to imprison our homeless population. Nevermind that McNeil Island is currently home to 200 of the most violent sex offenders in our state’s history, and not prepared to accept a few thousand homeless as well.
This is pretty clearly recommending that homelessness itself is a crime. And if we can’t/won’t arrest people for simply being homeless, well then lets get rid of the bathrooms and make public urination a misdemeanor with a fee that homeless people can’t pay.
And yes, getting picked up by police for being homeless and shipped to McNeil Island is indeed involuntary intervention.
Personally, I agree with the policy of not prosecuting things like public urination or sleeping on the sidewalk. The $27 citation doesn’t even pay for the time it takes a police officer to process the paperwork. The homeless can’t usually pay so they quickly end up with warrants out for their arrest. The collections agencies (who eventually squeeze money out of some offenders ) are the only real winners. It’s a stupid, labor intensive, and expensive way to try to solve our homeless issue.
I agree with all of that, but you kind of missed my point. If you don’t fit into any of those categories, Seattle (not just McDonalds employees) is almost impossible to live in without joining up with two or three other people who are in your situation as roommates. An even lower middle class folks who have decent jobs (well above minimum wage) will never be able to buy a house that is less then an hour or more commute from their in-town job because the price of housing is becoming unaffordable if you have an “ordinary” job.
That’s the invisible hand. Sometimes it flips a bird at schoolteachers, administrative professionals, bus drivers, and others that work “ordinary” jobs.
The Seattle jobs market has a huge appetite for people with relatively rare and expensive skills. It’s a competitive market (practically a labor shortage). Companies are willing to pay these people a lot of money, even if they crowd everyone else out. That’s how markets work sometimes.
You’re not suggesting something should be done to counterbalance that are you?
Not everyone should live out in the country, but everyone should definitely experience it on a regular basis.
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